SAMSEN ROAD, BANGKOK, THAILAND. THURSDAY APRIL 1 2010, 2130 HRS.

I'm now at the centre of Bangkok, and later I'll write more about my first days here... But now I'm off to the streets, to eat something weird and to get some travel equipment for the upcoming months.

Meanwhile, let's go back in time, all the way from my last week in Finland till the day of departure.

PREPARATIONS BEFORE THE TRIP

On Saturday March 20 2010, after the recordings of the 5th DEATHCHAIN album, I drove from the studio in Kuopio to Tampere and I stayed there until the flight to Bangkok took off from Helsinki on March 29th.

During those days I could finally focus on getting some necessary travel equipment, medicine, clothes etc. for the upcoming voyage. Not to mention all the paperwork which needed to be done, because I had moved from Finland to Sweden in February 2010. Also, I finally discussed about some details with an artist in Italy concerning the cover artwork for the debyt album of my other band, FORGOTTEN HORROR.

All in all I've now had se7en injections, which cost me approximately 500 € (!!!), with some feverish side-effects included... nice. I should begin eating the malaria medicine today, so I guess it's time to go to the pharmacy and spend a couple of hundred euros more…

INSIDE THE AIRPLANE, HELSINKI-VANTAA AIRPORT, FINLAND. MONDAY MARCH 29 2010, 1245 HRS. DAY 1.

Showtime. In the morning I went to the bus station of Tampere and from there directly to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport. The people in Tampere stared at me for some strange reason, as if it didn't look normal to walk the streets with a t-shirt and sandals in the middle of the winter while it was snowing.

Check-in. No good. As I only had a one-way ticket to Bangkok they told me I need either a visa, or I need to prove that I'll get out of Thailand within 30 days from my arrival (a plane ticket to some other country etc.) in order to be able to enter Thailand. Ei saatana. The plane is leaving. No panic, no panic... After a hysterical Running Wild -marathon to different airline company offices I finally entered the airplane, proudly holding a Finnair ticket from Bangkok to Kolkata in my hands. So I made it, but the whole trip was almost cancelled because of that… pheww. So now it's set then, I'll spend a month in South-East Asia and the rest of the time - whatever that means - in India.