TRAVEL: SOUTHEAST ASIA 4 - PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN AND CHUMPHON

27/11/02: Check out of All Nations and get a bus to Prachuap Khiri Khan. Find guesthouse with some difficulty. ‘Women’s Own’ for drinks, eat bland seafood, try a few other bars, and end up drunk at The Coconut.

General observations concerning Thailand:

1. Thais drive fast and take chances.

2. There are so many palm trees that, the odd hill aside, the landscape can get a bit repetitive after a while.

3. All the dogs seem to be on Valium.

Prachuap Khiri Khan could not have been more different from Hua Hin. The place felt like it had recently been evacuated, with only a few stubborn cynics holding out for company. The only reason for going there was to allow S more time to recuperate, before pushing on towards our target destination of Surat Thani. So we ended up taking in places like Prachuap Khiri Khan and Chumphon along the way, and, despite not having much to offer the weary traveller, our adventure was better off for it.

After our previous experience with the train we decide to give the bus a go, which proves to be a success. As well as the terrifying speed of the trip, we benefit from air-conditioning and allocated seats.

On arrival we head coastward past an excitable playground full of school children, who don’t get to holler at foreigners very often (and obviously haven’t been told of the need to evacuate), to where our guidebook informs us a hostel resides. This takes us all of about 10 minutes, although establishing which building is in fact our potential flophouse probably takes as much again. The dour frontages that align the street make telling the buildings apart almost impossible, and without any apparent physical signage it takes a process of elimination to identify our contender. When we finally do, we then have to negotiate with some listless gentleman, who has no understanding of English whatsoever, to establish precisely what our requirements are (you’d have thought it was obvious). After much gesticulation and nervous giggling we finally succeed in conveying our intent and are offered reasonably priced accommodation.

Our buoyant mood is curtailed somewhat by the state of the rooms. Dirty, sparse and slightly sinister – like something very bad might have happened in them – S finds himself blocking ominous holes in the skirting board with his shaving foam. He also discovers a dead, petrified frog under his bed. Hanging around in these chambers does not appeal, so we make for the waterfront – for Prachuap Khiri Khan overlooks a rather picturesque bay – in search of somewhere to eat, stumbling upon an amiable café with the curious moniker of Plern Smud (later to be attributed the title ‘Woman’s Own’, such is the matriarchal nature of its operation). The fish isn’t great but is served with a bemused smile.

Just up the road is a bar called The Coconut, which does very nicely. The three of us are the only customers and it remains that way for the rest of the night. The proprietor is more than happy to serve us Beer Chang for as long as we want it, and he emerges from watching TV in his living room – such as it is – every now and then to check that we haven’t run dry.

He must have made a killing that night (not once did we see anybody else dining there throughout the duration of our stay) and we returned the next day for (American) breakfast, and again that evening after we’d tried a few other equally low-key establishments in the area, finding them wanting.

28/11/02: Go to climb up a hill but are intercepted by monkeys. Walk back along the waterfront and have tea at Women’s Own. End up back at The Coconut for drinks and get mobbed by various insects.

There is nothing to do in the town of Prachuap Khiri Khan except get drunk, but it has a certain charm. Looking out onto a bay flanked by two imperious rock formations, the place just sits there doing nothing. There is an abundance of healthy-looking 50s functionalist architecture, though, a stark contrast to the scarred counterparts that you see around Bangkok.

Drinking in The Coconut on that second evening, we were ‘attacked’ by all manner of insects, and to this day we recognise the 28th November as Bug Day. It could quite equally have been denominated Monkey Day. In our guidebook, Mirror Mountain is the only feature of note, aside from the bay itself, attributed to this sleepy backwater, but our attempt to climb the thing was quickly nipped in the bud by the sheer amount of monkeys that hang out around and presumably on this solitary hillock. A shame but we had not the sufficient experience of dealing with simians to know how to anticipate their behaviour. The bag of bananas that S was carrying around probably didn’t help.

Or maybe we should have settled on General Creature Day. Given the proximity of our hotel to The Coconut, rather than trouble the proprietor for the repeated use of his toilet, my partner would go back to our room and use the facilities there. On one such occasion she returned to our booze-sodden company in some distress: something large had dashed behind the bathroom mirror – a lizard in all likelihood. Dispatched back to our domicile to sweep the room for intruders, none were apparent.

