By Martyn Driscoll

"Martyn, aren't you going away this weekend?"
"Yeah, I've got just over an hour to get to Sukhumvit Soi 33, it takes me that long to get home by motorcycle taxi, boat and skytrain, so if I take a taxi for a change I'll get there much quicker, so I got plenty of time"
"you do know that it's a long weekend and all the universities just finished around here so traffic will ……"

The door hasn't even closed and I'm rushing to the road. Jumping in a taxi, giving my best Thai which includes me saying "Sam Sip Sam, BTS, go go go" or something like that, I change out of my shirt and Thai (tie, get it!) on the back seat and the driver pulls away not daring to look at me but does switch to Farang Radio.

40 minutes later I'm still in the same area, not even at Saphan Taksin. 1 hour later, I'm now late and still at Saphan Taksin. 2 minutes later I'm gripping the back of a motorbike taxi knowing that I've given myself the perfect reason to be the BEER B:TCH for the weekend…

I arrive, boys seem alright, no panic there… hmm somethings up. "OK Marty" says Wagga "Your responsibilities include…" I immediately stop listening but continue to nod my head and give my best dumb ass face expression.
"so here's some money, go to Villa get a pack of San blah, if they don't have blah, get blah or maybe blah" "Yeah" says someone in the van "blahs real cheap in there" The moment I stepped out onto the Soi I turned the wrong way, didn't tell the lads that! Things weren't going my way as it was!

In villa I had a nightmare had to move loads of boxes, the one that said something about 'San Man' or whatever its called was at the bottom, don't think they'll mind having light, ok, here we go. Back at the bus I received the sounds of "huh? Light", "he 'asnt", "bottles? What you get bottles for?", "Marty, you did buy a bottle opener didn't you?" and finally "you are aware what a fines session is, right?" I don't drink beer. They're lucky I didn't come back with cans of ice tea or something for all the use I was in Villa.

I decided to do my bit and try to make it up to the lads, so later in he evening I bought ice-creams and further down the road bananas, which I insisted on people eating. In my mind at that moment I felt reassured I got myself out of being the 'beer bitch' and wouldn't be asked again… this was kinda wrong. As I begin to write this, I recall that 'what goes on tour, stays on tour!'.

So here's what happened. I don't remember much about the journey up… I was wasted on Samsong and coke, but I do know that we spent the first 1 ˝ hours of being on the bus in Sukhumvit, I think we could have missed the worst of the traffic if that little silly Welsh mongo turned up on time. Oh yeah, that was me. I also remember thinking how funny it was that I'd taken a picture of Cameron and Wagga having a debate about something I was trying to overhear, can't remember what to be honest. Also, looking at the photos, everyone's drinking a lot of Pepsi, weird?

I had an awesome time on that bus, was definitely the way to get there, because if you went by airplane your wouldn't make it to the airport because of the traffic and would then miss your flight. AND that's exactly what happened to Mike Harding.

We arrived, dropped our bags into the rooms and immediately got out to the Vasu Hotel, our local for the weekend. I was wrecked, not sure how time went so fast, oh, I know now, I was p:ssed wasn't I! In the club I talked to heaps of girls, got felt up by a load of katoeys, which received very nasty looks back and continued to be very drunk. I don't know what I was saying, but I did well at chatting to the girls, then Scoop stuck a cocktail stick/toothpick into my head, I found this immediately entertaining and buggered off leaving them. Next thing I know I'm outside on my own. Ahh.

But no worries, a bike pulls up with two sweet looking girls on the back. "Hello" I say with my charming and friendly Welsh accent, "any chance of a lift? I live here" I show the leaflet of our digs (we pass a circle of people slamming a can of beer against their heads, luck I don't know them I think to myself!). Waayheeey theres some of the lads, "stop stop stop! anyone want a lift?" Wagga is now on the back. That makes four. Now if we can just find a pig, a sack of rice and double bed we'd look like everyone else who travels by bike. In the room they write down on paper 1000. I tell them "that's right, its 1000B to sleep with me. No wait, there's two of you so its B2000, but for you special price B1500 cause I'm swaying and can't walk properly, now cough up or get out…". At this point, Cameron enters and informs me I'm in the wrong room. I pass out. I wonder what happened to the girls?

An alarm goes off. Please make it stop. It seems like 2 seconds later and it goes off again. Ughhh. Ahhh its quiet again. Knock at the door, Cameron opens it to let Mark in and says "lucky you called! I've just turned my alarm off and EVERYONE would have slept through because I have to get all the boys up!".

We did a training session for loads of kids and students in the area, basically running through drills. I paid attention to what Momo and Richie told them, got in the way, stood around a bit, clapped my hands and said 'well done' a bit and thanked the maker when it was over. The kids knew more than me.

Later that day we played some of the teams we coached. They won.

On my part, during the games the following took place. I made and missed plenty of tackles, probably missed more than I made. I have flash backs of me receiving the ball, running past a few players then coming towards two and for some reason felt compelled to launch myself into the air, roaring, shocking everyone around me, going into the ruck, swearing my head off and yelling a war cry something on the lines of "come on you funkers we're the Southerners RARRRRRRR". Only later was I told how funny this sounded and how red must be the colour of Wales because of the embarrassment you all suffer after a game.

Last week I hurt my chest, which is not my excuse, but I was in pain for most of the day. But it was going to be no-where near the pain felt by those little Thai lads in the ruck which Neil landed on when being up-ended by a 4 foot nipper. The first and second games never seemed to want to end! But I did take away lessons from the field. Wagga and Scoop demonstrated how to effectively take out two players of the same team. I, of course, was told you're not allowed to jump as it can endanger you and the tackling opponent. No matter how many times you practice a drill in training, you never seem to do it during a game.

The day finished, we managed to come away with a brilliant win during the third game, which we then wished had gone on longer so we could try to thrash them some more. We changed and were invited to a meal with Thai dancing… impressive stuff, for 20 minutes, 2 hours later we received loads of string tied around our hands, then make our excuses after presentations and pegged it out of there.

Back to Vasu Hotel! We stop off at a noodle bar for the fines session. It just so happened that there were two western girls there. So we said hello and invited them to join in. Two minutes later they got up and legged it to the toilet. I thought they were going to leave. Can't remember either of their names but one giggled a lot and the other was like the girl from American Pie who does things with her instrument at Band Camp. A lot of explanation into various aspects of the day where given. None of them where acceptable or valid, I think the idea is to say a load of rubbish to actually drink anyway! The session was dedicated to the memory of Scoops teeth, which saw more action than him, so we drank through a straw and got pissed faster. The girls were friendly enough, we asked them all the usual questions, turns out they where American, poor things, when asked about their heritage they gave adequate answers, but I was curious to know if they had a Welsh blood line so asked "do you have any Welsh in you?" and immediate sigh came from everyone and whispers of 'crap pick up line', "why would they want any" and 'he never said that' went around… I replied "you can spit it out if you don't like it" to many persons disbelief.

There were hundreds of motorbikes parked outside the nightclub. Upon entering I near enough lose everyone. After a couple of hours most of the team of snuck off and I myself call it a day. A few noodles later and I'm in bed.

Next day sees 5 of us in the van heading back. Was very pleasant, saw some nice stuff… but mostly I was sore. FROM PLAYING! NOTHING SEEDY YOU DIRTY MINDED PLONKER!