Legless Blog - Ian Reed / John McMiken
Legless blog archive for December 2007
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British expat amputee in Thailand
'Let it be'
Legless Blog -I first decided to create this blog page after seeing all of the bad publicity given to and constant hounding of my fellow legless celebrity, Heather Mills on many other websites and in the media in general. This page I have created as a place where I can state my personal opinions, thoughts and musings openly, and share my views and feelings with the Internet World.
This is my legless website, I pay for it and I am the manager, owner/boss/king of it, so 'legless or not', as 'freedom of speech' is still a basic human right in true democratic countries where you can view this blog, then I feel that this is somewhere that I can speak my mind without recourse. This is not a commercial page, it is just my own social media page. Nobody has forced any of you to come here and nobody is holding you here, so if you don't agree or like what you are reading here, then please feel free to leave at anytime!
As someone who has exactly the same physical injuries that I have, I find that the hounding of Heather Mills by the media is disgusting. I now see how celebrities, legless or not, can never have a normal life, because they never have time to themselves without someone from the media trying to drag up any kind of dirt from what would just be a normal everyday incident to anyone else, but in Heather's case any normal incident gets sensationalised by the media. Heather's physical disability seems to incite them more, and being honest, if I personally was hounded the way that Heather is, then some of these media personnel would consider being just 'legless' a bonus after the physical injuries that I would personally inflict upon them. I am thoroughly disgusted at the treatment of Heather, I suppose you could call it a feeling of 'Legless unity', so if any of the media responsible are reading this blog, then in Paul McCartney's own words "Let it be".
We are both legless!
****
You can email me anytime at: blog@leglessinthailand.com
'The Legless Blog' December 2007
Being the last day of the year, I thought that I should write something special for my readers. Most other people write something retrospective, profound, or inspiring for the coming year for their readers, well, don't expect that here, I can't even stand on my own two feet, because I only have one. I had thought about writing a precis of my year, but having just woken up, my brain is not functioning at full power yet, so I had better leave that to another day in the New Year, when I am firing on all cylinders.
Better I just wish all of my readers a happy and prosperous year for 2008, I know that I could certainly do with that. Tonight is New Year's Eve so you are allowed to drink a little, or even a lot and you are expected to get legless tonight, but be careful! Don't get literally legless like me!
My best wishes to all of you for the coming year.
Goodbye 2007 and cheers for now!
Legless in Thailand
The best Christmas present that I received this year, apart from a bottle of good whisky from a friend, is that my leg has now recovered and I can now fit my prosthesis and walk again. I shall not be going out though, my bank account is almost in the red still, so I shall just be spending New Year at home on the farm with the chickens and what is left of my whisky after Xmas.
Happy New Year and cheers for now!
Legless in Thailand
I guess I must have overdone it with my walking around in Penang and rushing around in Bangkok over the last week, because now the stump of my left leg is swollen, very red and the skin is broken in many places, so I have just had to relax for the last few days. It is much too painful now to put on my prosthesis, so I am just leaving it off for a while until my stump recovers sufficiently to fit it comfortably again.
This means that I cannot go out anywhere this Xmas and after the expences with my recent trip to Penang and the money that I had to pay for my new passport at the British Embassy in Bangkok, I do not have the money to go out anywhere anyway. So I shall just stay at home legless at my computer and checking my email regularly, looking for some good news for a change.
I hope that everyone reading this blog has a very good Xmas and New Year.
Cheers for now and Merry Christmas to all!
Absolutely Legless in Thailand
After a one night stopover in Bangkok on my return from Penang, I set off early the next morning to the British Embassy in Bangkok to start the process of getting my new passport issued. I filled in the passport renewal form, and along with two photographs I handed them to the person behind the counter in the consular department of the embassy. The girl behind the counter looked through my application, checked my photographs and was satisfied that they were correct, then she asked me for the fee of 8,564 Thai baht, so I pulled out my UK bank cheque book and I asked her if I should make the cheque payable to the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office and she just shook her head and told me that they do not accept cheques from a UK bank, even with my ?300 cheque guarantee card, she went on to say that they are only allowed to accept passport fees in local Thai currency.