The following morning my partner found substantial bite marks embedded in her vulcanized wash-bag and the soap contained therein, suggesting a rat had been snooping around as we slept, for they were too substantial and frenzied in nature for the alleged lizard to be the culprit. Insects, monkeys, reptiles, amphibians and hungry mammals – all were present and correct in Prachuap Khiri Khan.

29/11/02: Breakfast at Woman’s Own; the eggs resemble screwed up tissues. Get lifts on scooters to bus-stop on the highway, buy tickets off very cool man and get the bus to Chumphon. Arrive at Chumphon: get lifts on more scooters, find guesthouse, have improved seafood in open air restaurant, a few drinks at Gossips, before ending up at a cockroach-infested bar for a nightcap.

The other education Prachuap Khiri Khan provided was that of the scooter. Assuming, quite rationally I think, that the bus to Chumphon would depart from where we’d been put down on our arrival, we shunned a tuk-tuk driver’s offer to take us to the station. Had we checked our guidebook his bemused insistence would have made total sense, because the pick-up point lay a good mile out of town along the main highway.

We discover this on arriving at the point we had disembarked two days earlier. A group of Thai lads are kicking back, and they laugh openly at our mistake – a common re-action to any misunderstanding in the Orient. 'No problem,' they say, 'we can give you a lift.' Great, which car? 'No car – jump on these scooters – 80 baht each.' The thought of two grown adults and a large rucksack perched upon some tiny 125cc scooter seems reckless, but we don’t really have any other option.

Once we get going it’s quite pleasant, the wind blowing through our hair, the open road, hanging on to the handlebar on the back of the seat for dear life. Then suddenly we execute a U-turn and pull off onto some dirt-track side road. I recall the live burial scene from the film Casino and glance back to catch S’s face sporting a nervous grin. Passports, money, plane tickets, bank cards… it would be worth it, surely? A shallow grave just outside of some dead-beat town where farang (‘farang’ being a generic Thai word for anyone of European ancestry) never normally think to venture.

Then we turn the corner and we’re back on the highway. I guess it was just a shortcut. We pay our drivers their generously paltry fee and are left in the hands of some Thai dude who seems to have modelled himself on James Dean, or perhaps John Travolta circa Grease. He attempts communication but I cannot understand a word that he is saying. Finally: 'Sit Down!' I do, very quickly, and break my sunglasses, which are hanging out of my back pocket. The bus arrives within about half an hour, and the journey to Chumphon hardly seems worth the momentary terror, taking a little over three hours.

Except it hasn't really. As before, but in reverse, we’ve been dumped at the side of the highway, and we’ll have to find our own way into town from here. This time they’re waiting for us – in force. A group of scooter drivers have clocked our stupid, white faces as we’ve stood up out of seats. As soon as we step off the bus we're surrounded. With a mixture of nonchalance and plain dalliance we try to convey that we would rather find our own way into town, and we’re a bit too hot and bothered to make a move just yet. Before we do anything else we’re going to look for somewhere to have a drink.

It unfolds right before our eyes. This boisterous rabble have headed us off at the pass and the ringleader is now stood there with a selection of pop he’s procured from the vendor located there. It’s the perfect retort to our protests. I show them the map and ask how far it is to town. I am being given a figure of about eight kilometres. I take this as an exaggeration, but it's plain to see we cannot walk it, so once again we’re forced to comply.

Halfway through our journey S’s cap frees itself from his head. His scooter is in the lead so my driver stops so we can pick it up. The journey is comfortably eight kilometres, just as they said it would be, and Louise has given herself a ‘Bangkok Tattoo’ in the process, a common injury sustained among people of our kidney. It takes the form of a circular burn received when dismounting the scooter on the wrong side, thus depressing the inside of one’s lower leg on the exposed, super-heated exhaust pipe. It hurts for sure, but so would have an eight kilometres walk.

The best thing to come out of all this is the fact that we’ve been dropped outside of what looks like a professionally run tourist information centre. We require a place to stay for the night and we need to know how to get to Surat Thani – our final destination before we head to the islands – and this place has all the answers. Within half an hour we’re sat in the back of a pick-up truck on our way to our chosen guesthouse.

What a guesthouse it is. Built entirely out of wood, it’s the hottest building I’ve set foot in since my arrival, with the quaintest interior décor to boot. (We decide to name the place ‘Barbara Cartland’ in tribute to the then recently deceased novelist.) In next to no time we’re out on the landing drinking a beer in a vain effort to cool ourselves down.

