My name is Mat, I'm 22, I come from Paris, France where I'm studying sociology and history. Here is my first blog. At the beginning I thought it was a strange idea to tell to unknown people my life. Here starts for me a new life, and with the new life maybe come the new ideas...so I start the blog that will aim to explain how this country changed my life.

Follow me on my path, between joys and deceptions, hapiness and questions, between awkwardness and pure kindness. Here is my way, may you follow it or enjoy it.

September 2004, 9 a.m. Phuket international airport

After a shaking crisis at Bangkok airport due to the aircon, between all those women dressed in a sad blue uniform (who said this is country of smile?)I finally arrive at Phuket...(almost) straight from Paris. It's the first time I leave old Europe, the farthest I had been was Trondheim, Norway and Crete in Greece. This red earth is amazing, and what about this huge and green forest! It's all like on Discovery Channel. Now I'm the explorater.

Actually I'm an explorater. First because non of my friends thought it would be a good idea to pick me up at the airport and prefered to send me a taxi. I pass through the automatic doors with my luggages and two guys see me and say something, automaticaly I say "no" with a stupid smile and they laugh, as if I was a sort of Mr. Bean or something...hm!first impressions

I see the taxi driver over there! This guy whose name is Tuk is the first thai I met. That's the only reason he will have his very special room in my heart. His english was worst than mine and I must recognize that our conversations were not very elaborated. We had the time to exchange few ideas about my 4 months holidays comparing to his 7 days holidays (!).
Everything was fine on this road along the beach, in the direction of Patong, the taxi driver was gay, unable to express any complicated idea such as "don't seepeek farangset, seepeek engliss little".

At this moment I learnt how to say rain, in order to welcome me the sky offered me a strong funtok...

There is something very funny in Patong, like in all the Phuket Island and even all the touristics area in Thailand : the roads are barely fit for big 4x4 cars, however there is always a smiling thai to rent big motorcycles and big cars (that's why sometimes a group come to thailand with 3 or 4 peoples and leave only at 2 or 3, true story). I just realize, watching this shop full of big motorcycles how much us, farangs and tourists are silly (or maybe those guys who rent it are very nasty).

From Patong to Kara, Karon to I don't remember where, I saw every beach, always empty, sometimes you can see a japanese guy or a german with one or two girls, generally obviously younger than them. I understood very quickly that they were not adoptive fathers...

The night at Patong beach are always the same, do you know this? Sometime it looks like the center of the world. You can see people from everywhere, tanned and red (I was between the two categories I guess), ugly and not so ugly (how come? are all the tourists as unpleasant as they're silly once they're here?). We have all a common point, or almost, even if it's not true at the present moment, it has been true or it will be : we all ordered a suit, we all tried the seafood, we all bought these towell sets. the additional but not rare options are the fake watch, the fake singha t-shirt. For the transport you have the red tuk tuk company, always the good word for you, wherever you come from.

At night the Patong beach smell was always the same, the seafood, the grilled meat, the Mcdonald's and the KFC, the smell of fabric and plastic, sometimes, if you're lucky, you can feel the air from the sea, in case you forgot it. Very quickly you forget it the first nights, that's when you lose your head and you start to understand.Or maybe that's how finish your comprehension of things.

What is this? all those lights that generates a tremendous force inside you, that attracts you, at least your eyes. Walking here you see, these bars, these guys drinking and laughing, rude words and manners, hands where they shoudln't be.

And then you hear screaming, some girls run to you, grab everything they can. Honestly the first time I did not understand what it was about. The more painfull for me was to escape, I mean an European guy is not used to reject females. For sure he's used to be rejected but that's another problem. That was my second thai challenge (for those who did not follow evrything, the first was to comunicate with the taxi driver), reject those girls (too much make up, screaming is not the first thing I look for with a girl, moreover, certain are really ugly!damned!). Everybody around were laughing as if they were thinking: "welcome to the club".
Stop.

You have to understand that to me, this street was awful. Each girl calling me was as a symbol of all the tv report I could see before both about sexual slavery and misery in the third world. I'm just unable to understand how pepole can come here for this kind of trade, whether you're a girl or a boy.

On the other hand, this street sed a vice inside me, nights after nights I wanted to walk along this street, girls calling me and jumping on my back my arms my legs...ashamed of my feelings I couldn't sleep without what my friends called "mat's glorious hour".

Hopefuly the journey in patong ends...I think I was about to do something silly, something you regret on the morning and which I don't need to explain here.

Last night in Phuket, I remember every crazy things I saw in ten days, my friends know Bangkok yet and they say this city is crazy, that Phuket is "piece of shit" compared to Bangkok...

Don Muang, second time, now, Bangkok "à nous deux", here I come!

Originally published at: http://www.thai-blogs.com/index.php?blog=23&title=thailand_rocked_my_life&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1.