A drive of over 1800 kilometers I guess could qualify as 'on the road'. After several conversations with Rita it was decided to go ahead with our plan to relocate. So I faithfully packed up all of our personal stuff, its amazing how much stuff you can acculmulate in five months. Rita is still in England so I'm going this alone, but at the same time knowing Rita is beside me. We made the decision several week ago that we had 'done' Chiang Mai, and if there was anywhere in Thialand that we felt we must see, it lay in the Southern portion. So we went about looking for teaching positions in several areas along the Southern coastline, with some very good responces. Remember Rita and I have a 6 hour time difference at the moment, which doesn't help matters. After speaking with her at noon her time, 6 pm my time on Wednesday, I went about packing the last few items and packing everything into the pickup truck. It was very tightly packed, somethings just could not go and so were ditched. 

     I got to bed at 1am knowing that I had pre-arranged for Rita to call me at 5 am my time, so I had a four hour window to sleep. 2.15 am the phone rang, it was Rita, she wanted to know how to turn the TV on. After some discussion I thought it might help to put batteries into the remote control, and we said goodnight. A few minutes later the phone rang again, it was Rita asking why the DVD player was not working? Once we had determined that she had the correct remote for that unit (we have 2 DVD players set up) everything was fine and she bid me goodnight while she watched the movie. (Boy do I love that girl) But by now I'm wide awake, funny how that happens so I decided to get up and get ready to go. When Rita called at 5am my time I was already 1 hour South of Chiang Mai. By about 8 am I needed to pull over and sleep for awhile, so in true Thai fashion I just slept at the side of the road for about two hours.
 
     An uneventful journey to Bangkok, I arrived there at about 2.30 pm and thought if I keep going I can get through Bangkok before the rush hour traffic 'what was I thinking'. It's always wall to wall traffic in Bangkok, it took over three hours to get to the Southwest end and another hour to free myself from the heavy traffic (the rush hour traffic). So lets look at this I had not slept well on Tuesday night, who am I kiding I haven't slept well since Rita left for England. That Tuesday night I had not been to bed, I did manage about four hours during the daytime on Wednesday. Wednesday night, well we already know I got about one hour before the phone rang. Now its six thirty on Thursday, my neck and shoulders hurt and I'm way past tired. But Thailand doesn't have hotels and motels along the way, no such thing as a rest stop so continue I must. I have made my target Hua Hin a place on the coast still about 3 to 4 hours South. Another thing to consider is unless you want to risk getting the runs you do not eat at the local road side food carts, so as part of my preparation I had made 6 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with those I packed several Kitkat bars plus a dozen bottles of water toilet paper and kitchen roll. after all I was a boy scout back in the days when scouting was scouting. So I drove all day and into the night with only the supplies I had thoughtly packed.

     During that first leg of the journey, I came across a car going the wrong way against the traffic, in the fast lane no less. saw two car collisions in Bangkok, well three really, the driver of another car got angry with a vehicle blocking his way so he decided to bash his car into it. It wasn't an accident all cars were stopped waiting on a red light at the time. I was only one car away from it and witnessed the event up close, But again in true Thai fashion everyone drove on once the light changed. One other thing to note is that at some point in time Rita or I had read that in Thailand it is not unusual for driver's to drive at night without the use of headlights (guess they want to save electricity) I had pondered that thought several times. Althought I had come across it occasionally in Chiang Mai, It's even scarrier out on the open road, two or three times I was taken by surprise.

     I arrived in Hua Hin safe and sound late that night, found a hotel, took a shower and climbed into bed. Why did I wake up at 6 am I will never know, but wake up I did. So take another shower, grab a couple of scrambled eggs and hit the road again. First I drove around Hua Hin to check out the town and the beach. The town was not very appealing, the beach was beautiful white sand, long and narrow. But I determined that this was not the place that Rita and I were in search of, so back to the highway and continue on. One more note, I had planned to look at two other towns further down along the same coast, that is until I saw a sign at the Beach in Hua Hin which read 'Beware of the stinging jelly fish, swim at your own risk'. It was written in English so it had to be important. Based on that information I decided to head across country to the other coast making Phuket my goal.

     I had not fully realized that the distance to Phuket was about the same as Chiang Mai to Bangkok, that is until I saw a very rare sight a road sign that I could understand. Today's drive was well worth the stiff neck and aching shoulders, the terrain changed frequently. Miles of coconut trees, gave way to beautiful rolling hills, to small mountains along the Burma border. A beautiful sunset, and finally the sea which I first saw while high up in the hills driving along a snake like road. The people along the road were different too, a lot of Indian's inhabit this area.

     I crossed the bridge onto the Island of Phuket at about 10 pm only to be amazed yet again, the town of Phuket is still 40 kilometers away. Today is Saturday, I arrived in Phuket very late on Friday night. As I stood and looked out across the beach this morning through the palm trees to a turquoise sea and felt the cool sea breeze, I can only think one thought, it was worth the drive. Now I have to wait for Rita to arrive so that we can step out onto that beach and into the water together. Together is the only way I will do it.