Dinner is had in a very pleasant outdoor restaurant, our order taken by a very nice lady who we imagine may once have plied her trade back at Women’s Own but had both the drive and temerity to leave Prachuap Khiri Khan and make a go of it in Chumphon. S and I have the fish, while my partner reverts to type and has some sort of curry – ‘green’ probably. It’s good food – spicy food – and sets us up nicely for the evening ahead.

We hadn’t planned on drinking tonight, but Barbara Cartland is no place to be on a sultry night like this. So instead, once we’ve eaten, we hit a bar called Gossips where a young Thai gentleman appears to take a fancy to me. It is a good excuse to move on to another bar and carry on drinking.

We find an establishment around the corner from our guesthouse, and it's a strange one. A bit like The Hendrix, it’s basically a collection of seats gathered under tarpaulin, although the bar itself looks a little more solid than that rickety shack back in Bangkok. Cockroaches infest the surrounding pot-plants, their vulgar form silhouetted against the streetlight.

The next morning we are awoken by a combination of intense heat, bright light (the curtains are mere doilies) and a whole host of unbidden noises emanating from the neighbouring courtyards: birds, dogs, monkeys (tethered on chains) and who knows what else. It’s just as well we need to be up early for our minibus, and I’m glad to be on the move again.

TRAVEL: SOUTHEAST ASIA 3 - HUA HIN

22/11/02: Leave Bangkok for Hua Hin with J and H. Wait around in station for some hours, sit on train for some more hours, arrive at destination and find a hotel – nice room but no windows or hot water. Go for tea on pier, storm, early night.

The stretch of coast that runs south from Bangkok to Surat Thani is not utilised to any great degree by persons travelling in Thailand, as became all the more apparent as we made what would be a week-long trip towards the province of Surat Thani. Our first stop – Hua Hin – was supposed to be reachable in just over four hours by train, but the likelihood of this being the case looked less with each pause we were forced to make at what seemed like every level-crossing we encountered. Ultimately, it would take nearer seven, the Thai police being partially to blame for this considerable delay to our schedule.

It must have been around 18:30 when what appeared to be another routine crossing evolved into something more. Hanging from the open door of my carriage, I saw policemen approaching, employing their heavy torches to tease out detail from beneath the train. I cannot recall from where I got the idea, but I presumed that they were on the look-out for some drug fiend clinging to the under-carriage, desperate but brave. Maybe not, I never knew and didn’t care much, such was my physical discomfort. The seats on our train were covered in red leather and our bare legs stuck to the material. Windows were kept open, but the ponderous pace of the train meant this made little difference. On top of that there was the constant drone of the hawkers to contend with: peddlers pushing their polystyrene packed egg-fried-rice in everyone’s general direction. I did not dare touch their produce, although I was curious. I figured it might be too tailored to the Thai palate, to which I was not yet fully accustomed.

The peculiarity of being shacked up in these minimal hulks aside, it was actually an enjoyable trip, passing through the countryside and trying to get a handle on how, physically, this subtropical landscape might pan out. Leaving the immediate vicinity of Bangkok itself, I was given a demonstration of a poverty that had previously been hidden from view. Wooden shanty style habitations backed out directly onto train tracks, and, at the precise juncture where our track divided into two, we even passed two people sat down at a table, as if for a game of chess.

The abundance of litter was quite a shock because up until that point I had been impressed by the lack of it. All was explained as the journey progressed and our Thai friends casually despatched of their empty polystyrene egg-fried-rice cartons out of the window. This flagrant ejection seemed to be confined to the railways, for I saw no evidence of such wanton disposal beyond its perimeter. Nor did I see anything too wowing to the eye, although as night fell you could occasionally make out a mysterious silhouette far and beyond, hinting at a landscape made up of more than just palms and tall grasses.

We reached Hua Hin at approximately 21:00. Had I been alone I would have been concerned as to the viability of finding a place to stay at such an hour. J and H were unperturbed, so I simply disembarked and enjoyed my first real taste of fresh Thai air. It did not take long to find a hostel with rooms to spare, although the location wasn’t ideal; bars of ill repute surrounded it.

