I Think I Met An Angel But He May just Be A Pervert!!!

Today I received the answer to a question I have been screaming  at the sky for years, probably decades. For so long I have prayed for an answer and could not understand why God, my God who I have such faith in that I allow to carry in his hands the direction of my life, every step of my life, every decision I make, would not give me the answer.
I had begun to think that there was no cure, no answer no deliverance from the burden I was carrying and as I look back on the chaos and self hatred and guilt and carnage of so many parts of my life I realised that it was all because I did not have the solution, the answer the knowledge to leave behind the memories and pain of the past.
The last thing I want any of you to think is that I am using this arena as a platform to wallow in self pity because that is not what I am doing. I am only too aware of how fortunate I am in my life. I know there are hundreds of children kidnapped from villages all over Asia every day and forced into prostitution, there are hundreds of homeless people on the streets of India, starving and lost and forgotten. I know my 'problems' just pale into insignificance in comparison. But we all have our own problems, things that we carry around with us, things that we fear, hate, loathe. Memories we can't forget or don't know how to forget or don't want to forget and to be honest writing  this blogg over the last 6 months has really felt like a therapy for me.
I feel almost lighter each time I sit and write how i feel, like another 5 kilos of emotional shit has been thrown off my knotted shoulders.

The answer came to me today, delivered by the most unusual of messengers.
The messenger with this long awaited knowledge and liberation from the darkness I feel resides inside my soul  was a man I had been avoiding all over Pai for 2 weeks. I met him one day when I was sat in The Witching Well Restaurant having a mango soda.
 It was raining heavy outside and the sky was dark and looked like it was troubled. As this stranger walked into the restaurant he shook the rain from his umbrella and our eyes locked.  I was struck by the feeling that he was familiar to me, but I was unable to place him and then I thought no I'm mistaken, I don't know him, but he looked at me like he knew me also.
He looked about 38, 39 and he was Indian. I looked back down at my book but I knew he would come and talk to me, I could feel his presence behind me getting stronger. He sat on the table next to me and I could feel the weight of his eyes on me so I looked and turned in his direction to find him looking at me with a smile. To be honest I found his presence very imposing, he had that overbearing very intense stare that made me shift in my seat. He said hello so I said hello and then to my amazement he asked me if I had been in India practicing yoga. Well I knew it wasn't because I had a body like a yoga goddess so how he knew this I was unsure.
'You are studying yoga, yes?'  I replied yes that I was. You see when Indian people use the term yoga they do not just mean the actual physical exercise of yoga. In India Yoga is actually a way of life, the yogic lifestyle is of course the physical aspect the asana but also pranayama the practice of breathing and devotion to God, through prayer and meditation and living a healthy life with proper diet, and positive thinking. Yoga is the practice of devotion to God. The union of self with the divine and this I knew was what this man was referring too.

He then went onto say "You have just completed Vipassana, yes?", I knew then he was something  different, clairvoyant or a spiritual teacher or something that I just didn't know the name for because how would he know this. I was slightly dazed because he was talking very quietly and it was hard to hear him over the noise in the restaurant and I was trying to avoid his deepening stare because it was so strong. I said yes that I had just undertaken a course in Vipassana and then he said whilst locking eyes with me and raising his hand as if to quiet my mind or voice form making an interruption. "You will develop on this path, you don't need to speak now,  just know you will develop on this path".
I didn't know what to say, so at a loss of what to say I just replied rather meekly 'thank you'  I was uncomfortable and fazed so I looked down at Kurt Cobain on the front of my book. I was shocked and I was trying to drag myself out of this almost drunk feeling I had, like everything was fuzzy. I felt like I was in the middle of a dream and everything around me and this man was rushing past so fast that it was a blur but we were there standing still in silence.  I must have been looking into Kurt Cobain's eyes for only a few moments but when I looked up, the Indian man had gone.
I didn't see him leave or hear him leave or feel him leave,  it was so strange. I sat there just looking out at the rain hammering down on the motorbikes and mopeds parked outside and I thought Did that really happen, did he say what he just said, did he know that I had done Vipassana and that I had been to India or had I just imagined it, or had it all been  just an acid flash back or a mushroom flash back if that was at all possible. At that moment I was really unsure.

 Walking back to my room after meeting this man I went over and over what had happened. I knew I had been very cold towards him if not rude. You see I have a real aversion to men chatting me up, it repulses me and embarrasses me. I am really shy and him coming and talking to me was a complete invasion of my personal space. Those of you that have only seen me out in bars or when I have been drinking will think this ludicrous because you will have only witnessed Jacqulina the infamous alter ego that I adopt when I am intoxicated, but that is not really me.
The real me, my true nature is very shy and I have real issues with men getting to close.When he looked in my eyes it was so so intense I felt completely vulnerable, naked and weak,  it was horrible. If I had been drunk I could have stared him out, intimidated him to the point that  he would have been scared of me like so many men are when they meet me in a pub when I have been drinking. It is something I now feel so bad about, so ashamed of,  all the times I have intimidated someone so much with my sarcasm and mocking, so much they had to leave or just give in and allow me to win.
But sober I am not like that at all and being sober he caught me off guard and completely out of my comfort zone and completely vulnerable.

I started to realise that I had been quite  rude to him. I was brusque and cold but he seemed oblivious to it. I thought initially he was just some old pervert, sitting next to me trying to chat me up and the intensity of his stare seemed to confirm this prognosis. Whilst he was talking and asking me questions I kept avoiding eye contact, kept looking down at my book pretending I was reading hoping he would go away and leave me to my solitude and safeness inside my personal space just me and Kurt Cobain on a rainy afternoon in Pai . I knew if it was a woman I would have been nicer, more open more polite but because he was a man I acted in the way I act towards all men that approach me,  I'm suspicious, guarded and unfriendly.
I then thought, my God he knew things about me, and I just treated him like shit. He could have been someone really special with a message for me and I just treated him like he was an irritant an unwanted guest in my space. I remembered his face and it was,  friendly there was no sign that he was aware that he was stepping into a guarded space, that I was deliberately rude because I wanted him to know his company was not wanted, there was no sign of this acknowledgement on his face at all and if he really was just an old pervert why hadn't he asked me for a date or my number?  why had he just left without 'trying it on'?. I couldn't make sense of the experience and feeling guilty about my treatment of him,  I tried to push it to the back of my mind.

