TRAVEL: SOUTHEAST ASIA - PROLOGUE

Why? Couldn’t tell you. Last week, spent too much, drank too much, ate not enough. Strange times. Feel I will miss England, winter a season of some content. Too much time to anticipate my return; neither fearful nor hopeful, happy nor sad. Asia Minor, the least fond continent, now to be conquered because it’s cheap. New Zealand awaits; in-between mystery and chore. But why? Couldn’t tell you…

Flight not as bad as expected. From the window I’m guessing Afghanistan: an eerie landscape, flat, parched, populated with black dots. How I’d loath to be going there...

It wasn’t my idea to go. It was Louise, my partner, she wanted to go. And then our friend, S, wanted to go, and then I figured I may as well go too because I’d been saying for months how I had taken my job as far it could go, so what better time to indulge in the modern day Grand Tour they call ‘backpacking’.

A well-travelled friend of mine had said that she could imagine I was the sort who would take to seeing a bit of the world. Another had regaled me with tales pertaining to the islands off Thailand’s east coast, and advised I go for it. Still I was unsure, and if my lady friend had not pressed the issue then I may well have never got around to it.

My chief concern was that, logistically, the whole operation seemed more hassle than it was worth – booking flights, riding trains, catching buses, renting rooms. What’s more, I had no idea about how you went about something like this, or even the time it was supposed to take. The anecdotal evidence passed on to me often skimmed over such banalities, homing in on the kicks and the culture shocks and the drunken parties. No matter how much I heard first-hand about what it was actually like to lead an itinerant existence in some far off land, I just couldn't picture actually doing it.

If these sound like excuses then they probably were; wasn't jumping into the unknown supposed to be what it was all about? And so with a vague idea of where we wanted to go and for how long, Louise, S and I made our way to a travel agent in Ealing and made the necessary arrangements. After much deliberation, it was decided that we would fly to Bangkok in November, to New Zealand in March, and then back home in April by way of Bangkok. The flight from Bangkok to Auckland in New Zealand would require we change aeroplanes in Sydney, Australia. (We could have stopped in Sydney if we liked, but I wanted to keep the more expensive part of the trip down to a minimum and figured that we would need at least a month to do New Zealand justice. I was right.) S didn't fancy the New Zealand leg of the trip and would fly back from Bangkok towards the end of February, or so he said.

It is worth mentioning that at the time of our departure the USA and the UK were making noises about going to war against Iraq. I cannot quite remember at what stage proceedings were at the time, but I do seem to recall that UN sanctioned weapons’ inspections were being given a final chance to come up with the goods. It was Colin Powell’s belief – the then US Secretary of State – that to go through the proper channels would eventually force the UN to acquiesce and support whatever action the United States deemed necessary, which turned out not to be the case. In any case, I remember receiving emails conveying a sense of apprehension and gloom as to the direction in which Anthony Blair – the then British Prime Minister – was taking the country. By the time I reached Laos, people were involving themselves in mass protest. In Cambodia I was too caught up in that nation’s own tragic past to notice. Finally, while we were in New Zealand, it all kicked off.

CNN, the BBC World News Service and the delightful Bangkok Post conveyed this information. I watched with interest, but it was background mostly; I found the local news in the Bangkok Post more intriguing, as well as the crosswords and the cartoon strip Bizarro. However, over time I became very mindful of not being mistaken for a citizen of the United States of America, who bore the brunt of the responsibility. Such concerns were supplemented when one met Canadians.

On my return to England, my friend, J, whose travelling extended way beyond my own, told me of how somewhere in a remote region of Laos he was mistaken for an American. Riding a public bus, it became apparent that the locals took a strong dislike to J’s presumed country of origin. They had very little understanding of the English language, and so his protests to the contrary fell on deaf ears. With events becoming all the more heated, J eventually stumbled upon two words they understood: 'David' and 'Beckham'. On uttering these units of language, the prospect of conflict quickly dissipated and J suddenly found himself among friends. It is a reflection of the stamp of the respect this accidental ambassador carries that the mere mention of him can extricate an Englishman from a potentially violent situation. So if you find yourself in a spot of bother in a far flung place, then just declare yourself English, 'you know, like David Beckham.’