Bangkok Bound…

Ade Cox
8 min readNov 7, 2018

The following are facebook posts made by me in regards to Me and my wife leaving our home to start a new life in Bangkok….

Nov 5th 10:21

Ade & Jo’s adventure.. Day one
(don’t worry.. this will NOT be posted every bloody day)
So…. Breakfast in the hotel was actually really nice (actually had proper sausages (this could be a good omen for the future).. Jo met her new boss (sadly he appears NOT to be anything like Douglas from the IT crowd).. and left me to my own devices…
Had a wander around Plymouth, found a couple of pubs that I may venture into later, we’ve got a firework display and bonfire tonight at Plymouth Ho (for the record, if there is no prostitute in Plymouth advertising herself as THE Plymouth Ho then frankly someones missing out on a great advertising opportunity) now sat in the hotel room typing this… And waiting for the maid to walk in and clean the room, which usually involves maid cleaning while I try to be invisible…. I could just hide in a cupboard I suppose………

November 6th 8:45

Ade & Jo’s adventure day 2…sort of.. Sod that..
Ade & Jo’s adventure day 1 pt 2
Going back to day one.. Night one…. Bonfire night!
Jo’s had a great day at work, celebrated by a gin for her and a Guinness for me (Why am I celebrating?… I just love to share in the joy.. Plus I love Guinness) a phone call to the the car garage confirms both of our car finance is paid and my car now has a new owner…
A short walk from the hotel down into town and we find Wetherspoons (got to love a cheeky Spoons) Steak for me (awesome) and some odd chicken in bacon thing for Jo (which she hated) but more Guinness and Gin for Mr & Mrs Cox
Nice bit of timing having our stay in Plymouth coincide with Bonfire night, massive crowd on the Ho with a roaring fire and fireworks… And PEOPLE WATCHING!
Kid with cider… Yes, kid with cider… Yes mate I see you holding that can, occasionally pretending to drink from it in front of your mates… But you’re fooling nobody, we know that can is going in the bin practically full as soon as your mates aren’t looking.

#toffeeapple oh dear god. Toffee apple couple… searching for that perfect instagram moment.. Yeah we get it, she’s got a toffee apple.. You’re at a bonfire… But getting a random person to take and retake your bloody picture five or six times is taking the piss mate.. Sadly the girls hair didn’t get wrapped up in the toffee apple.. Turns out wishes don’t come true after all…. Maybe her teeth will fall out in the future.

Fireworks were great by the way…..

A couple of drinks in the hotel followed by a walk to tescos.. AKA Uni student munchy palace…. Y’know that scene in Jurassic Park where all the dinosaurs are drinking at the water hole? Plymouth Tesco and Uni students….. (Insert john Williams film score here).
Snacks, IT Crowd, Walking Dead.. Sleep….. Night Night

November 7th 9:33

Ade & Jo’s adventure day 2
Why is it that no matter how nice/posh the hotel is… No matter how nice overall the breakfast is… Hotels just can’t seem to fry an egg right.
You’ve got your plate of sausage, bacon.. Whatever, and you then look at the eggs… You don’t just look, you inspect the eggs… You carefully look at every single egg.. Grading them…. Looking for the holy grail.. The egg with no uncooked white on it.
It’s a rare find… A truly rare find.. I found one yesterday… No uncooked egg white.. And a nice runny Yolk.. perfect! I thought i’d done the same today, I found THE egg.. placed it on my plate.. Carried it back to my table… But as the lighting changed I saw my once perfect egg become a thorn in my side. It’s once perfectly cooked form now becoming a writhing uncooked mess.. Even worse… the bloody thing was in danger of infecting my hashbrowns with its uncooked evil.
Damn you egg. Damn you to hell.

Rant over… Till tomorrow.

Anyway.. On with today.. Breakfast done and Jo’s off for day two at work, I posted the second part of Day ones adventure and some bright sparks seem to think I should write a blog… I tried to write a book once… That did not end well. In fact it didn’t end at all.. Barely even got started… Lets see how this literary adventure spans out shall we?
No chance of avoiding the maid today, was thinking about how to avoid her when she turned up.. There is a distinct possibility she is reading my mind.
Had a nice walk around the harbour and Barbican area of Plymouth at lunch time, saw the sad sight of a bar owner putting a free to good home notice on a piano outside his pub…
Know anyone that wants a free piano? I’d have it but i’m guessing it’d be a bugger to get on a plane.