A few days later I was walking home from my yoga class and I saw him walking along the road with a young woman and I thought thank God he is with someone and he will leave me be. They were talking away and as I passed again our eyes locked, he nodded his head and I quickly smiled and looked away and then I heard the girl say to him,  "look I'm sorry I don't mean to be rude but I just want to have breakfast on my own".
So I thought,  he is a bloody pervert, he is walking around town just trying to chat up woman, obviously he must have been making a nuisance of himself with this girl for her to be telling him to piss off basically. So that must be what he is up to just making conversation with girls in an attempt to get his skinny little leg over. I was disgusted and annoyed I had wasted time feeling guilty about being rude to him and I felt better about the fact that I had obviously been justified in my treatment of him. There was still the matter of his knowlege of India and my Vipassana course and my study of the yogic lifestyle, all I could conclude from this was that he must be clairvoyant.
And I knew not all people with such a gift used it in a moral and honest way. So that was it then, that was his bate.
The creepie fuker was approaching girls and amazing them with some knowledge he had of them, their life or future and that was how he started communication and then he would go in for the kill. Still he didn't actually ask me out or anything, it was a real mystery to me, I just could not work this man out.

On another morning on my way home from yoga again I saw him sat with another girl a beautiful blond, German looking girl and he was talking away wearing the same clothes I had seen him in on the other two occasions, a grey baseball cap a navy and white checked shirt, a pair of old denim jeans and a pair of converse looking tie up shoes. She was smiling  at him and he was leaning in towards her with a serious face like he was engrossed in some deep and meaningful conversation and I was thinking as I upped my step past him, Good Luck with that one luv.  He clocked me of course and smiled and I just gave him a wry smile with a I know what you are up to you old pervert, with a  of nod of the head.


Then this morning I was walking along on my way to the Internet cafe and there he was coming towards me, I didn't want to be rude any more so I decided to be short with my answers so he knew I wasn't interested in bumping uglies but to at least say hello.
 "Hello again" he said "what is your name" I told him my name and he told me his name is Rahul. He then started talking away about the principal steps of the Yogic lifestyle. He was talking about detaching oneself from the addiction we have to material things and the attachment we have to pleasure and how hard it is to renounce these cravings and it struck me how knowledgeable he was and interesting. These were infact the exact issues I was at present concerning myself with and working on. It was asif he was reading my mind and giving me advice for what was troubling me.  He was talking as if he was a Guru or Swami or at best a disciple of some religious order. he knew what he was talking about and I again was perplexed by him. I just did not know what to make of this man, was he a pervert? or was he something completely different and why was I keep bumping in to him?.
 I believe all encounters happen for significant reasons and I knew there had to be a reason that this man was forever walking into my life.
Then a moped zoomed past us, a young guy was driving and a young girl was sitting side saddle on the back and she was staring at us. I thought nothing of it really she was probably thinking bloody hell theres that old perv that tried it on with me yesterday and then she jumped off the moped and ran over to us. WTF is going on now I thought,  things feeling rather bizarre which they always do in this mans company.
 "Hello, hello Rahul, I saw you and I just jumped off the scooter, so good to see you again my friend" and then she lunged at him embracing him in a bear hug. Well blow me down what the hell is going on I thought. Why is this beautiful girl hugging what I believe to be the Perv Of Pai. I saw this as a great opportunity for a perfect getaway so I said goodbye and hot-footed it down the road.
This last encounter had left me even more bemused. What was this mans deal. There were woman in town that liked him, that were sitting with him and obviously enjoying his company and woman were actually jumping off moving mopeds just to hug him and tell him how happy they were to see him like he was the Indian answer to Justin Bieber, so why had I thought he was an old pervert. Was I justified in my harsh prognosis of this man or was I unfairly judging him because I was allowing some terrible past experiences to effect all encounters that I have with men that I meet.
This gave me many hours of thought and reflection. Maybe that is why I kept meeting him, maybe God wanted me to realise how unfair it was that I tar all men with the same brush, that because I have been mistreated in the past by certain men that I therefore believe all men will mistreat me.
I know I am harsh with men, its just I cant bare to allow any one else to hurt me in anyway so I let them know from the kick off how tuff I am and I will not tolerate it. Its all a front anyway but its all I know how to do. Its my survival mechanism and how I have lived most of my life a way of protecting myself.


I have felt troubled by this all day. I still had no idea what this man was about but I was beginning to think that I had serious issues within myself that were long over due for self interrogation.

I wandered down through town to a little cafe and ordered myself a Kambucha. Kambucha is a great herbal health tonic with incredible antioxidant levels and health benefits. It had just finished raining so the little Thai waitress came and removed the parasol from my table and the sun started to shine down on me whilst I sipped my drink and then there he was again walking towards me with that same smile and intense stare like he is looking straight inside my soul. I feel like if I meet his eyes he will see all  my secrets and all the things that are private to me and sacred and also the things that I am ashamed of and don't want anyone to know.
He sat down next to me and to be honest I didn't mind, I was exhausted with fighting this man in my mind. I wanted to finally know who and what he was, what was his deal.
"I will finish what I was saying this morning" he announced and then he went on to talk about how we attach ourselves to material things how we crave and desire material wealth and objects and create a false self and all along I knew he meant me. I knew he was telling me what he thought I was struggling with because these are the exact things I am working on renouncing at this time. He went on to talk about Pranayama and it's importance. Pranayama is something that I learnt and used for a while but I felt no real difference after doing it so I just stopped. Pranayama is a series of different breathing techniques. It was done by the ancient Yogis but was kept secret for thousands of years. I had tried some pranayama exercises in the Sivananda Ashram and with different Yoga teachers since then but I didn't feel anything so I knocked it on the head after a while. Some people raved about it but allot of them were heavy smokers and pranayama does help the lungs to detoxify so I think they could feel the biological benefit of it.
Anyway its strange because a few weeks ago another man was telling me I should give it another go and here Rahul was again asking me to please include it in my daily practice. He told me it would strengthen my meditation and my path towards enlightenment. So I found myself agreeing with him and confirming that I would indeed try it again and give it a fair go. He seemed pleased and I was surprised to feel comfortable with him and it was nice to listen to someone with such a vast knowledge of God and devotion and the yogic life. I had missed this type of conversation since leaving India, I had missed the company of spiritual people and I was feeling shitty that I had dismissed such an interesting man because of the shit I was holding on-to that I  was allowing to control my relationships with men.


