It has been over a week since the funeral, when I last made a posting on the blog, and it has been a stressful one.

For those familiar with life in Asia, you may not be surprised, but for us firs time, mere mortals it can drive you crazy. If there is an easy way to do anything here, I can assure you that the Thais will find an alternative. If a ferang (white foreigner) suggests an easier way of doing things, believe me they will ignore you and stick to the original chaotic method.

This applies to many things, and sometimes the simplest of activities. For example, today ( in fact there have been several) the local police decided to do a training excercise. They were led by motorcycle officers through the streets of Patong , by far the busiest strret in Phuket. The other policemen ( yes it was all male) were dressed in tee shirts and track suits and doing physical excercises in the middle of the main road. All the traffic was diverted for about 45 minutes, and for no apparent reason. On this occasion, tempted as I was , I did not suggest that the beach or a park may have been a preferable location.

About the rest of this week, since the funeral many things changed. Inevitably my friend was very upset and so was her mom.

Mom came to stay with her daughter, and so we commence the game of "We are only friends" . Her mom stayed with my girlfriend at her home and was 'not allowed' to visit me at night .

Contrary to common belief, Thai women are very conservative, when it comes to sexual relationships. The bargirls are obviously an exception to this; as prostitutes are in any country but most unmarried women here do not have casual sex as they do in the West.

Anyway; Mom goes back home to the rubber tree farm in the jungle of Phang Nga tomorrow but my lady goes with her. The pressures on each of us have become apparent over this last week, and I have never felt so much of a foreigner here. The cultural differences have seemed suddenly massive. This was emphasised after spending a week at the Temple before the funeral, with her family. There were very few English speaking people there, and in all fairness they were fantastic with me.That is , with the exception of my ladys sister, she has all the cultural awareness of the Klu Klux Klan and says that she simply hates Westerners. I refuse to dish out money like confetti, so she dislikes me even more. I will live with that.

During the time of the funeral , I did a considerable amount of reading about The Buddha, and it has been enlightening. It is also amazing how the Thais seem to know every detail, and yet few follow his sound teachings in everyday life.

Moving on, I renewed my tourist visa (again) this week, it last for a grand total of 2 weeks. For this I had to travel for 12 hours in a minibus, and cross the border into Myanmar ( formerly Burma) and what a complete s***hole that place is. It is ruled my a militarian government whos human rights record is one of the worst in the world. In the 30 minutes I was there this was obvious.

As we got off the boat we were surrounded by locals selling everything from women to Viagra. As we entered the heavilly guarded border crossing, they followed us. They attemptied to sell us marijuana directly under a notice board stating that anyone bringing drugs in or out will be imprisoned, and within earshot of the border police. Needless to say, the marijuana sales were not great that day.

We returned on the noisiest boat in the world, back towards Thailand but were stopped by a military check on route. Everyone was ordered at gunpoint to open their baggage, and a few were searched. Eventually we were released headed back to the Thai border and its compararive safety. each of us breathed a sigh of relief.

Remember, if you do go one one of these crossings, that the Police will stop and search you. If you are found with any contraband whatsoever, you will be detained until you pay the necessary "fine" aka bribe..

Also, the drivers are all on a kickback and they will definitely grass you into the authorities in order to get their share of your 'fine'. Our driver made a deliberate stop at one of the three checkpoint we passed through and waited for the Police (even though they had waved our bus to continue) just so he could tell the Police that someone had bought some cheap Viagra off a tout.

DO NOT BUY ANYTHING WHICH IS EVEN SLIGHTLY ILLEGAL..you have been warned !!