By 21:45 we found ourselves on the end of a small jetty ordering seafood, rice, a couple of beers. The meal was delectable but before we could finish we were ambushed by an approaching thunderstorm, obliging us to hastily transfer the contents of our table to another that provided a modicum of protection. By the time the bill was settled the storm was in full effect, so we beat a hasty retreat into a nearby Austrian-themed bar, miniature cowbells and roughly sketched alpine vistas adorning the walls.

23/11/02: J and H leave Hua Hin and we leave our guesthouse, decamping to the All Nations.  Stroll about town, check out beach. Evening: go for expensive pizza, realise that we’re hanging in the posh part of town so go to the pier for drinks and watch storms passing out to sea. Get back to hotel to find it hosts quite a scene by night – play pool and get drunk.

Hua Hin – or should that be Berlin-on-Sea. There are divisions of hirsute Germans everywhere (I haven’t mentioned the war). As a holiday resort it hasn’t much to offer, but as a place to recover from the impact of Bangkok it serves a purpose. With a Hilton hotel hovering over a high street made up of restaurants and fashion boutiques, it presides over the gulf of Thailand like some sort of Aryan retirement home.

Relief from this distinctly Bavarian order can be found in the smaller bars and the many restaurants dotted along the seafront. Here you can eat the best sea bass you might ever taste, although it comes at a price of 200 odd baht (not much in English terms, but relative to Thailand as a whole it’s steep).

Other than that, all you can do is sit back and drink the beer. This place must be hell in high-season. Unless, of course, you are retired, rich, European and like moustaches.

Last night’s storm conveyed to J and H that Hua Hin was not the place to currently be. It appeared the rainy season had the south of Thailand firmly in its grasp, so after breakfast they jumped on a train heading north. Louise and I booked into the All Nations, a guesthouse that was to be our home for the next three nights, and bedded in to await S’s arrival.

I am travelling very light on the advice of a friend – the same friend who, 'regaled me with tales pertaining to the islands off Thailand’s east coast,’ and, 'vehemently recommended I get out of Bangkok.' His opinion is that most people who embark on their travels will over-pack, and he can testify to his own experience.

After completing a 'tour of duty' similar to my own, he arrived in Australia only to discover unworn clothes that had almost rotted away within the bowels of his oversized rucksack. Why was this? He reasoned thus. Carrying around soiled cloth is neither desirable nor practical, and so he had exorcised his dirty cargo on a fairly regular basis. On retrieving his laundered clothes they would then be returned to the top of the pecking order, a reorganisation of his mobile wardrobe being deemed too troublesome under such peripatetic circumstances, consigning the clothes at the bottom to their festering plight. He therefore concluded that little more than a week’s worth of attire would have been sufficient. I have taken his advice on board and brought with me the following accoutrements:

1 pair of dark grey Levi’s cords

1 pair of light brown Levi’s cords

1 pair of home-cut denim shorts

1 long sleeved shirt

1 vintage short sleeved shirt, bought from a charity shop in Hounslow circa 1996

1 vintage Fred Perry polo shirt with left breast pocket, bought from a charity shop in Hounslow circa 1997

1 second hand white ribbed T-shirt

1 white V-neck T-shirt

1 yellow V-neck Wrangler T-shirt, bought cheap in Clarks Village, Somerset, and my current favourite

1 pair of new, cream Converse All Star Chuck Taylor high-top trainers, which I will never fully take to

1 pair of cheap desert boots, which I will wear as long as it isn’t raining

1 Ron Hill anorak that my uncle handed down to me in 1989

1 black Marks and Sparks jumper, bought from a charity shop in Hounslow circa 1998

7 pairs of underpants

9 pairs of socks

1 ‘quick-drying’ towel

1 notebook

1 pen

1 Walkman and a few cassettes

1 pair of portable speakers, which will be deliberately left behind in a hotel room, due to their cumbersome nature

Various toiletries.

The truth is I have probably under packed a little, especially where T-shirts and shorts are concerned, but cramming all this into my 25 litre rucksack requires some effort. Indeed, so diminutive is my bag that when people see me in transit they tend to assume that I’m only here for a couple of weeks. However, I am planning on buying along the way – if I can only find a T-shirt that doesn’t allude to marijuana use, booze or the presence of landmines.

24/11/02: My partner wanted to sunbath but I didn’t, so I ordered coffee and read the paper. Went to fish restaurant, a bar, back to All Nations, played pool with ‘the lads’, got drunk. A good day.

