Everything Is Possible Nothing Is Sure

This is another picture of me and the kids on the back of that long suffering elephant. Actually while it seemed a bit cruel the way they were chained up at the elephant camp, at the same time they seemed very well cared for, well fed, well exercised and much loved by their trainers. There's a way to rotate the picture to an upright position but in an internet cafe I can't for the life of me work it out. This is our last full day in Thailand before heading back to Sydney. It's been great getting out of the routine of my life and the chronic depression I had sunk into. And fascinating. The world has moved on since last I was out in it. While I grew up travelling, my father was an airline pilot and I had free airtickets until I was 24, the last decade, since I broke up with the kids mother and there was two years of crippling court dramas made far far worse by the shocking level of corruption in the system, life settled into a pretty same same routine; not flash with cash, lost everything like most separated blokes, the house, the car; not the kids which a lot of them also lose.

The Thai economy is growing at 13 per cent a year I'm told and every single bloke on the planet seems to have ended up here. We're in Chiang Mai, which last time I was here in the 70s was a quaint little town in the seemingly remote north of Thailand, and now is an absolute buzzle giving Bangkok a run for its money. We are near the Thae Pai gate; a tourist area; smoke belches forth from a thousand cluttering took tooks and taxis and buses and cars; at night the clubs all pound out music and laughter and hundreds of drunken blokes make fools of themselves. I love you long time. 2,000 Baht; they say. Come in mister. Soon enough it would be: you come I go. That's the way of it. Some very ordinary looking blokes who couldn't get a root in their home town, much less a looker, are hanging out with georgeous Thai women on their arms. They're paying through the nose and they're as happy as Larry.

They're so keen to please, they say in astonishment, broad grins on their faces. They're simply not used to women who are eager to please. Even if it is at a price. Australian women, like Russian women, they say, are high cost high maintenance and no matter what happens you will pay. Here they are high cost only by local standards, and the Thai attitude to sex; happy ending guaranteed, has made it a mecca for every horny bastard in the universe. From the golden arsed boys wearing numbers under their chests under flourescent lights; to the thousands upon thousands of girly bars dotting the country, from the brothels to the take home bars; pay the bar 400 baht; pay the girl, boy or lady boy 2000 baht; and the pleasure's all yours. Mass tourism has changed the world; it amazes me that you can just go to an ATM in the streets of what was once the third world and take out money, just as you can at home; the internet is faster, the phone service is better; the economy is booming in a way the Australian economy, hide bound with regulation, never will; and they flock from all over the world in their hundreds of thousands. Double story planes used by the cheap airlines transport them in a cut cost universe equalled only by the net as the entire world turns into one enormous theme park.

THE BIGGEST STORY:

By Freddie Mooche
(AXcess News) Washington - The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee met Tuesday to figure out how to constitutionally block President George W. Bush's Iraq plan with the goal of curtailing additional troop deployment to the worn-torn Middle Eastern nation and limit the U.S. military's conduct in the war itself, which could include troop withdrawals.
While Committee Democrats have made it known that they disagree with the President's troop surge, Republican member Sen. Arlen Specter (Penn.) has joined fellow Judicial Committee members in backing the Senate members move to cut Bush's authority. "This is a joint and shared responsibility," said Specter.