“No, I’ve never driven a tank before!”

Firstly, this isn’t an April fools post! Just realised I'm posting this on April 1st. At the end of the last blog I promised shenanigans, I will not fail to deliver.
The day started like any other, early morning for a nice cold shower, shaved, dressed, breakfasted and out by about half seven. About quarter to the teacher whose husband was a Colonel in the army arrived. I walked over to the car to say "hello" as I normally do. But today they told me to get in the car and go to the army base with him for the day.
“But... I’m teaching today...”
“No! It okay! Go army!”
“Okay!”

I quickly run to grab my bag which has the usual stuff in I always take with me whenever I go out anywhere that isn’t a ten minute walk from my room. It contains the essentials; my camera, phrasebooks, guidebook and toilet paper. You really don’t want to be caught out without any of those items, especially the last! I lock my room again, sling my bad in the back of the pick-up and jump into the front. Today is going to be a good day. Conversation wasn’t great in the car, he didn’t speak much English and I didn’t think to make sure my phrasebook was with me in the car.

We arrive and go through a check point type place. I have my bag checked and taken from me. One of the guys speaks English and tells me it will be kept at the check point until I leave. I wanted to ask to keep the loo roll, but there would be nowhere for me to put it. Oh well. Let’s hope I either don’t need to go or they have nice toilets!
The pictures I’ve included are ones from the internet of what I either know or think are the things are.

We walk around the whole base, it was huge. To say we walked all of it is actually a lie; we walked around the walking around bits. There were huge ranges for various weapons, artillery pieces and vehicle driving. It takes about an hour to see everything. Then I get asked the question...
“Have you ever driven a tank?”
“No, I’ve never driven a tank!”
“Ah! Come, come!”

There is a line of tanks at the edge of a massive range and driving... place. They were all the same type, I’m pretty sure they were American M60’s. We did a few circuits, inside the noise is insane. They showed me the controls as they drove around. It was a series of leavers, not a steering wheel (not that I can drive a car anyway) and was fairly simple. I sat in the drivers seat and did a couple of laps.

Then I was shown where to drive off the lap. He took over and lined us up against a seriously long range. There are two places you can fire the main gun from, the driver’s seat and the gunners seat. There is a computer that does most of the calculating, and it was all in Thai I couldn’t understand any of it. From the driver’s seat there is a trigger. The guy did some things on the screen and then pointed at the trigger. I smiled, looked through the front window/site thing, and fired.

It was deafening. Even more than the engine. The whole thing shook violently and my concentration on the outside was totally thrown off. A few seconds of ‘what the hell’ passed, and I looked out window sight again. There was a smouldering hole down the range.

After the tank it was the helicopter.

“Ever flown in a helicopter?”
“Nope, I’ve never flown in a helicopter!”

There was a huge hanger full of helicopters and a few were lined outside. About an hour or so of talking and we have some pilots. I get the helmet, the pilots helmet and climb into the back. The copter looked like the kind the American’s used in Vietnam. For someone who is as interested in stuff like this, I don’t really know details so I can’t say for sure. Everything today is so loud! Seriously! We fly around, but I’m strapped in for the ride. We do a lot of weaving, up and down quickly, and generally everything to make it feel amazing and make me feel sick!

After the ride we move onto the weapons range. I cycle through the rifles, shoot an AK47 (dream!) and then get handed an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade). I fired it down range; it flew away and looked like it was going pretty straight. The suddenly it veered off to the side and upwards.

It hit the side of an old, rusted out truck next to the range and exploded. It wasn’t a Hollywood style explosion. It was more like a firework bang, not a big fireball or anything. But it had clearly basted a hole in the side of the truck, and quickly started burning.
“Bollocks!!” I shouted, and everyone around me started laughing!
“Don’t worry! Is target!”
Thank god.

I must have spent two hours on that range! It was too much fun. Suddenly the day was over and we left the base very quickly. Handshakes were insisted upon, instead of the Thai bow, my bag was returned and we headed back to the school. Arriving just after school had finished and most of the kids had left I spoke with the teachers.
“You have fun?”
“Yes!”
“Tonight... dinner?”
“Erm not sure...”
“Ben! Pizza! One hour.”

What a perfect day.