Hua Hin is an odd and not particularly arresting locale, yet I ended up liking it simply as a space to relax and observe the many storms passing by out to sea. It was all very peaceful, which is maybe why the King of Thailand likes to holiday there – apparently, it is his favourite haunt.

The German contingent made me feel like an outsider, which I quite liked, and although the town was not particularly pretty in itself, the clean air and quiet streets were enough to see me through. The lack of people was the perfect antidote to what I had suffered in Bangkok, and it was nice to feel in control of my personal space. By day I took pleasure in hanging around in the bar of our hostel, reading the Bangkok Post, drinking coffee and watching the labourers lay the jade coloured paving slabs that were delivered every morning to the side of the road. The availability of decent fish was a boon to my stomach and there was a simple air of safety about the place.

Yet something was up. The huge water-tank in the communal bathroom really gave me the creeps, walking around town put me on edge, and I spent too much of my time holed up in my room reading while Louise lazed around on the beach.

Funnily enough, the tome that currently had my attention was a novel entitled Are You Experienced by Mr William Sutcliffe, a (possibly) semi-autobiographical account of being dragged around India because the protagonist’s object of affection demands it. Tinged with no small degree of cynicism towards the travelling fraternity, I could relate to the subject at hand. But there were very few actual travellers holidaying in Hua Hin, just middle-aged, European tourists. Was this what travelling was really supposed to be about: playing at being retired and hanging out in bars? Those islands that everybody talked about would more than likely provide me with answers, but at this point they couldn’t be further from my mind.

25/11/02: Go to the nearest Internet café to check and send emails. S arrives, so help him book into the All Nations – he has the roof terrace with an even bigger and more frightening water-tank than ours. Once he’s had a nap, we take him out for dinner, stroll around town and then back to All Nations for a nightcap, whereupon S retreats to bed completely exhausted.

26/11/02: Went back to the hotel whence we stayed on our first night in Hua Hin for a spot of breakfast, because we’d been impressed the first time around. Pick up laundry and check my emails again. Later, go to Cindy’s for drinks, the ‘Friendly Bar’ (possibly an invented name) and then back to All Nations. Not as heavy a night as this itinerary suggests.

S's flight landed on Monday 25 November, eleven days after ours and what felt like an age. We did our best to show S a good time, but he was playing catch-up. On leaving the airport he had ridden a taxi straight to the train station and caught the first available charter to Hua Hin, albeit with a lot less fuss than we had endured. Understandably, S opted for some very early nights over the next two, but stayed up long enough on the second to plan with us what was to be our next move, proceeding a short way south to the town of Prachuap Khiri Khan.

TRAVEL: SOUTHEAST ASIA 2 - STILL IN BANGKOK

18/11/02: Wally’s for breakfast (mediocre). The Royal Palace and the Reclining Buddha for some sight-seeing. Gulliver’s for tea, Dong Dea Moon and The Hendrix for drinks, early night.

Never get in the tuk-tuk. I didn't get in the tuk-tuk, which is just as well. What often happens is that the tuk-tuk driver will insist on taking you on a tour of all the local sights, before subtly dropping in that he needs to pick up his gorilla suit from the dry cleaners on the way (or something like that). What he really wants to do is take you round his mates’ house so he can SELL you a gorilla suit, at a hugely inflated rate. Primate attire don’t come cheap.

I am amused by Buddhas. They’re everywhere. There is even a temple built especially to house a huge reclining one. ‘Golden Gigantic Reclining Buddha’ it reads on the postcards, and they do not lie. The thing is a theistic behemoth, just lying there looking content. Anyhow, there are Buddhas everywhere, in all shapes and sizes, mostly golden and all with the same beatific grin.

19/11/02: Back to Wally’s for breakfast – far better this time. Visit Wat Saket (the Golden Mount) where you can see for miles. Got a bit miffed after being hassled by some local type, and the area was a bit rough all around. Went for food somewhere out of the way – bad move: food passably bland. Return to Hole in the Wall in the evening, get chatting to some Danish chap and bet some more with Pipi.

Bangkok simultaneously evokes pity and envy. Around the Golden Mount are streets filled with the stench of rotting waste and general poverty, yet this is not a third world country by any means. The beggars are benign in manner, as are the dogs. The con-artists play fair and the only reason you ever feel threatened is because sometimes things seem so unassuming it arouses your suspicion.