Then he said something so profound to me and so hitting right to the core of what I am going through right now that it instantly brought tears prickling to my eyes. "Jacqueline, the only way you can let go of the past and detach yourself from the awful things that happened and let go of the emotions that you have attached to those events is by filling your time with service".  He was talking about Karma Yoga, the art of selfless service. The act of helping others or doing things for others with no payment or expectation of justification for your work.
This had been brought to my attention when I had joined the Sivananada Ashram nearly 6 months ago. Every disciple had their own Karmic Yoga duty,  I don't know if you remember that blogg but my Karma Yoga duty was cleaning the filthy toilets. Anyway Rahul went on to say that this was the answer that I had been looking for. This was the way that I could eliminate all the bad karma I had collected through all the bad deeds I had done when I was intoxicated and determined on my  self destruction path.
Selfless service was a way to get rid of all of that bad karma, a way of wiping the slate clean. I was dumbfounded because over the last few days I have sat for hours on my balcony both wondering if I will ever be able to forgive myself for all the terrible things I have done and also wondering if I will ever be able to leave behind all the memories of all the awful things I heard and saw and experienced as a small child. I had also asked myself over the last few days if all this sitting around and relaxing was ok or should I be doing something worth while and again it was as if Rahul was reading my mind because he was giving me the answers of all of those things that were troubling me and had troubled me for most of my life.
"This is the only way Jacqueline" and he reached for my hand and I gave it to him and he held it very gently between his two very soft almost feminine palms. "this is the way to let it all go, a way to make everything right,  a way to lay to rest everything that happened"
He let go of my hand and I looked down at my hands in my lap and I cried because I just didn't know what else to do. I was glad that he didn't hug me that would have been too much for me to bare but I think he sensed that.
He told me to carry on to Cambodia, he told me I had 'good work' to do there. I had told him I needed to raise more funds for my return  to India in the Autumn and planned to work in Cambodia and earn some money and he said that yes we all need money to get us where we need to be but he was quite adamant that in Cambodia I would do some voluntary work that would allow me to heal.
Funnily enough I had already been researching various charities in Cambodia I was interested in volunteering for. I had already contacted ASEIF the charity founded by Solmay Mam a woman that was sold into prostitution as a child who now rescues and supports prostitutes. So again I was struck by his awareness of my life and what was important to me.

He told me that he wanted to keep contact with me and check how I was doing and we swapped e-mail addresses. There was not a glimmer of flirtation, he was sweet and kind and had empathy and sincerity and I could tell not only did he have knowledge but that he had wisdom and I have learned that knowledge and wisdom are two totally different things.
I remembered an old lecturer at the Sivananda ashram talking about just this when he told us  A doctor has allot of knowledge when he tells you how alcohol can destroy your body, ruin your liver etc etc but if this same doctor then opens his table draw when you leave the room and swigs from a whiskey bottle then all that knowledge means nothing because he has no wisdom.

Rahul then stood and held my hand again and said good bye and I watched him walking down the road opening his umbrella to shelter himself  from another shower that was just starting and I realised that he had given me the answer I had been looking for all my life.
The way to free myself from everything I had clung on-to and I sat there and thought about how I had become addicted to the emotions I had attached to certain traumatic events in my life and I am ashamed to admit this but I had come addicted to self pity and being a victim.  I realised that I had believed that all these terrible things were me and they would always be me and I would carry it always because it was my past so it would be my future,  but now I have a way out of that.  I have a way to cut those ties that were strangling my soul and the way is Karma Yoga, the act of selfless service.

Then as I sat there I thought My God maybe Rahul is an Angel. I know that sounds crazy but it happens, you read about it, there are hundreds of books about Angels that come down to  earth to help people get onto the right path,  but then I thought why should I be so lucky to be sent an Angel, there are far more deserving cases than mine and millions of people who have far worse traumas in their lives than I, why should I be the lucky one to get my very own Angel  from Heaven and then I thought how ironic it was that I had maybe mistaken an Angel for a pervert Lol only I could do that.
Watching Rahul disappear around the corner at the bottom of the road I was struck by how feminine he seemed, he almost walked with a wiggle and my gaydar is usually very accurate and I would swear he is gay and then I found myself thinking I wonder if you can get gay angels??? now there's a thought and one that would send every good Christian into a flummox but who knows.

Anyway to bring this blogg to a close I just want to say that meeting Rahul has really had a positive effect on my way of thinking. I never thought this would happen from our first meetings but I really have spent the past couple of weeks looking at and addressing these haunting issues inside my mind.
I really do believe that Rahul gave me the answer that I was looking for inside every wrap of evil in the bottom of every bottle of gin and in the arms of every stranger I have slept with and I will use this knowledge and wisdom from this moment  to make the right decisions in my life.

I will finish with the profound words of Eckhart Tolle

The past is powerless &  I realise deeply that nothing I ever did or that was ever done to me could ever touch even in the slightest the radiant essence of who I am.

God Bless
Jacqueline x

A Peace Of Pai

I love Pai.

I am so glad that I found this little peace of hippie heaven.
As I told you in my last blogg I really wasn't fussed about coming back to Thailand it was just cheaper to travel to Cambodia from here than it was direct from India. To fly to Cambodia from India was ridiculously expensive. But I am so so glad that I'm here.
I didn't visit Pai three years ago when I was in Thailand.  I came as far as Chang Mai but couldn't be bothered with the 4 hour bus journey further north but several of my friends recommended Pai and said I would love it and I do. So thank you guys so much it is wonderful.

The journey from Chang Mai was tough. It is the windiest, bendiest road ever and even though it is beautiful with all the lush green tropical forest full of banana plants and mango and papaya trees it was horrific. I spent the 4 hours trying to keep my organic fare trade muesli in my stomach and not in my lap.

Now you are going to think I am a right snotty bitch when I tell you this story but as I said before this blogg is going to be completely honest and this is how I really feel.

There were six of us that were picked up from my guest house to travel from Chang Mai to Pai. There was and English tattooed couple, they looked in their early twenties, he was tall and skinny and she was knee high to a grass hopper a tiny little thing, really brown with peroxide blond hair that she fiddled with all the time.  An Irish guy that looked Swedish with white blond hair and clear blue eyes and a guy that had the strangest accent I think he was probably German or perhaps Russian but was gorgeous to make up for it and then there was a quiet guy from Israel, you don't meet many quiet people from Israel travelling around south east Asia they are usually loud and proud and more often than not, completely wasted.

We all piled in to the back of a jeep that was going to take us to the actual mini bus but as soon as we got inside I began to feel irritated.  I just wanted to be as far away from these people as possible. They just never stopped bloody talking and they were so bloody loud.
I have noticed that on this trip that I have really loved my solitude and I realise that I am actually a person that loves peace and quiet. I find it hard to believe myself because I have always been such a social person and guaranteed I am always the loudest person anywhere I go and if I go out with my friends I am always the craziest and the one who creates  'The Theatre' so it is as much of a shock to me than it must be to you that I am really loving this peaceful creature I seem to be growing into.
I know some of you are probably laughing at the screen right now or even flashing your bare arse to it in disgust but I'm being honest I really do love to be quiet now. I also realise that as soon as I have 1 drink I want to talk to someone, that is the only time really that I want company and music and noise so that is probably why I have talked none stop verbal dysentery since I was fourteen, because I was always bladdered drunk. But the real me without the 'Artificial stimulants' shall we say is actually a quiet soul and a soul that wants peace and solitude...I know who would of thought it!!

Anyway, I could not bare to listen to the crap that these people were talking. The English tattooed couple were the worst they just went on and on about everything they had seen, done, ate, said, sang, drank, drove, watched, smoked, loved, hated, missed just every bloody thing imaginable and the girl who was about 23 but looked about 12 never stopped talking about herself.
Everything that anybody said she would butt in before they had even finished leaning forward with her skinny tattooed arms waving in the air to get as much attention as she could and would say "oh but I think this" or "I would have done it this way" and "I feel this about that" she never shut her bloody cake hole for the whole journey. It was like she had just snorted a gram of speed she went on and on and bloody on.

