Read The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad Online
Authors: Karl Pilkington
Tags: #General, #humor
The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad (17 page)
I arrived in Bangkok on 13 April, the day of Songkran.
Imagine arriving in London on New Year’s Eve around 11.30 p.m. and your hotel is in Trafalgar Square. That’s what I was faced with. The festival of Songkran involves the locals
chucking water over everything to celebrate the start of the rainy season. They believe the water will wash away any bad luck from the previous year and bless you with good luck for the next.
Jesus, if that’s what makes them happy they should move to Manchester and enjoy the rain. Nothing and no one is safe from the water while this festival is on. Not a place to be if
you’re a Gremlin. Policemen get splashed, shop fronts, cafes, every car gets a bucket of water thrown at it, and people on mopeds don’t escape from it. They get a face full of water
from people armed with water pistols, hosepipes and buckets.
I found it odd that the country had only just dried out from the 2004 tsunami yet here they are drenching everything. Ricky had a go at me years ago when I said people from this part of the
world seem to age quicker than Western people, but now I realise they just look old and wrinkly ’cos they’re constantly wet from this festival. The traffic was gridlocked, so Krish the
director said we should get out and walk. I took my suitcase with me on the off chance that this would make the locals realise I was not there to celebrate Songkran and that I was just trying to
find my hotel, but it didn’t work. I got wet through.
As well as getting wet someone rubbed some kind of clay in my face. Not sure if that was part of the celebrations or just a local lunatic potter. Songkran can last for three to four days. What
is the point in me turning off the tap when brushing me teeth to help the environment when this lot are wasting gallons of water over three days. I tell ya, if they ever install water meters in
people’s homes here in Thailand, Songkran will be over.
I saw this being promoted on the telly during one of the flights I was recently on. Some presenter was in a town in Spain being pelted with tomatoes as she harped on about
how much fun she was having. I liked to see if she would be as cheery if I bumped into her at her Tesco Local and chucked a tomato at her head from the veg aisle.
The video showed a truck turning up and dumping off thousands of tomatoes, and locals and tourists throwing them at each other. I’d hate to live in this town ’cos it must make a
right mess. I can’t be doing with unnecessary mess. It’s like confetti at weddings. I don’t understand how confetti isn’t classed as littering. The other thing is
it’s a waste of tomatoes. If they have to do it they could at least use one of the less useful fruits, like kumquats.
I got to the hotel and had a shower.
I got a call from Stephen telling me that I was going to get some training in one of Thailand’s national sports, Thai boxing. After doing series one of
An Idiot Abroad
these
little surprises don’t shock me as much. I’ve come to accept these mad little diversions but I’m still always on edge. It’s like waiting for a jack-in-the-box to pop out,
you know it’s gonna happen, but you’re not sure when. I used to have the same problem when I visited Ricky in his old flat. He used to jump out of the bin cupboard as I walked down the
corridor on his floor, but I used the jack-in-the-box example, as I’m guessing more people could relate to that, as most of you won’t have mates who jump out of bin cupboards.
What is it with Spain? If they’re not throwing tomatoes at each other they’re running down alleyways avoiding rampaging bulls! It’s like they’re
living in a computer game. I suppose this is what happens when you live in a place that has good weather most of the year round – people come up with daft outside events. We only have a
bit of sun each year and a group of people in Gloucestershire came up with the idea of rolling cheese down a hill.
This is when a group of people take over a public place for a short space of time and dance, sing or have a pillow fight. My problem would be getting to the right place.
I’m always arranging to meet Suzanne somewhere and then getting it wrong. The amount of supermarkets I’ve walked around in trying to find her, to then realise I’m in the wrong
one. I don’t need this sort of thing in my life. I don’t really like taking part in group activities. Suzanne always reminds me of the time she took me to a party when we first met
and she got involved in doing the conga. Everyone at the party joined in and went round the pub and into the car park before coming back into the pub. When she came back in there I was doing the
conga but on my own by the bar.
I did a little bit of boxing when I was younger after seeing the film
Rocky
starring Sly Stallone. Films did this to me. I tried joining a dance club after seeing
Flashdance
on VHS, but I didn’t get that far with it, as when I got to the dance studio, it was shut and was being used as a warehouse to house toilet rolls. A storyline
Fame
never went for. My boxing training was at the youth club and it wasn’t very professional. It was once a week and it was run by a big fella who owned the Chinese chippy. I think
his main reason for doing it was to get tough young kids as his mates, so he didn’t have to pay protection money to some local gangsters to look after his chippy. He was hardly like the
trainer Rocky had. Instead of thumping frozen meat, he battered fish.
I arrived at the Thai boxing venue and met my trainer. His name was Ming. He seemed a little bit annoyed that we were late. I told him it was ’cos of Songkran. He wasn’t wet. I doubt
anyone would be chucking buckets of water at this fella. He was an ex-champion. Ming didn’t speak much English, so there was very little talk, but lots of training. An hour of press-ups, star
jumps, kneeing a punch bag and sit-ups while his pet dog jumped all over me, then into the ring to spar with him. He gave me a head guard. I tried to explain I wouldn’t need a head guard if
he just didn’t hit my head. He didn’t understand. I had a sweat on and felt dizzy. I don’t really do any fitness stuff, but if I did I think I would do something like this.
Learning self-defence might at least come in useful if you got into any bother. Suzanne tried to get me to do Pilates where they teach you how to stretch, bend and balance, but apart from when
I’m tying my shoelaces I don’t know when those skills would come in handy.
I think, because we have got lazy as time has gone on, we’ve introduced exercises for lazy people. I’ll never forget being on Carnaby Street in London a while back and a woman asking
me if I wanted to join to do breathing exercises! Who is so lazy that they can’t be bothered to breathe? She told me it wasn’t like that and that she would teach me to breathe properly.
I told her I was 37 and I thought I had the hang of it.
Later I got a text from Stephen:
STEPHEN
: Alright, Karl. Hope you enjoyed the Thai boxing training. We’ve organised a little fight for you this evening, so you can put your
new skills into practice. Good luck with that. PS: It’s blindfolded Thai boxing.
I didn’t understand why this would exist. The whole thing with Thai boxing is using all of the body to fight. Fists, feet and knees, so why not use the eyes? It’s ridiculous. Blind
people don’t get into many fights for a reason. I remember being in an aquarium watching two seahorses have a fight, and it was rubbish. Certain things aren’t made to fight. The great
boxer Muhammad Ali had a saying, ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’. He didn’t add ‘Eyes of a mole’ on the end.
It didn’t help that we arrived early, as it meant we had time to see a few fights first. I wish they’d blindfolded me before I got to see how it worked, as the contestants really go
for it. There were all ages – eight-year-old lads, nine-year-old girls and fully-grown men. I was called up. Blindfolded. The bell rang. I swung my arms around and kicked out. I found after a
while being blindfolded actually gave me more confidence, as I couldn’t see the crowd. I did two rounds. After which I was announced the winner, but they only let me win because I was a
tourist and was filming it for the TV. You might be thinking, ‘Karl, don’t put yourself down. Why are you always so negative? Maybe they thought you were the best fighter, so announced
you the winner.’ Well, if that was the case why didn’t they give me one of the aluminium pressure cookers that the other winners got?
