Railay Beach, Krabi. Thailand

The notorious Thailand visa run’s are one of the most fun things about long term travel around South East Asia (not). Some of these borders can be a little confusing if it’s your first time and the only fun in revisiting these places is tweaking you technique. I have had the pleasure of visiting a few of these boarders quite a few times over the years, and today I wanted to share with you my break down of how to tackle this particular boarder crossing.

Ranong to Burma Step by Step Guide.

* Ranong immigration opens 8am, it is really easy to find as it is right on the pier where the boats leave for Burma (Myanmar), I got there from the Ranong bus station on a motor bike taxi for 60 Thai baht.

* Get stamped out of Thailand at the immigration office.

*Buy a brand new Ten US dollar note for payment later in Burma or bring one with you. I got one from the little shop that sells coffee next to the immigration office (cost 420 baht with a little bartering). The important thing here is that it has to be crisp, flat and not folded otherwise they will not accept when you get to Burma and will make you pay in Thai Baht at a really crappy exchange rate.

*Grab a boat to Burma. If you ask to get on a boat with Burmese people you can pay 50-100B or rent a boat for yourself for your group at around 400-500 baht.

*Ride the boat for about 40 minutes stopping at some of the various check points along the way. You don’t have to leave the boat as the driver will collect all the passports and take care of everything.

*Once on the Burmese side the you have the choice to stay there for one night or come back the same day. If you want to come back the same day, they give you 30 minutes to go and do the Burmese stamp where you pay $10. Remember, crisp and uncreased.

*You get enough time for a quick look round and either dodging or indulging in the guys who are pushing cheap booze, cigs and viagra. I didn’t this time but I have before picked up a couple bottles of spirit and a few cartons of cigarettes (Dirt Cheap-totally legit). Personally never indulged in the vigra but apparently it’s all legit and cheap.

– A funny little story about this is that, on one of my previous visits to this boarder a few years ago, one on these street guys who was selling the viagra would not leave me alone and when I told him I was not interested he said, “what about viagra for women ?”.

I thought it was just for men.

Then he continued with his punchline, “yeah, it’s a powder you put in their drink“.

I didn’t know what to say, sort of funny and so not funny at the same time. Shocking really, I didn’t know whether he was joking or not. His marketing certainly made me stop for a moment though.

Although I must say that these days it is been cleaned up alot around this area and Burma has done a good job of constantly improving it over the years. All the guys who are street sellers are very good about not being too pushy and generally polite. They are really friendly people and are totally safe to talk to, I have never heard of anyone having any problems on this small Burmese boarder town.

If you are doing this trip for your first time you could take the option of doing all this from any guest house or tour booking place in Ranong or even as a one day trip from Phuket and other places. You usually pay only a small amount for the service where a guide from Thailand will take care of through the whole process. Or if your feeling brave you could just print out this guide and do it yourself. “Up to you” as they say around these here.

Cool eh ?

Had the pleasure of doing this trip before ? Anything to add, please do drop it in the comments below.

Yesterday was supposed to be the first day of my 15 day challenge where my main focus is stopping smoking. Sadly it didn’t happen.

I started the day convinced that I was going to be able to make it through my first day of non smoking. About half way through the day I had a load of things go wrong with my work and at the same time a bunch of other problems all hit me at the same time. I got so stressed that I gave in and went to grab a pack of cigarettes. It is amazing how these problems always come at the most inconvenient times. Also amazing how my brain will twist the stress of something to convincing me that I need to smoke.

Anyway, I have committed myself to getting back on track with my mission to quit the ciggies.

This is not some spur of the moment thing, it is actually something that I have been planning for a few weeks and these are some of the things I have set up for the next couple to help me become a non-smoker.

The first thing that I have coming up that will make this maybe easier is that I have a bit of travelling coming up where I will be sat on buses and trains for hours at a time, the big challenge here is breaking my usual habit of in between journeys where I would chain smoke knowing that I had massive journeys ahead of me where I cannot smoke.