She was one of those girls that wants to be one of the boys. She was telling the German guy with the gorgeous blue eyes the colour of the Artic sea that all of her friends are guys. I was finding it very hard to believe that she would get a pot plant to sit in the same room as her for long but anyway on she went.  She was waffling on about how she goes out with the boys and they treat her as one of the lads and she is the only girl that goes to the football matches with them and they only girl that is allowed out with them on Saturday nights and she always ends up breaking up fights and diffusing situations because all the guys respect her and blah blah fukin blah, I was thinking one of these dudes is going to have to break up another fight in  a minute if she doesn't shut her bloody trap and give the oxygen chance to circulate.

I just looked ahead and could not wait to be as far away from them as possible, I could not believe that I would be trapped inside a minibus with them for 4 hours. The Israeli guy never said anything and I caught him looking at me a few times maybe he was thinking what I was thinking. Then they were all asking each other were they were all  from and they went on and on about it but no one asked me and I was glad.  I had my back to them so I think they got the message.

When the jeep stopped the poisonous dwarf nudged the boys and said "get to the front of the mini bus don't sit in the back the AC is crap in the back of the mini buses in Thailand". She was one of those travellers that thinks they know everything about everything and of course she wanted to share her vast knowledge with 'The Boys', it was probably her first backpacking trip abroad  "run for the front seats" and I watched her almost poll-volt herself out of the jeep over everyone's bags and run for the minibus.

 Now she is just the kind of young lady I wouldn't mind breaking a nail over, I seriously would have loved to have kicked her up and down the road.
In she went right to the front seat next to the driver whilst looking behind all the time smiling and grinning about how lucky she was to be sat up front with the AC blasting on her 12 year old's body. She made a right show of herself smiling back at us all and informing us that she was going to be our guide for the day and to fasten our seat belts and enjoy the ride.  I would have loved to fastened my seat belt around her throat and she probably knew all about enjoying 'The ride' that's probably why all those lads hang around with her!!! lol
Well the minibus was almost full and the boys had to go right to the back because those were the only seats that were free so their plan had fallen flat on its tits,  but there was one seat left right behind the poisonous dwarf next to an American couple so I sat there. I was right by the AC outlet which was a bonus and I didn't even have to run. Running for a seat on a bus I have never heard the like, I cant stand selfish people like that I just let them run and were did It get them, no where.

Anyway the poisonous dwarf got her comeuppance the drivers girlfriend was coming on the trip with us to Pai. She opened the passenger door nearly taking it of it's hinges and in she came with her big breasts hanging out of her snide D&G glitter top in a cloud of cheap perfume.  She shooed the English trap on legs over in the direction of the driver throwing her bag after her. I could have pissed myself the poisonous dwarf was forced to sit on a child's seat, which between you and me she fitted in perfectly,  squeezed in between the driver and his larger than life chick Lol...now that is what I call Tough Shit Lady!!!! be careful what you wish for.
She never looked around again she just sat there with her hand on the ceiling above her head trying to hold on when we went around the bends and the drivers girlfriend was sleeping and was like a nodding dog and she kept nodding onto the poison dwarf's shoulder it was hilarious. When we made a toilet stop she complained to the driver that she was having to sit on a child's seat, it was child's booster seat and she was telling him that there were children in the bus and one of them should swap with her. The driver wasn't having a bar of it. He told her if she wanted to move she had to ask the parents of the children herself. Lol she was not amused, she flung her skinny arms in the air all dramatic and said "just fukin forget it" and stropped back into her booster seat, where she belonged.  lol hilarious

Now I know that this is very naughty to be getting so much sick satisfaction out of watching the poisonous dwarfs misfortune and I do feel bad about that.  It goes against everything I have learned in India about compassion and integrity and It shows me in not a very nice light,  but I am not perfect and I don't pretend to be and she was such a twat and  I'm hormonal at the moment and I get irritated more easily by things so yes it is wrong but I promise to  try and be nicer next month.

As soon as we arrived in Pai I was out of that Jeep like shit off a chrome shovel and thank God I haven't seen any of them since.
I loved Pai as soon as I saw it and it is so so clean. To be honest though anywhere after India would seem clean. I mean the streets of India are  not paved with gold they are paved with cow shit but I love it nonetheless.

I wandered around for a while trying to work out were to stay I had no idea where would be the best place and I had forgotten to write down the names of the places that my friend's had told me about so I just asked a few people and found a little wooden bungalow down a quiet backstreet for 150 Thai Bart which is about 3 pound. That will do nicely I thought.
The little Thai lady was small and cute and friendly and there was a beautiful black shiny minor bird in a cage outside my bungalow and even though I hate to see animals in cages he did make me giggle as he said Swadika (hello) as I walked past and whistled at me,  it sounded just like a human.

My bungalow is dead cute and looks new, to be honest the whole village looks new and fresh and clean. Pai can't be very old it is all so spotlessly clean and well kept. It is also very flat so I will be running in the mornings for sure.  The streets are big and wide and are lined with pretty bungalows renting rooms and organic tea shops and stalls selling Hippie clothes and Bob Marley T shirts. There are flowers everywhere, in pots ouside doors, in window boxes, in hanging baskets they even put petals in your drink.
It really is my kind of place and I decided that very first day that I would stay in Pai until my visa expires which is August 1st. I don't need to see anything else in Thailand I spent a month travelling around it 3 years ago and I have everything I need right here.

I found a wonderful eccentric yoga teacher Mama, she is 67 years old and looks 45 I can tell she has had a bit of a nick and tuck though, the taught look to the cheeks is a dead give away but fair play to her she is still wearing well. 
I couldn't believe my eyes when I walked into her yoga school, right in front of me was a Hindu alter. There was Lord Krishna looking down on me playing his flute and Ganesha smiling whilst shoving a sweet into his mouth and the goddess Durga looking as fierce as ever. "I'm the only Hindu in the village" she said proudly and I was so chuffed I jumped with joy. I had been missing India so much, the chanting the praying and here I was in a beautiful room with a Hindu alter and wall covering s of the Taj Mahal and Shiva and incense burning and Hare Krishna music playing.
I signed up for a weeks yoga course with her that only cost 12 pound. That includes half an hour of meditation, 2 hours of yoga and lunch that Mama cooks for us, what a treat, home cooked Thai food.

I have only been here now 2 days but I am loving it. I do yoga in the mornings with Mama, she has got some moves that would make a hooker blush and then I go to the river. I don't get in it,  it is as black as the black hole of Calcutta.  I would probably get out with typhoid, a dead fish in my ear and an old welly boot stuck between the crack of my arse. But it is nice to sit next to it anyhow. It is quiet in town as it is the rainy season but it only rains for about an hour a day if that so I am alone nearly all day and I love it. I just sit and meditate by the river and read and its nice to be back in my bikini after months of been covered from tit to toe in India.

