Siam...as my father calls it

So, we have made it to Thailand...lovely Thailand and can we just have a brief minute of silence for our dearly departed stomachs and those of the two poor Malaysians' stomachs, as they did not make it on the 10 hour (or should we say 14 hour bus ride from Penang to Phuket due to some unbelievably dangerous driving on windy and bumpy roads............................................30 seconds...................and we're back! We woke up at the crack of dawn in Penang so that we had time to get to the water station to fill up 3 massive bottles with water for only 20 Ringgit cents (not sure what the coins are called), but it is much cheaper than the 2 Ringgits you would spend in the 7-11. We got on the first of two minivans at 8:30am and then raced around with a lost driver tyring to locate his next pick up, watching him get more and more frustrated and yelling at himself, well probably cursing in Malaysian. We eventually found the next pick up (2 Polish couples and a Thai family with a gorgeous disabled baby girl) and that is when the fun really started. Due to the lost time when trying to find the other passengers location, we had to make up time and that is done through racing and speeding through the streets of Malaysia over the bridge connecting Georgetown and Butterworth to the Malaysia/Thailand border. I have never crossed a border between countries via minivan so this was an interesting experience. They don't always check the luggage carried on the minivan by the passengers so we can see the intrigue for drug smuggling, though the fear of being locked away forever in a Thai or Malaysian prison coupled with some sort of caning that accompanies a jail sentence just takes that impulse away and shits all over that notion! It is a lot of lining up, answering questions, then lining up again, getting a stamp (which is always very cool and exciting) and then off to our stop to change minivans to an even crazier driver than the first. This driver was so insane in fact that 2 people on the minivan were ill and we had to pull over so they could throw up in the bushes on the side of the rode...one man and one woman. We were able to reminisce about the bus ride from the Cameron Highlands to Penang in which Alex and I sat together on one side of the bus and a French Canadian boy sat in one of the seats next to us, leaving one empty seat...score...so we thought, but of course this is Melissa and Alex so nothing can be that lucky. A youngish Malaysian man/boy sat down with an empty plastic bag in hand and a sort of sickish look in his eye, but we thought nothing of it until about 10 minutes into the swervy bus ride when he began heaving and gagging and throwing up into the plastic bag of the remainder of the ride...about 4 hours. The French Canadian just put his Ipod on and looked out the window, while I self-talked myself and Alex through the next 4 hours - "he cannot help it, he is ill, he isn't doing on purpose"...that sort of thing. There was no stopping of the bus to let him off to be sick...we literally sat on that bus next to that puking ill man for the entire 4 hours...The two people on this bus ride were much better off, as we had a somewhat sympathetic driver who stopped to let them out to vomit. Bless them, what a terrible ride they had...you could see it all over their faces. Alex and I felt nauseous the whole way there (about 8 hours from where we changed buses) and only felt better the following day. When we arrived in Phuket, it was late and we were exhausted so we stopped at the first place we found and just 'paid and stayed'...not really looking around. The hostel was in Phuket City Centre in a room that was a shit hole where someone had written, "There are bugs and fleas here. I do not stay here," on the wall near the light switch, but that didn't put us off. We walked around for a bit trying to find some vegetarian fare in the most meat eating place on earth (Southeast Asia) and passed several interesting bars with some very interesting characters in them, which will be saved for further blogs at later dates. This morning we woke up, ate breakfast, traded our used books at the used book shop for new ones and took a bus to our Muay Thai Kickboxing Camp...of course we got lost and ended up at the wrong one, as there are hundreds of kickboxing training camps throughout Thailand. We were able to walk around while waiting to get picked up and taken to the right gym and we met an American guy from Arizona who is training there and his Thai prostitute companion who is showing him around...she told us that she was a masseuse who matched white men with Thai beauties and she was very touchy feely and a bit scary, but very friendly. We left just in the knick of time and were off to our kickboxing gym. While in the car, the driver/muay thai kickboxing instructor introduced himself and when I told him my name, Mel, he started laughing hysterically and repeating it over and over again. He said, "you want to meet Mel, I will show you Mel," as we were driving to the gym...I was a bit afraid of what he was going to show us, but it turned out to be a large dirty gray and white cat that meows so loudly...we think he thought I said my name was Meow...so now whenever he calls my name, he snickers and laughs, as he thinks it is Meow...whatever...I am fine with it. Of course Alex gets all the compliments about her height and physique and how she is a born muay thai fighter and tattoo warrior and everyone thinks I am named after the noise a cat makes...I am sure this is foreshadowing events to come over the next 14 days of sheer hell! Luckily, they do not train on Sundays so we had all of today to get accustomed to our new surroundings, which we did via scooter that we have rented for the whole 2 weeks. We drove to the Tesco to pick up some food, snacks and toiletries and ate a Subway veggie sandwich. What a day. Then, we drove up to the biggest Buddha statue in Thailand up this massive hill overlooking the whole of Phuket and offered gorgeous views and an interesting and massive white statue Buddha to look at that is currently under construction. We left at about dusk and found ourselves in a local market called Villa Market, which sold all sorts of interesting meat and seafood on sticks, plastic bags with straws coming out of the top tied tightly with rubber bands housing a myriad of brightly coloured sugary drinks, super sweet bright yellow corn on the cobs and so much more. There were open fish and meat stands (located right next to the toilets, which was just so perfect) and rows and rows of fresh local vegetable and herb stands. We settled on 2 corn on the cobs and drove a bit out of the market to a little street vendor selling the most gorgeous bowls of vegetable soup with egg noodles and homemade broth. It was just a perfect way to end our evening. Now, back to the barracks, I mean our room at the kickboxing camp to watch some of our 140 DVDs and get ready for what awaits us tomorrow...I say Hell and Alex says Excitement...let us just see whose word wins...bring on day 1!