The other clever little trick that I am doing is that I have a website project that I am working on at the moment that is in the ‘quit smoking’ market. Most of the work is carried out by my guys in the Philippines, but I still have to oversee it all. So my job for the next few weeks will involve reviewing content that is all about stopping smoking. I’m having to deal with all those nasty pics of cut open black lungs aswell as having too review alot ‘how to quit smoking’ articles and should pick up a few extra tricks to help me quit along the way. This niche site project is totally intended to help put me off the whole smoking thing and perfect timing, as with the new year ahead alot of peeps will be searching for info on how to stop smoking for the new years resolutions so once everything is in place it will also provide generate a nice little bit of passive income.

The other thing I have done is got loads of food supplies in with my intention that I am going to eat my way through this. I have heard so many times from people that successfully quit smoking that end up eating more. So I’m welcoming this and am gonna consciously make an effort to eat more and roll with it. I’m also using my replacement trick of trying to tackle a craving for a cigarette by instead eating a carrot for example.

My dirty little back up plan that I have sort of threatened myself with is the idea of using some extreme indulgence to put myself off cigarettes. The idea is that I would get a full pack of 20 cigarettes. cut the top and bottom off and smoke a full packet in one go. This would most likely make me sick or at least batter my lungs so much that I will not want a cigarette for a while, which would help kill my cravings. I am hoping that I don’t have to resort to using this crazy idea, but it is there as an emergency plan.

The other thing that I’m quitting again (well for the next 2 weeks anyway) is the coke. Which after the success of 30 days with out drinking any, I have now slipped back into dirty old ways and am drinking loads of coke again. I’m also continuing with my mission to write more whilst juggling several projects all at the same time, I’m thinking that keeping myself extremely busy will also help me stay off the cigs.

Oh these next couple of weeks are gonna be tough for me. I say, “Bring it on !”

Hey, and while we’re on the subject of challenges, have you voted for me yet ?

It has been over 10 days since I completed my 30 Day Challenge last month. I wanted to take a little time to reflect after the completion of my challenge to see it’s after effects, and today I wanted to share with you not only the results but also what I plan to do next with what I have got from this 30 day life experiment.

A quick review.

For those of you who missed it or have not been following my little experimental adventure you can check out some of the links bellow.

The start, Time for a Challenge. Wanna Join Me ?

Day 1,  Radical Scheming and Indulgence

Day 14 Quitting Coke Challenge

Day 25 Coke Success and Writing Nearly There.

The Result.

Well I can proudly say that I managed to stay off the dark sticky nectar (coca-cola) for a whole 30 days. Not only did I surprise myself with this one but I shocked many of my friends who know me as a drinking loads of coke all day long.

Admittedly the first few days were a bit tough with a few heavy migraines from simple caffeine withdrawals but I really got into my replacements, like carrots, fruit juice, green tea, and even water. I have no idea whether the extreme indigence trick at the start of the month helped me, but it certainly made me not fancy any coke for a week or so.

How did I do it ?

I think the number one magic ingredient that made the quitting coke easier was the fact that I had tricked my my mind by sorta saying to myself that I was not quitting, I am only stopping for 30 days.

The other magic ingredient that I think made it easier for me to succeed was that I was publicly sharing my challenge (a first for me). And I do really believe that all the comments and messages I received in support of me taking on challenge defiantly helped me commit to doing it.

So to all you folks who voiced your support for me, a huge Thanks.

After the 30 days I was sooo happy that I had made it.

Then on day 31 (as planned) I celebrated that I had gone a month without drinking any coke and treated myself to a few bottles. I went about one day without drinking any coke after that. Then slowly started to drink 2 cokes a day, and right now I’m slipping back into drinking 2-3 a day.

Great that I am actually drinking less per day than before but, zero is where I’d really like to be at.

So I have a plan, more details below.

On the writing part of my challenge I’m really happy with the way my writing developed over the 30 days and I have really been getting into 750words as a tool to continue my mini-mission to develop my creative writing everyday.