So that is about it,  no dramas I'm afraid. I haven't touched a drop of alcohol since the debacle in Dharamshala a few weeks ago and I'm happy and peaceful and boring I suppose but I like it.
Anyway guys thanks very much for reading and if I get up to anything juicy like climbing up a sexy Israelis inner thigh you will be the first to know

Peace & Love Jacqueline x

Bye Bye Bangkok

I have been in Bangkok for a grand total of five whole days which is the longest ever I have been able to stomach this city and I must have visited it seven times over the years. Usually I stay in Bangkok for two or three days max and then I have had enough and have to escape to the islands.

I have always blamed it on the craziness of the city. All the pissed up westerners stumbling around in their Beatles t-shirts and football tops and all the old white pervs with one hand on their walking stick and the other up a young Thai girls skirt, probably checking if there are any balls up there.
That is what bothers me the most, the sex and the prostitution.
I thought that it was Bangkok that chaotic and I just had to get out before I cracked up. But I have realised on this trip that it was me that was chaotic and two to three days of me anywhere in full Jacqueline tornado in teacup mode is enough to make anyone want to get out.
 I mean Bangkok is one hell of a crazy place but I realised that you don't have to jump in-to the boiling pot of sleaze, G&T's and disease, unless you really want to.

It is rainy season now so it is definitively quieter around Bangkok than at any other time I have been here but of course it is still full on and intense in a way that anyone that has been to Bangkok will know for them selves. But because I am not drinking and going to bars and coming home pissed every night and getting myself in-to trouble,  I feel totally chilled and peaceful.
I realise more than ever that whatever is going on on the outside, how ever noisy or chaotic or disturbing that you can be totally peaceful inside and that is the most significant lesson I learnt in India and I learnt that from hours of  meditation, prayer  and yoga.

I have been getting up every morning at 6am and going for a run around the city.
Bangkok is an interesting place at that time of the day, very interesting. Of course you see the streets so much quieter, the locals are starting to open their shops and put out their stalls still rubbing their eyes and yawning.
 The food stalls are open already for business selling noodle soup which most Thai people have for breakfast. It seems a strange thing to be able to stomach first thing in the morning bowls of noodles with spicy  red chilies floating in pungent lemongrass liquid and cuts of meat all pink in the middle,  but I guess they are used to it. I suppose if you handed a Thai person a piece of toast in the morning they would look at it and laugh and sling it at you.
 The monks are just starting to do their rounds collecting the alms. All wrapped up in their orange robes and un-like the Indian monks I saw in Dharamshala India with their mobile phones and Adidas trainers these monks are walking the streets barefoot, silently floating through the streets with their shaven heads and downcast eyes.
They wander around Bangkok with huge brass bowls collecting money and food and anything anyone will give them.  I watch the faithful kneeling on the pavement in front of them hands in prayer bending,  mumbling,  bending,  mumbling whilst the monks stand over them offering blessings in exchange for money and cakes and fruit.
It is nice to watch.
 I really don't care what religion people choose to follow,  it is all the same at the end of the day,  God is God but I do love to see people praying.  I think it is so good to be in the presence of people that have faith that give praise to whatever they have named their God.
If we all spent more time talking to God the world would be a more peaceful place for sure.

Not all things you see that time of the morning in Bangkok  is pleasant.
There are allot of homeless people in Bangkok like all big cities around the world. Every morning I see people, men mostly lying face down on the pavement in shop doorways, just lying there like rubbish, covered in dirt with black battered feet and sun scorched faces.

I see the same man everyday always in the same place outside the '7 eleven' supermarket on Rabuttri drive. He is burnt black by the sun, his skin looks like leather, old, worn out  leather.  His hair is matted dusty black and sticks out from his head like the fur on an angry cat. He is always asleep when I pass and it does not look like a peaceful sleep. It looks like a sleep full of nightmare's, full off demons and ghosts.  I notice that his feet are cut and look sore and his hands are filthy dirty and his nails are long and black and covered in what looks like dried blood. His head is always resting on a small bag,  his only possessions in the world I suppose and there is always empty bottles of beer close by. It's so sad, what a life to be trapped inside. What happens to these people that they end up like this?
He is not the only one of course the city is full with these homeless, sad, lost souls, drinking all day to stop the torture of their reality from sneaking  in the back door. So they drink and they do opium or heroin or sniff glue, whatever they can and what ever it takes to keep reality from sneaking in and they sleep in doorways curled up like dogs,  in doorways that stink of piss.

I worked with the homeless in Brighton for a while. I was only a volunteer so I only went One day a week, every Sunday.
The first time I went I was so nervous. St Patrick's in Hove was for men only, it was a night shelter so they could come in at 4pm, have a nice cooked meal a warm bed for the night and breakfast in the morning and then they had to leave at 10am, back out on-to the streets.
 I didn't want to draw attention to myself, which is kind of an impossible thing when you are the only woman in a room full of men but I pulled my hair in to a bun and didn't put a scrap of make up on and I wore the plainest librarian looking clothes I had.
 Of course they all stared at me. Some of them were cheeky they would be chatting me up all the time, telling me they were in love with me but it was all in good fun. Some men were loners would sit alone, eat alone and avoid any contact with me or anyone else but no one was ever rude towards me. There was only one young man that we had to have removed from the centre in the middle of the night by the police. He was high, had been injecting a mixture of speed and heroin straight in-to his veins in the toilets at St Pats. He had gone completely nuts,  he started throwing furniture around but apart from him that was the only violence I saw.

 I have to say that I grew to love those Sundays with the boys. I was shy at first but I didn't let it show I knew I had to be tough some of them could be a little argumentative sometimes so I had to stand my ground. But all in all they were lovely to me. I would help out in the kitchen while they sat and had tea and biscuits. Then we would serve dinner,  me and the other volunteers who were all men. The food was donated by Marks & Spencer's in  Brighton so it really was a great roast dinner. For the most part they were polite and even a little shy towards me. They reined in age from about 18 to 60 and all of them were alcoholics and the vast majority drug addicts and about 6 of them were HIV positive.
 The first day I cried all the way home, I cried as soon as I stepped outside the doors. I was gutted, completely heartbroken to see the lives that people were living or rather the lives that people were dying inside of.
I learnt a lot from my time I worked at St Pats with the boys. I learnt not to stick my nose in the air as I pass homeless people in the street or cross the road as if they are a piece of contaminated shit.  A nice hello and a smile costs you nothing and might be the only nice thing that anyone has said or done for them in weeks, maybe months maybe their whole sodding miserable life.
I also learnt how easy it is to slip from being happy and safe and warm and fed and loved to desperate and lost and cold and hungry and despised and feared.
For me also it was a big wake up call. I listened to teachers, doctors, a university student, professional people tell me how they started just drinking at weekends a few beers, then a few beers every day and then  a bottle of whisky every day and then 2 bottles and eventually loosing everything,  their jobs, their friends their families. And here they were in Brighton hundreds of miles from the people they loved,  who loved them,  lost,  lonely,  begging in the streets, pissed on by drunken lads having a laugh and set on fire by the corner of the sleeping bags just so a group of pricks could watch them scream and run on fire trying to escape the sleeping bag that they were trapped inside.
Another thing you see a lot of in Bangkok's early mornings is of course the prostitutes. Prostitution is just a part of life here. Some bars and restaurants are open 24hours a day and the girls and lady boys will work 24 hours a day if they have to.
I see the drunken western men sat at the tables outside the bars, so pissed up there is no way they could possibly get an erection so I don't know why they are bothering, maybe the girls choose these men because they know it will be over in minutes and they can get the hell out of there.  I watch them dribbling and slobbering all over some young painted face. A face painted 5 shades lighter than it actually is because in Asia the whiter you are the more attractive you are.
I watch the girls sitting with their skinny legs crossed trying to be sexy with scratches and bruises all over their knees and thighs and their cheep stiletto's shoes that have probably walked the width and breadth of this city and seen inside  hundred's hotel rooms.   I thank God,  thank God that I do not have to go back with that big fat drunken slobbering beast that will probably hurt her, beat her or just slobber all over her.