Is it just me, or is there something very ironical and illogical here? I am a British subject, applying for a British passport in a British Embassy, the cost of the passport is now expensive because the new British biometric passports can only be issued in Britain and that is why they take so long to process, but I cannot pay for this service using a guaranteed cheque from a British bank, I am only allowed to pay in Thai currency even though the whole process and cost of producing this passport is carried out in Britain, not Thailand.
Now let us go on to talk about the costs involved for me here! I had just returned from an unscheduled trip to Penang that cost me a total of ?170, which I had to make to stay legal with Thai immigration regulations and I was forced to make this trip because of the lack of help from the British Embassy in Bangkok previously. I checked the price of the new passport before I went to Penang and I had made sure that I just had enough money left in my UK bank account to cover the new passport costs on my return to Thailand. The British Embassy leaflet stating the fee for the passport, states that it costs 8,564 Thai baht and that they use an exchange rate of 72 baht to one pound sterling, which works out to approximately ?120 and I still had ?150 in my UK bank account, so I thought that I was okay and would have a little money left over for Xmas. Well, the exchange rate used by the embassy does not bear any resemblance at all to the real exchange rate, at the time that I went to Penang, one pound sterling was equal to 61 Thai baht, that is why I wanted to pay for my passport by UK cheque, because the cost of this passport at the real exchange rate and with the bank charges involved for me comes very close to ?150, which is all that I had left in the bank.
I did not have a choice though, I had to pay for the passport with local Thai currency, because it is required to allow me to travel back to Penang on the 14th of January, 2008, which is the date that my visa-on-entry to Thailand expires, with the time now required to issue the new biometric passport from UK and also with the Xmas and New Year holidays, I am still going to be very tight for time to get the passport issued in time for my next required journey to Penang. I am now in a situation were I am having to borrow money from some Thai friends, just to survive on a daily basis over the Xmas and New Year holidays, I now have no extra money to do anything special over the holidays this year.
Cheers for now and Merry Christmas to all!
Legless and now broke in Thailand
I have just returned home today, much later than expected. I was delayed for a few reasons, but the main reason being, that Malaysian railways are not allowed to sell tickets for the Bangkok to Butterworth leg, so I could not purchase a return train ticket in Malaysia. Because of previous experiences at the Thai border, I knew that I had to have an exit ticket from Thailand to be certain that I could obtain a 30 day visa-on-arrival in Thailand. I only found out about the Malaysian ticket restrictions on arrival at Butterworth, so I had to quickly contact a friend in Thailand and arrange for her to purchase a train ticket from Bangkok to Butterworth at the Bangkok train station for me, then to send it by registered mail to me at my hotel in Penang.
The extra time that I spent waiting in Penang for my train ticket to arrive, quite obviously cost me more expence than I had initially planned for. Whilst I was waiting for the mail to arrive in Penang and I couldn’t book my return train to Bangkok, because I wasn’t sure of the return date I required yet. So as soon as my registered mail did arrive, I quickly went across to the Butterworth train station to book the next available train back to Bangkok and that is when I got my next delay. Although it was only Sunday the 16th of December, the next available train seat to Bangkok was not until 23rd December and I did not have the funds available to stay in Penang for another week, I also had to get back to Bangkok quickly to start the process of getting a new British passport issued, because after this trip back to Bangkok, my passport would be full.
I quickly returned back from Butterworth to the Blue Diamond Hotel in Georgetown, Penang and asked my friends who worked there, if they had any ideas about a quick and inexpensive way to get back into Thailand other than by train. One of them managed to arrange a mini-bus for me for the following day, which would take me to Hat Yai in Southern Thailand and it was very inexpensive. So the next day at 15:00 in the afternoon, the mini-bus arrived and picked me up at the hotel entrance. I soon found out why it was so inexpensive, this bus was not aimed at tourists or foreigners, it was mainly used by Thai people who were working or studying in Malaysia, to return home to Thailand, so I was the only foreigner on the bus.
When we arrived at the Thai border, everyone had to disembark and go through the immigration procedures and I was quite surprised that the Thai immigration official there never asked me for any exit ticket at all and just quickly gave me a 30 day visa-on-arrival stamp. So all of the extra time, effort and money spent, to arrange for my exit ticket was all for no reason in the end, it seems to me now that each of the Thai immigration officials at different border posts, interpret the Thai immigration rules differently. After the immigration clearance, I boarded the bus again and at 18:30 that evening I was dropped off at the railway station in Hat Yai, where I quickly purchased a ticket to Bangkok and boarded the train 20 minutes later. The train that I boarded was the daily train from Butterworth to Bangkok and they now had seats available because extra carriages were attached to the train at Hat Yai.