I have continued with the writing but have started to slack off a little bit. My problem is not so much quantity but consistency, in that I do not write on some days and make up for it on other days by writing double or triple my daily goal (750 words). Either way, it is all good because it can only get better.

The downsides on completing this challenge.

The only problem with doing a 30 day challenge like I did last month is that now 2 weeks after I almost feel a bit useless and un-powerful. I was riding some weird sort of adrenalin last month enjoying the novelty of challenging myself. It was exciting and I felt enegised by the challenge.

Right now the I’m slipping back into my old ways and feeling like I need to do something about it, I also have one more extremely dirty habit that I have wanted to tackle for a long time.

So I have concocted a crafty little plan.

Now this one habit that I simply have to tackle, one that I have done for close to 20 years and I am going to tackle head on and share. Quitting Smoking. I am taking on the mission to become an official non-smoker.

I am even ashamed to write on this blog that I smoke and to be really honest I think this will be incredibly tough for me to do. I don’t even need to go into the reasons why I should stop smoking. I am going to combine this in with my last months challenges and also take those one again. The only difference this time is it will be a 15 Day Challenge. So that is a menu of full detox, no coca cola, lots of raw veg, creative writing every day and the big one not a single ciggrette for 15 days.

A Shorter but Bigger Challenge

From 15th to 30th of this month, bring on my half the time but double the challenge mission.

I wouldn’t be entering into this personal challenge without a couple of ninja tricks up my sleeve to make it more easy and interesting. And just you wait until you see what I have planned for this mini adventure. I’m still tweaking the exact rules of how I’m gonna take on this challenge and will lay it all down on day1when it all starts.

Until then it’s binge out time, I am gonna drink loads of coke and smoke my head off for the next few days then the challenge is on.

Whilst we’re talking of Challenges, have you seen this yet ?

Let me know what you think. Thoughts ? Ideas ? Suggestions ?

Friday Photo 012

Dustbin, rubbish bin, garbage can, trash can, waste receptacle, whatever you want to call them, this is Thailand’s version. I have seen variations of this all over Thailand and South East Asia, and I know it’s very unsexy subject to talk about, but to me even small details like this make my adventures more interesting to me. (also a way of me rebelling against just posting photos of cocktails and tropical beaches etc)

This Thai trash can is ingenious little invention for a couple of reasons. Firstly it is made from recycled tyres, and secondly in it’s design. If you notice that the main thing is made from a huge tractor tyre that has been turned trimmed and inside out. The legs are made from what I believe to be motorbike tyres that have been cut in half.

Combining excellent design with recycling is displayed here in a fantastic way.

Take a quick tour of this fantastic place which is temporarily my home in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. I am actually house sitting for a good friend of mine who is currently in South America. I have done a bit of house sitting a few years ago but this place is just amazing. In such a quite, peaceful spaceous area surrounded by small mountains.

In this video I give you a quick spin through the local village and a tour of this awesome property where I am staying at the moment.   Enjoy…

I have not personally used these sites but I have heard that you can find great houses that need a house sitter dotted around the world, heres a bunch of them.

I got this house sitting gig by word of mouth and just happening to be in the right place at the right time. I was looking for a place and they were looking for someone trust worthy to take care of this beautiful property with mountains in the back yard.

I jumped at the opportunity and am currently staying here with my girlfriend keeping the place maintained and nice for occasional potential to look round. This is the perfect place for me at the moment where I can focus on my various online projects. I call this mode I am in at the moment ‘productive recluse concentration’, just a funky name for getting my head down and putting the hours in whilst in a totally relaxing environment with minimal distractions. It’s nothing new, people have been doing it for years where they hide themselves away for a period of time to focus on writing a book or painting or whatever.

I admittedly be a little sad when it is eventually sold and I have to move on but that will be cancelled out because I will be glad for the owner who can’t wait to sell this place.

I’m not sure where I’ll be going next, thinking maybe a beach area and I should be popping home to the uk sometime soon also. No big plans, I just roll with it and right now am enjoying the moment and especially enjoying the masses of space and nature around me.