Everything functional is made of minimally reinforced concrete, and it looks great: so simple it gives the city a wonderful cohesion leaving centre stage to the glorious temples and Buddhas scattered liberally throughout the metropolis. But it must be quite a full-on place to take up residence. There are malnourished, disease-ridden canines everywhere, homeless people not much better off, street urchins with baby bats in hand hawking chewing gum and tissues, and a general air of licentiousness that makes Soho in London feel pedestrian. All this in temperatures that rarely seem to dip below 30 degrees Celsius. When it rains, though, it really rains. The lightning flickers on after the storm has passed and the thunder can no longer be heard, like a lamp with a bad connection.

20/11/02: Wally’s again, then north to see another Buddha at Wat Indrawihan, and dogs fighting. Internet café, bar with spinning orb, Gulliver’s for tea, back to hotel for an early night.

21/11/02: Do mundane things, then pop into The Hendrix for a shandy and bump into J and H. Have another drink, go our separate ways, eat pizza on Khao San Road and then meet up with J and H around the corner from The Hendrix for evening drinks. Rain, then another bar, yet more rain, even harder now, thunder, the works.

After six days spent kicking around Bangkok, we were fast running out of things to see and do; as much as I like Giant Golden Buddhas they do sort of all look the same. Come Wednesday and I had been to Wally’s for breakfast three days on the trot, and every day, expect for the first, for what they discern to be an American Breakfast. It turns out this is a standard interpretation in Thailand, consisting of two slices of toast, two fried eggs, two slices of something masquerading as ham (sometimes you get the option of bacon instead) a conserve of marmalade/jam, margarine, a side order of fruit (usually pineapple, water melon or banana) and either a cup of tea or coffee. For re-hydration purposes, I would back this up with a pineapple shake, given that most mornings I was grappling with a hangover of varying degrees.

We walk north up Samsen Road to investigate Wat Indrawihan and look over yet another Buddha, dodging tuk-tuk drivers along the way, having to contrive a very elaborate excuse at one point. When we get there a man offers to free a predetermined number of caged birds for a not insubstantial amount of money. I decline this sad opportunity for obvious reasons: if I collude, he’ll then have to catch more birds to replace the ones he’s set free, thus perpetuating the cruel cycle.

It is peaceful here, save for a couple of dogs gnarling at each other while laughing children look on, goading them cruelly, like something out of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. Then it’s back towards the Khao San Road to think very hard about our impending movements.

The plan was to hang around in Bangkok until a number (three) of our colleagues caught up with us, and then make a move en masse, but we are yet to receive the relevant emails indicating when this might be. Should we make a move now regardless, as another Southeast Asian veteran, in a recent email, has vehemently recommended I do? Or are we better served holding out for the arrival of our cadres? We decide to give it another couple of days, but on the next our minds our decided for us.

Drinking in The Hendrix late in the afternoon, two of our expected entourage breeze right on past. J and H are well travelled and their sudden presence is reassuring. It materialises that they arrived in Bangkok that very morning. Furthermore, they do not anticipate staying for a day longer. And so it is agreed. Tomorrow we will head southwards, and S, the last member of our party scheduled to arrive, will have to follow on when he finally shows up. (He’d originally been booked to come out on the same flight as me and Louise but had to reschedule, for various reasons.) These arrangements are willingly received, if only in lieu of a will to commit to anything else.

Later, we meet our friends for a drink at their hotel – just around the corner from The Hendrix – a place with the most rudimentary of dormitories – charged appropriately – which from their description makes our humble dwelling seem extravagant. At least their hotel has a bar. We do some drinking. Then we do some walking. Another storm pounces and we dive down an alley for cover. At the end of said alley is the smallest drinking establishment in the world – at least, I’ve not been to one smaller. Slightly more relaxed now,  tomorrow’s jump into the unknown no longer represents the unthinkable. I’d go as far as to say that our impending departure actually excites me.

TRAVEL: SOUTHEAST ASIA 1 - BANGKOK

14/11/02: Arrive and book in at the Asia Hotel. Go to a bar called The Rock across the road where a covers band play quality renditions of other people's hits (for example, My Sharona by The Knack). Local beer appears to be quite potent. Proceed to get thoroughly plastered.