On arrival at Bangkok’s Hualumpong train station the next morning, I went to a small tea stall there where I had arranged to meet a friend, because I had to spend that evening staying at a friend’s house in Bangkok, so that I could go to the British Embassy the next morning and arrange for my new passport. Whilst sitting and waiting at the tea stall, many other rail passengers stopped by and chatted with me in general conversation, then one very interesting traveller from the UK sat down and we started talking about Thailand, UK and many other things. I say that this person is interesting because he is also a writer, not of books or stories as such, he is a songwriter. During our time together that day, he played me some samples of his songs on his notebook computer and I was very impressed with his work because I am also very interested in music with meaning and good melody and his work had both of these qualities. He was continuing his journey that day to Phuket in Southern Thailand and we made arrangements to keep in touch with each other through the internet, so hopefully I can tell you more about this very interesting character at a later date.
My friend arrived at the tea stall later and we went to stay in the Thong Lo area of Bangkok, which would make it easy for me to visit the British Embassy the next morning, which I did and the continuing saga of my dealings with the British Embassy in Bangkok started again with a vengeance, but that story is for another day’s blog, not today!
Cheers for now
Legless in Thailand and Penang
Anything interesting that happens to me in Penang, I shall let you know on Friday. Usually though, I just stay at the Blue Diamond hotel in Georgetown and join in with the music jamming sessions in the evenings - http://www.expostfacto.co.uk/bluediamond.html
Cheers for now
Legless in Thailand and Penang
I am leaving for Penang again on Monday, but this time it is not my usual trip. This time I do not have the space in my passport to get a normal visa to re-enter Thailand, so I shall just have to cross the border, spend a couple of nights in Penang and then purchase a return train ticket from Butterworth to Bangkok and hopefully I can get a visa-on-entry for thirty days in Thailand, which I should just about have enough room for in my passport.
With the new immigration rules in Thailand now, you can only get a visa-on-entry to Thailand now if you can show that you have a valid ticket to leave the country again, which is the reason why I shall have to buy a return ticket from Butterworth. This should then give me thirty days to get a new passport issued in Bangkok and then return to Penang again for a normal visa in the early New Year.
All of this juggling with Thai immigration rules and space in my passport, is the direct result of getting no help or assistance whatsoever from the British Embassy in Bangkok with this. (see related blog in my November blog archive for 28 November, 2007)
Cheers for now
Legless and annoyed in Thailand
Dreams are something that everyone probably has when they sleep, but personally, I have never had any recollections of any dreams before, so it is something that I have never really thought about much. But last night for the first time I had a dream and when I awoke, I had a vivid memory of the dream that I had whilst sleeping and it was a very good feeling indeed, because it was a very good dream.
The story in the dream I remember, but not in perfect detail and I also cannot remember the people's faces exactly, the one thing that I do remember very well though were the feelings involved in my dream. They were feelings of happiness, warmth and contentment, feelings that I have not had in real life for many, many years now, I am sure that any psychiatrist would have a 'field day' with my dream.
So now I just hope that the next time that I go to sleep, I can get back into the same story again, it gives me something to look forward to for a change.
Cheers for now
Legless in Thailand
Today is the auspicious occasion of the 80th birthday of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej the King of Thailand (Rama IX). The King and the Royal Family of Thailand are very much loved and held in respect by the Thai people as a whole. The Royal Family here feel responsible for their citizens and are quick to respond when there are any major problems in the country.
They have created and fund many foundations to take care of the people here and I am a recipient of a prosthesis for my amputated leg from the Prostheses Foundation of Thailand one of the many foundations that they have created. I was even presented with my prostheses personally by the sister of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Princess Galayani Vadhana. So I am personally very grateful to the Royal Family here.
Happy Birthday King Bhumibol Adulyadej!
Cheers for now
Legless in Thailand
It has been very quiet on the Heather Mills front lately, I hope that is good news for Heather and that the media are leaving her alone now. Maybe it is just the build up to Christmas that has got their attention now, or maybe they have been reading this blog and started leaving her alone :-))
I hope it stays this way for Heather and her daughter over Christmas.