 The big fat slobbering westerner will probably be robbed.  When he finally rolls off her and snores his drunken beer breathe into the air she will open his wallet take the lot and be off.  Why not she earned it, God only knows what she had to endure for it.  It is a sad game a very sad game and I wish I could shoot every last one of those men in the balls.
The first time I came to Thailand I read a book called 'private Dancer' it explains all the tricks in the book, how these girls work how they manipulate and cheat.
There are so many different sides to the story and ways of looking at it. Some of these Thai girls are so greedy so calculated and sly. They are just looking for a white western man, a walking ATM machine  that they can sweet talk and pull them into their web of lies. Some western me of course fall for it. At home they have big fat wives with saggy boobs and droopy vagina's and here in Thailand they can have a young gorgeous slim girl with long black hair down to her pert bottom telling him she loves him  and wants to marry him and the daft pricks falls for it.

 I lived in south east Asia for a year in 2009 I saw it all and heard about every trick and tale they use.
 I knew a Cambodian prostitute she would come and eat were I worked and tell me all sorts of stories. She said she had 5 men from the west that were in love with her. They would send her an allowance and gifts from England and Germany were ever they were from. None of them knew about the others of course, they all believed she loved them and had stopped working and saved herself for their visit. That is what the allowance was for to get her off the streets.   When these men came to Cambodia and of course it had to be well planned so they did not come at the same time, they would take her to nice hotels and pay for all her food for the time they were together, her clothes, manicures, pedicures what ever she wanted. She said she never stole from their wallets that was only done by the bar girls the street girls and only from men that were too drunk to recognise them again. This was her life, the way she survived.

It is seen as a admirable thing to some people here in Asia to have a white boyfriend and if he marries you you automatically go straight to the top of the ladder. It means you can leave, get a visa, you can stop selling yourself on the streets and you will have money and if the white man stays in Asia he will be talked in-to buying a business and you will be sorted for life and so will your family.
I know their are exceptions, I have friends that have married Asian girls that are sweet and honest but there is a hell of a lot of them that just aren't.

There of course is the opposite side of the story. Thousands of girls are kidnapped every day from Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Burma and sold in-to prostitution. Imported and exported across borders like cargo. Some as young as 5 and 6. Rich Asian men will pay a high price for a virgin and to insure the girl is a virgin the younger the better. It is a desperate situation. Some Asian men actually believe and I have gained this knowledge from my time in Asia and books I have read, autobiographies of child prostitutes,  that if a man has Aids and has sex with a virgin it will cure his Aids.
So that is one of the reasons there is such a high demand for young virgins and because they are just small children of course from being raped they tear and of course they too are highly likely to contract HIV.

A lot of girls are sold by their families or husbands directly to brothels to pay off a debt. They work for how ever long it takes to pay off the money that is owed and then once it is paid they are free, but by this point their spirit is broken, they are battered and bruised, addicted to drugs and have no where to go so they stay. Some have no choice, they are held prisoner, locked and chained like dogs.

I have just read the story of Somaly Mam, it was harrowing. She was sold by her Grandfather to a brothel were she was raped over and over, by the owner of the brothel, all his friends and then of course the clients.  She now runs a charity called AFESIP that helps to care for prostitutes, gives them free health care, condoms, birth control and shelter . AFESIP also supports prostitutes to enable them to  leave the brothels and train as seamstresses so they have occupation opportunities, they are also taught to read and write
.I could not believe the things she wrote about how she has rescued children as young as 5 that were chained naked to beds and kept in cages and woman that had had nails hammered in to their skulls when they tried to escape.
I have decided to send an email to this woman,  she lives in Phnom Penn in Cambodia her charity is based there. I want to do some voluntary work there so I will let you know whats happening there and if there is anything any of us can do to help. Her book is available on Amazon it is called 'The road of lost innocence' I guess just buying this book will help her plight to help stop sexual slavery.

What I have also realised is how judgmental I was. I would walk past these fat white perverts and their young Asian girls and look at them in disgust at the guy because if it wasn't for men like him then children would not be sold into this industry and at the girl for being a gold digger, but I feel differently now. I don't want to sit in judgement I just want to do something positive to help this terrible situation.

I also know that the majority of men that use prostitutes in Asia are Asian and the prostitutes would rather have a western customer because they pay more, take them to nice places, pay sometimes for 3 or 4 days or longer and they are not as Violante and hopefully a man will marry them and then they will never have to sell themselves again.

So in an hour I will be boarding my bus out of Bangkok. It has been a totally different experience for me this time. I have been sober, been running in the mornings, sunbathing by the pool on the roof of my hotel, done yoga at night and meditation in my room with my incense burning and my vanilla candle.

I even went on a date with a lovely hansom man from Chilli.  We met by the pool on the roof of my hotel. I was surprised when he came and started talking to me because he is sooo hansom and I am not one of these girls that looks good by the pool. I can't be arsed having my hair seductively cascading down my back because it is too bloody hot for all that so I slap it back in a greasy bun and my face is always covered with factor 50 which makes me look a bluie white colour like I'm  dead and unless I am lying completely flat on my back the stomach folds over like an old sack of spuds. But anyhow we sat chatting by the pool for hours, so long that I bloody burnt my face so I had to go on our date with a bright red face I was livid. We had a really nice time and laughed and talked.  He had a few beers but I was a good girl,  I stuck with the soda water I didn't trust myself to have a drink in the company of a such a gorgeous 28year old from Chilli with his dark smoldering sexiness.
 He doesn't realise what a lucky escape he had!