Customs is pleasingly slick and Bangkok’s airport surprisingly modern. There aren’t people clamouring for your attention and there are no beggars. This does not surprise me at the time but retrospectively it will seem odd. I guess such places exist in their own world, exempt from the conditions and the customs of their host country.

Step outside and the predicament really hits home, the heat and the miasma and the noise illustrating the distance travelled. I sit down for a moment while my lady friend asks somebody about buses. It is a straight-forward operation and within 20 minutes we are aboard a moving vehicle. It is approximately 15:00.

The airport – as airports often are – is located a little way out of town, and it takes some while for us to breach a suburbia comprised of parking lots, warehouses selling car-parts, garden centres and green fields dotted with grazing cattle. Quite a sight, then, as we near this city’s hub: all tall buildings, advertisement hoardings and flyovers, a metropolis of intimidating proportions.

So this is Asia, this is inter-continental travel, and nothing has prepared me for it. The conductor lets us know when our bus reaches the intended point of disembarkation. I’m desperate to escape the stultifying humidity, to change clothes and discard any traces of airborne travel. Mercifully, the Asia Hotel is not hard to find and we book in without too much trouble (although a little more than you’d think: they give our paperwork a thorough going over). Ours will be a basic room with air conditioning, a television, mini-bar, and not much else. The décor within will be rather drab in hue and the bathroom will have seen better days. The view from our window has something dystopian about it: a yellow haze with geometric shapes fading into the distance. It doesn’t correspond with any vista I’d preconceived of. It’s not like Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong or Mumbai – cities I’ve not been to but which have been impressed upon me vicariously by the likes of Michael Palin and Alan Whicker.

It is nice to be able to stretch your legs and have a shower after such an arduous journey. I am not as hungry as I should be but do have a terrible urge to drink. After venturing no further than 50 metres in either direction of our hotel, we settle for a bar across the street called The Rock. It is pretty empty inside, save for a group of Thai musicians executing competent renditions of other people’s hits. It’s actually Karaoke night, although every night could be Karaoke night for all I know. Nobody seems willing to take part, and you can count me out – I’m just here to familiarise myself with the local beer. Despite my fatigue, I opt to get really rather drunk in an attempt to ameliorate the strange, otherworldliness of the situation.

15/11/02: Have buffet breakfast at hotel. Leave to seek suggested accommodation on the Khao San Road – they call it a palace! Gulliver’s for food – pork chops have never tasted so good. Weather very hot but a thunderstorm alleviates the humidity. Find Hole in the Wall, play pool, get drunk and talk to English couple. Three ‘Beer Changs’ for the price of two.

Bangkok is a beast of a city. It reminds me of the sprawling metropolis from the computer game Grand Theft Auto, only if Hounslow Borough Council had been given the job of maintaining it for the previous 30 years. This is to say that a lot of the low rise buildings have been poorly maintained, giving rise to dirty, concrete fascias, although litter is conspicuous by its absence. Among the rudimentary construction, the city is regularly punctuated with pristine monuments and temples.

The next day, after a disappointingly insubstantial buffet breakfast, we check out and get a bus to the Khao San Road. If I thought it was hot when I arrived then have I got a surprise coming to me. Our bus stop offers shade but is ineffectual. The bus itself is even worse. There is no air-conditioning, just wooden framed windows that push outwards at the top, and the traffic is heavy, emitting fumes that prohibit the influx of any draft that might ordinarily be generated by the speed of such a vehicle. We then miss our stop and have to walk back over an imposing bridge that crosses the Chao Phraya River, fully laden, under the midday sun.

By the time we reach the Khao San Palace – a guesthouse recommended to us by friends, because it’s cheap and conveniently located – I am drenched with sweat. Thankfully, booking in is a pleasingly straight-forward process. We are given a key with a plank of wood attached, presumably to prevent us from losing it, and shown to our room, which is basic and small with no air-conditioning to speak of, just a Bakelite fan spinning precariously from the middle of the ceiling. But the room is very cheap (about 350 baht, which works out at about £5) and I suppose we should be grateful for the two scrawny, orange hand towels that come with it.