Next lunch in Wetherspoons.. Well after i’d devised a clever game of avoid the uni student with a clipboard.. Not sure what they were doing but i’m in no mood to be clipboard harrassed today… Bloody loads of them.. If playstation are reading this I want full credit if it ever makes it to be a console game.
So.. Lunch in Wetherspoons.
At which point does people watching just become “weird bloke staring at people”? I may have crossed that line today while drinking my Guinness….
There was an old couple having drinks in Wetherspoons… Late sixties/early seventies… He’s drinking beer, she’s drinking wine… And they did not smile or look even remotely pleased to be in eachothers company once…. Then there’s the table full of (some holding clipboards) students, all laughing and enjoying the lunchtime.. except the Mika lookalike ( remember Mika? Had one great song and one decent album then disappeared off the face of the earth) and the girl he’s been sat with… definate tension. Now i’ve no idea what (and i’ll never know) caused that tension…. Maybe she called him Mika once and he never forgave her… Who knows?
Oh yeah, the bloke sat behind me plans on buying his turkey from lidl next week. Just thought I had to share that.
This is possibly my last visit to a Wetherspoons in quite some time, on Wednesday me and Jo fly off to our new home in Bangkok…. People watching’s not illegal in Bangkok is it?
Jo got back from work and we went off for dinner with her new boss and his wife, nice little place called Quay33 in Plymouth… Jo’s boss seems nice.. And she seems quite relaxed around him which is good…
Me and Jo ended the night with a drink in the hotel bar , then off to the our room to watch the last episodes of IT Crowd then sleep…
We leave England Wednesday (Tomorrow as this is written, today as I actually type this up….I think you get the drift).. Night night

19:43 November 8 (Bangkok time)

Ade & Jo’s adventure day 3
I’m going to have to change this title…. At some point I will mess the numbers up.. Plus, let’s face it, this will (if it hasn’t already ) become more then just mine and Jo’s travels.. It’ll become a dumping ground for whatever is going on in and around my head…. New title coming soon! (Suggestions appreciated) ….
Odd nights sleep… Maybe I am a little nervous about our journey… Maybe it’s the ridiculous amount of pillows on this bed….six of the buggers!
I type these things up at various times throughout the day (which explains why they are a bit disjointed), once I get to Bangkok i’ll possibly be typing them up at various times AND places throughout the day.. These little update things may start to take the form of diary entries… Or not….Let’s see shall we?
Wednesday morning Plymouth…. So, checking out of the hotel I spy a bloke outside who looks familier… Jump back to last night in the bar when I saw another bloke who looked familier but I just couldn’t place… Jump forward/back/whatever to breakfast when I overheard somehing a bloke said to his mate in the breakfast room (holy grail fried egg again by the way).. Kerching! Connection made…. So.. Keith Flint from the Prodigy is stood outside our hotel while one of his minders loads up a flash looking landrover with bags… Turns out they played a gig in Plymouth on Tuesday night….
Anyway, we get into our taxi and head to Plymouth train station ready to start our mammoth trek to Bangkok.. About four hours of train jorney.. Which was actually quite nice.. We travelled down the Teignmouth coast.. Saw a field full of deer.. saw a beautiful rainbow… And an Apache attack helicopter.. Awesome

:)
Experienced a few absolute dick heads at Heathrow, pushing past folks and forcing there way into lifts that were obviously full… I never understand folks who rush round at airports.. Time management my friends.. Time management!
Jo has had a few tears today….. Understandable… She is stuck with me.

Our flight to Bangkok…. Not horrid… Not business class thats for sure.
We flew at 9:30pm uk time… so by about 11 we were knackered.. too tired to watch a film, but not comfortable enough to get a decent nights sleep.. I think we may have got maybe 2hrs sleep on and off..
I ended up watching Tim Burtons Batman… Which did nothing more than reinforce my belief that Jack Nicholsons Joker is the worst ever screen adaption of the character and should be erased from Batman cinematic history forever.
12 hours (almost 24 hours of travelling in total) to get us to Bangkok airport and then a limousine ride to our hotel through Bangkoks hellish traffic… But this is where it was different.. the first time we came here that same limo drive was horrible.. I HATED Bangkok… This time round I fell in love with the place all over again.. And any nerves I may have had were replaced with excitement.. And now i’m just looking forward to Our new adventure… Got into the hotel and had a shower… Bloody NEEDED a shower.. Jo took this opportunity to fall asleep on the bed…..

Think it may be a room service and early night tonight

:)

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Ade Cox

A working-class man from The Black Country, plucked from the factory and now living the best life in Bangkok