I have seen parts of Bangkok that I didn't know existed because I only ever went to the bars on Khao San road before. I walked for miles, down by the river, sat in the park, found a great veggie restaurant were I would sit and read and be quiet. I have really enjoyed it and I'm not bored at all.
When people decided to give up alcohol I think we all think 'Oh shit, I will be bored out of my mind, what will I do with myself,  but there is so much to do.  In fact there is more to do because you are not sitting on the bathroom floor with your head down the bog all day throwing the contents of your stomach into it.
I am aware of everything around me, I am living in every moment, all the carnage and chaos has gone and everything is clear and bright and I am happy really really happy.

Out Of The Chapatti Pan Into The Wok!!!

I was dreading the day I had to leave India, I thought I would cry and be hysterical,  but I didn't cry, I mean I was sad to leave India it had been my home for six months but I knew it was time for me to go and I knew there was more exciting adventures ahead.

I think because I know I am returning to India at the end of this year that made my departure so much easier. I have really been focusing on Buddhas teachings since completing my Vipassana meditation course so I am not allowing myself to crave for things or dread things.  I am just trying to except things as they are. My tourist visa for India had come to the end of it's 6 months validation so I had to go,  I had no choice.

I spent two sweltering days in dirty dusty Delhi before leaving India and even though it looks like a hurricane in a dustbin, I do love it.  As I jumped in my taxi at 2am I said a silent sad goodbye to the quiet streets that would at the break of dawn as always explode into chaos and carnage as the hot unforgiving sun blistered above the crumbling city.

India for me has offered solitude, peace and spiritual guidance. If you saw the streets of Delhi or any Indian street you would probably think it unbelievable that anyone could have a moments solitude or peace in a place like that, but for six months I can honestly say I have been more at peace than at any other time of my life.
 I know that that is because of how I feel inside not what is going on on the outside. You could be sat on a deserted beach on a beautiful peaceful Island and be in complete turmoil and full of anxiety.  It is really just about what is going on inside ourselves and in India I found away to connect my mind with the divine mind. A way to quiet my mind and calm my self and a way to feel peace in amongst chaos. It is of course incredible that I came to probably one of the most populated countries in the world with what I believe has the most vibrant and intense of cultures and found such peace,  but for me India is incredible and I will always love India for the positive change in myself I was able to develop there.

In India because I have not had to work I have not had all those stresses that are concerned with making a living, paying the bills and supporting a family. I have been fortunate to be able to live on my savings and just spend my days doing as I wish. I don't want to piss anybody off by saying that, I know not everyone can just up and leave when they want and travel around free as a bird and I really do know how blessed I am and I thank God every day several times a day in-fact  for my very fortunate position. I did work for what I have and I saved like crazy and didn't spend money on the latest fashions.  I really was strict with myself so I could do this trip.

My intention really was to come to India, which has been a dream of mine for years and really throw myself into the culture. I wanted to travel the country by train which I did. I would lean out of the windows watching the village people coming and going and tending the vibrant green rice paddies. Beautiful rainbow saris wrapped around pretty woman carrying huge bundles on their heads with long black plaits cascading down their backs.  Green hills rushing past dotted with temples and hermitages and energetic children waving excitedly  to me from the fields in their dusty clothes. 

My train journeys have given me my most favourable memories of India.  The people you meet, the Indian families that pass you hot spicy food and ask you never ending questions about your life, your non-existing husband and your occupation back home.
The chai sellers that scream to  you all day from 5am until dark trying to get you to buy hot milky tea in small plastic cups the size of a thimble's with ten sugars and a milk scab on the top and the fruity men passing black bananas through the open windows,  I loved all of it.
The only thing I won't miss about the trains are the loos, they bloody stink of men and you try squatting over a hole that goes on forever when the train is thundering along a track throwing you this way and that,  you end up with a black and blue forehead and piss all over your feet, but it is all part of the experience and I can't wait to come back and do it all again. 

I had some concerns about being off on the road again, my drinking had become a real problem for me before leaving England but as soon as I left England I stopped drinking. I realised that it was my situation in England that was making me so unhappy that I was using alcohol to numb the pain. I am not blaming anybody for that, I allowed certain situations to happen I allowed myself to be manipulated and blackmailed and I paid a heavy price.

I felt like the weight the size of  a hundred lifetimes of depression was lifting off my shoulders as I boarded the flight in  England and I am so so happy that I left. I was heartbroken to say goodbye to my niece she is the most treasured part of my life and my nephew also,  but very often I was not allowed to see them so I was not prepared to wait around while I was being tortured like that. I'm sure they will understand one day that I love them and always wanted to see them.

In India I was free of all of that pain and anytime I thought of my niece I would push it too the back of my mind so it didn't hurt so much.

I wanted yoga to become part of my life, something I did everyday, a way of life so that is what I did. I found a really good yoga teacher in Goa as soon as I arrived there and went everyday getting stronger and stronger. I stayed away from party people I always made sure I was home before dark so I would not be tempted to drink and I prayed all the time.
India gave me the shelter I needed to get well again. It gave me space and being amongst people that love God and worship every day inspired me to strengthen my own devotion.
I started meditating every day and each day I felt more at peace and more happy within myself.
India is a relatively dry country. It is impossible to buy alcohol in some districts and for this I was grateful. Of course it is wildly sold and drank in the tourist areas of Goa and Kerala but I just avoided the whole scene. I did drink a handful of times in India but the next morning I always wished I hadn't bothered because I was unable to go to yoga and unable to meditate and I felt that my healing had to be put on hold until I was sober. Drinking just complicates things for me and it holds me back and just drains me of my enthusiasm.

So for me the six months I spent in India have been the best of my life. I have loved other countries that I have lived in like Mexico and Greece and Egypt and others but the most profound changes, positive changes have occurred within me in India. I believe it has given me the direction I was looking for it has given me a strong foundation to now build on. I feel now that I can return to England and see my family without allowing myself to be hurt and I can now settle in Brighton and create a life for myself that I can be happy with.
And for all of that,  to India I will always be grateful.

Returning to Thailand was not something really I had any desire to do. I just did not know were I wanted to go after India, because I didn't really want to leave India but as I boarded the flight I started to feel excited. I knew it would feel strange initially jumping from one culture into something completely different, like jumping out of the chapatti pan and into the wok, that thought came to me as I sat on the flight and made me giggle.

I had had a few bad experiences in Thailand the last time I was there three years ago and I really hoped nothing like that would happen again. The last time I was in Thailand  I was drinking most days as most people do and  alcohol usually leads to trouble and it did. I had met a guy and a girl from Canada and we travelled together for a little while. They were nice enough but I always felt like the outsider and to be honest they really were not my cup of tea. The whole Canadian thing of "Lets go hiking, lets go zip lining in the jungle, lets go paragliding lets do everything in the bloody book so we can tick off the whole bloody list of things to do in South East Asia and tell everyone back home",  just well pissed me off!
They had  this exhausting itinerary of all the things all their friends had done so they had to do and I just thought what a crock of crap. I like to chill out in a place, relax for a few days, get to know the local people, I don't want to be on buses constantly just so I can tick off somewhere else I have been that I can not even remember because I only spent a few hours there.
 I should not have stayed with them as long as I did they got on my bloody nerves.