Merry Christmas Heather! ***
Cheers for now
Legless in Thailand
I liked Thai food long before I moved to Thailand, because I used to eat it quite often in a local Thai restaurant in England. So when I moved to live here in Thailand I could see no problems with my change of diet, but I was wrong. Thai food has very nice flavours with the many herbs and spices used, but the problem for me is that Thai meals although they have very good flavour do not seem to have very much substance to them when eaten daily. Thai people make up for this by eating a lot of rice with their meals, bowls of it, but this does not suit me at all, rice is not the substance that I am looking for. Initially when I first came here, I turned back to cooking and eating English food, but after tasting Thai food, although English food had the substance that I need, the taste seemed very bland.
Being a fairly inventive chef for many years, I soon set about developing meals that would suit my appetite using ingredients that were readily available locally. So I developed many new dishes that were based on English food, but with just the right amounts of local herbs and spices added and these turned out to be quite unique dishes. At one time I even opened my own restaurant on an island resort here in Thailand named Koh Lanta and my restaurant became very popular with tourists and locals alike, that was when I realised that it was not just me that had strange taste buds but many people like the same kind of food that I do. Eventually though due to personal relationships, I had to let go of my restaurant, but I still continue with my special meals for me and many of my Thai friends that like it.
Just yesterday I made a big pot of Lancashire Hotpot that should last me for a good few days, as usual for me it has many of the local Thai ingredients and again as usual, it turned out delicious and certainly has a lot of substance. Being in Thailand and having many extra herbs and spices, I can hardly refer to it as 'Lancashire Hotpot' anymore, so I have decided to call it 'Legless Siamese Hotpot.'
Quite recently I had to go to Bangkok for some business and whilst I was walking down one of the many streets that I know there, I spotted a new restaurant that was advertising 'Fusion Food', I had never heard of this before and being quite interested in cooking and new cuisine, I went in and asked them exactly what this new food was. It turned out to be the same idea of mixed Western and Thai food that I have been cooking for myself for the last twenty one years, but now it has been given a name and is sold commercially. If I had named it, I would have given this style of food my name 'Legless Cuisine'.
Cheers for now
Legless in Thailand
Twenty one years I have been in Thailand now, twenty two years come next February. So I thought that I had acclimatised to the weather here quite well by now. I have lived in many places in Thailand, mainly in the Central area, the South and slightly North East and the heat and humidity here are no problems for me now and usually the cold is not a problem too.
Where I live at the moment is the furthest North that I have lived in Thailand, I am 236 km (150 miles) North of Bangkok, also with the very slow progress of my house construction (lack of sufficient funds available), this is the first Winter that I have been living virtually in the open here. Three days ago the weather started to turn quite cold again in the evenings and it is getting progressively colder each day now. Last night working at my computer as usual, I was wearing a shirt and two jumpers on my upper body, a thick pair of flannelette casual slacks on my legs and thick socks on my feet (foot), what I do not have available here is a pair of gloves and my fingers started locking up with the cold, so every ten or fifteen minutes, I had to stop working and sit on my hands to warm them. Later (about 3 am), I went to my bed fully clothed, Just minus my false leg and shoes and had already set up my sleeping area with one medium and one thick blanket, but these turned out to be not enough to combat the cold here now and I couldn't sleep all night, just tossing and turning trying the best I could to get warm, but I just had to wait for the sun to rise this morning to warm me up sufficiently, so I am writing this blog now having been awake for almost 24 hours.
I managed to find another thick blanket today, so hopefully, the three blankets will keep me warm this evening, I hate to think how cold it is going to get here by Christmas this year. I really must get some real walls built here soon.
Cheers for now
Legless in Thailand
To my blog Archive for November 2007
To my Legless Headquarters site
P.S. "I don't remember reading the small print when I signed on for this life, in fact, I don't remember signing on at all, I was probably legless then too! So seeing as you wont let me resign, can we renegotiate the contract please?"
My first published book - Legless in Thailand
My other blog at the St Helens Star newpaper, UK
My home town St Helens, UK and their famous rugby team
Some of my short stories HERE
Biography of author John McMiken
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