The First Time and the Last Time For This - Phuket Thailand

It is Wednesday and welcome to the first segment on places I have been and some memories of each place. I hope to travel more in the future but as some of you can appreciate it is easier if all you have to do is pack your toothbrush with some clothes and have the passport handy. Most of these stories will be of the crazy years from 1986 to 1996 when all I pretty much did was live out of a suitcase with my only address being that of my Mother to send mail to and keep my driver's permit valid.

One day in 1994 while working on the ship Mickey the bartender says he knows something fun we can all do in Phuket , Thailand. Some of us are listening when he mentions that he knows of a place where we can bungee jump. Sure I thought like heck I am going to do that , over my dead body. Which I actually was envisioning at that moment. We all sort of walked away with very little incentive to do such a thing.

The following morning Mickey rounded up a couple of brave souls who then tried to convince the rest of us hanging around to come and at least watch. Okay I thought at least I could do that.

So off we went with Mickey in the taxi leading the way barking out instructions to the cab driver on how to get there , because a couple of years earlier he had bungee jumped at what was called Tarzan's Bungey Jump.

We headed straight to the bar restaurant where we ordered up a pint of courage and looked up at this crane overlooking a body of water or what must have looked like a puddle from 5o metres high. Now you see I really didn't intend on jumping but with a group of 8 sitting around egging each other on , there was really no way now of backing out for any of us.

First to go was the hot shot young waiter from the USA. Up he went on that crane that shook as the elevator made it's way to the top. Standing out on the platform he dived and hollered with joy as he bounced up and down with the cord.

That was it , I decided to go next. They attached me to the cord and up the crane I went. Taking pictures on the way up I was cool and smiling. Then it was time to hop out on the ledge. Oh my god!

Then the guy said to me look down and get a little scared and I did. My co-workers looked like dots 50 metres below. Fifty metres is like a 15 story apartment building.

Then he says , I will count down from 10 to 0 and then jump holding your arms out and looking straight to the horizon. He counted down the first time and I wasn't ready. The second time I jumped realizing they won't give me my money back if I didn't and besides what were my friends below going to think.

I gotta tell you that the initial couple of seconds when you are free falling is a pure adrenaline rush. I mean really you can't beat it and the stop is gradual with the only bothersome thing about it was it felt like my eyeballs were going to pop out going up and down on the bungey cord.

Eventually all of us jumped that day.

Would I do it again you ask , never ever again !

What wild thing would you say you did but would never do again or maybe you would?

I would like to know......