Anyway I will tell you a quick story of a pickle I found myself in three years ago in Bangkok.
It was the Canadian guys last night in Thailand and he said he wanted to go to see a ping pong show. I don't know if you know what that is but it's gross and I didn't want to go but they both talked me into it and I gave in. I had a gut feeling that something bad was going to happen. I had a feeling deep in my stomach telling me not to go but I ignored it and I shouldn't have. We spent 30 minutes in a taxi travelling to some God awful place that was wall to wall lady bars and brothels.
The place was full of naked Thai girls swinging around poles with plastic tits and plastic western style slim noses tottering around on cheap shoes covered in dodge diamantes.  There were groups of hostile touts approaching from every direction shoving menus in our faces of what was on show and believe me everything was on show.  Girls popping ping pong balls out of their vagina's, live sex shows, girls pulling well everything but the kitchen sink out of every available orifice.
I did not want to go inside but I did not want to stay outside alone either so in we went. It was a dark and dingy place with the regular white western old perverts sat in the dark with their mucky paws on their crotches and the scrawniest looking Thai girls parading around on the stage looking like they had spent the last six months in a concentration camp. I was disgusted the girls were obviously on drugs, eyes rolling in their heads, their skinny poor bodies covered in bruises and scabs and when the first ping pong ball popped out and flew across the room in my direction I was up out of my seat heading for the door like shit off a chrome shovel. That is when I realised that there was going to be trouble.

A big Thai woman the size of a brick shit house blocked the door  and shouted over to a group of Thai guys that were stood in the far corner of the dark room by the stage. I looked behind at my so called friends and they were laughing and enjoying the show I was disgusted how could they find anything to laugh at. The girls were battered drug addicts, there was nothing funny about it or sexy it was just wrong on every level.  I tried to open the door again and the brick shit house blocked it again and then the Thai guys started asking me for money. I had left the price of my beer with the Canadians but the angry group of Thai guys that had surrounded me were saying in their broken English that I owed them money for ping pong money for ping pong. I was terrified I had heard of people being beaten up outside these places and robbed and killed and I couldn't believe I had listened to that stupid pair and gotten myself into that mess. Eventually the Canadian couple came over and again our exit was blocked. The Canadian guy was quite drunk and he started arguing with the Thai guys and I thought what a daft prick there was about six Thai guys there, he was vastly out numbered and all he was doing was making a bad situation worse. In the end after me pleading with him to shut his face they robbed us of all of our money and threw us out of the door. We were lucky to get away with just that I really thought they would beat us up and they probably would have if that Canadian tool had carried on with his trap. I was so upset when I got out of there, I was shacking from head to toe and totally pissed off with them and myself for being talked into this. I told them I wanted to get the hell out of there but they said they wanted to stay. The guy had his bank card so would get more money out, I couldn't believe it they wanted to stay in that deviant sex grotto, so I jumped in a taxi straight back to my hotel of course the other two did not give a shit that I was getting into a taxi alone in Bangkok they just wondered off together. We went our separate ways the next day as you can imagine and I hope I never see either of them again. I was more angry with myself than I was at them because I knew that something bad was going to happen. I could feel it, I knew I was being warned not to go. I went against my inner voice my intuition and I vowed never to do that again. Anyway that was last time that was three years ago and this time I would not be allowing those things to happen. I was not going to be drinking or hanging around with anyone that I knew was not good company for me to keep and who obviously didn't care about me at all. I was not going to ignore my own survival instincts. I was determined to see something beautiful in Thailand this time. I had been robbed ripped off and left heartbroken the last time I had been here and I didn't want that to ruin this time for me. So I came back to Thailand with an open mind wanting a fresh start not allowing the bad experiences three years ago taint this trip.
I was literally in the country 1 hour when I was robbed WTF!!!

Now I know you are going to think  for Christ sake Jaq it is only a yoga mat,  but as  any yoga loving bunny knows your yoga mat is your life! No body should touch your yoga mat.  I have had to restrain myself from breaking a birds jaw in a yoga class because on her daft  way to the loo she stood on my yoga mat, just walked straight over it. You just don't bloody do that shit. Your yoga mat is your personal space, your sanctuary your bloody territory ,  STEP AWAY FROM THE BLOODY YOGA MAT BITCH!
Anyway some bugger stole it, it's gone, it's history it has disappeared into the black hole of Bangkok or into somebody's black hole, that would probably be more like it  and so is my beautiful vibrant orange yoga mat holder I bought in Kerala at the Sivananda ashram...wounder!
I of course was not impressed, my first hour in Thailand and history was repeating it self but I had a firm word with myself and thought,  except what is Jacqueline it could have been worse they could of taken your back pack too. So I just excepted it and thought I will buy another one. Well looking for a yoga mat in Bangkok is like trying to get blood out of a bloodless cactus. No bugger even knows what I am talking about. I even had the hotel receptionist translate YOGA MAT into Thai on a bit of paper and every where I have been and shown them the piece of paper they are still looking at me and then the paper and then me again with a face on them like they have just smoked a joint, nothing doing! I have walked the width and breadth of Bangkok looking for a new yoga mat to no avail. Isn't it crazy if I had fancied having an afternoon gang bang with a load of Thai ladies or lady boys or even really pushed the boat out and gone for both well that would have been 'no problem madame I'll send them right up' but to find a yoga mat is like pissing in the wind. So very reluctantly I hot footed over to the other side of Bangkok in a taxi to a huge shopping mall, MBK. I hate shopping and I detest shopping malls they remind me of America all those greedy people stuffing themselves and their kids with junk food. Filling their bags with endless worthless junk, all those vain and greedy people on mass, I hate it. And the whole place stunk of meat. It is probably because I have been in India for so long and most people are vegetarian and you don't really see much meat but here in Thailand it is everywhere. All I could smell was the sickly rich meaty smell of cooked animal flesh it was gross. People walking around with bits of dead fish on sticks and tearing into dead chicken flesh, ripping it off the bones with their teeth like cave men in mini skirts. (These Thai girls wear really short skirts and have the skinniest legs and huge platforms shoes with high heels they look like flamingo's in roller boots), It was all making me feel sick. Shelves piled high with bags and bags off fried cockroaches, peppered ants, dried fish just bloody obscene...give me an iceberg lettuce any day. I asked probably thirty people about a yoga mat, showed them the piece of paper were yoga mat was written in English and Thai went through the same ordeal every time of them nodding, frowning, shouting across shops to each other and then directing me in the opposite direction to the direction the last person had sent me in. I eventually got a soddin Yoga mat after 2 hours of being in the shopping hell mall I had the choice of an luminous green one that looked like alien snot or a bright yellow one, so I took the yellow one so I now look like I have a giant banana strapped to my body...how very appropriate in Bangkok, I think I will be every bodies best friend tonight!!!