After a shower and a change of clothes, I visit the internet café at the end of the road to check in with anybody who cares; only the Khao San Road stands in my way. I have established that I will be confronted by taxi drivers the moment I reach the end of the tiled floor that acts as some sort of outdoor atrium, with a pharmacy just on the right. Anticipating this, I keep my head down, mumble something in English and break on through this commercial picket line with relative ease. I then feel an invisible force guiding me down the centre of this semi-pedestrianised zone, protecting me from the unwanted attention of the hawkers, eager restaurant staff and crippled beggars intermittently lining the street. For a short while, I am completely oblivious to the unremitting heat and humidity, until some vehicle starts snaking its way through the throng and I catch the smell of hot diesel mixed in with the aroma of unknown food-stuffs and stagnant drains. If this wasn’t enough, my fellow travellers are already annoying me. What’s with the cornrows, tattoos, beads, baggy clothes and the lax attitude? I’m not sure what I was expecting – more deference perhaps.

The internet café exudes a mellower timbre, and I can relax a little. Working the computer is a laboured affair, but at least it's cool here. I have no idea what I want to do or where I want to specifically be, but the idea of being out of doors seems particularly unappealing.

My appetite is starting to show signs of recovery from the disorientating effects of long-haul travel. We look for somewhere to eat and opt for Gulliver’s at the end of the road, by virtue of its air conditioning. The place is done out like a bar back home: dark stained wood, sport related paraphernalia, spirits piled high behind the counter. We are served from our table, which brings with it a welcome sense of formality. I order the pork chops in pepper sauce with fries, which has a positive effect. As does the darkening sky, painting everything in a more colourful and exciting light. We find a bar called The Hole in the Wall, play some pool and get drunk.

16/11/02: Wally’s for brunch; walk to a gallery and then down to the river; back to our hotel and then to Gulliver’s again, this time for egg fried rice; then to Dong Dea Moon; back to Hole in the Wall where ‘Pipi’ scams me for 40 baht via the medium of pool.

17/11/02: Breakfast followed by a spot of mild depression and a certain anxiety. Take a nap, followed by a shower, buy fresh pineapple from a street trader and feel all the better for it. Come the evening we’re out drinking again and discover two new bars: Dong Dea Moon and what we decide to call ‘The Hendrix’.

That first week took some getting used to, not least because of the fervid heat and humidity. Lying spreadeagled on our bead, with the fan rotating as fast as its modest motor would allow, I just couldn’t get comfortable. The sound of the neighbouring 7-Eleven’s door relentlessly bleeping open and closed, no less incessant by night than it was by day – perhaps even more so – exacerbated my restlessness. Consequently I spent a not insignificant amount of my time boozing. This was not so surprising, given that I was on a kind of protracted holiday, but I had five months of this to get through. If I couldn’t get a hold of myself soon then I might end up developing some sort of drinking problem.

The Hole in the Wall on Khao San Road: a local lad by the name of ‘Pipi’ – a rangy, wide-eyed guy wearing old clothes – insisted I play him at pool. He was a hustler, but charming with it. The bar offered a three-for-the-price-of-two deal on bottles of Chang and Singha. This worked out at no more than 60p for a bottle of premium strength lager (6.4% and 5% respectively), and they’d keep your second and third bottle on ice until you needed it.

On my first visit to the Hole in the Wall I recall being aware of an earthy odour to the water in the washroom. Standing there, sweating buckets – for most of the bars were devoid of air-conditioning – it struck me how completely trapped by my predicament I was, this not un-redolent smell a sort of metaphor for the unfamiliarity that had me in its thrall. I’d committed to five months abroad, and almost four of them in a climate as relentless as this. Counting down the days as a mechanism by which to cope seemed hopelessly futile. How to go about it? I could drink some of the time, but not all the time. Rather than spend the majority of my time in bars, I would need to move around and occupy myself somehow. And what impact would this have on my relationship? I didn’t know. I felt that an extended company of sorts would be hugely beneficial, and meeting up with other people was certainly part of the loose plan. In the meantime I would need to get a grip of myself, maybe think about what I wanted out of all this.

Come Sunday, I had reached something of a watershed. I felt emotionally desolate during the morning, and then, after taking a short nap, I began to feel physically unwell. I tried sleeping some more, with some degree of success, until a fan induced chill had me scrambling for one of the orange hand-towels for protection. Relief was only momentary as I suddenly became aware of an all-encompassing itching about my form. The mild dampness of the towel had attracted many small red ants, creatures that I was now transferring onto my body, encouraging them to bite. They were everywhere, yet I could not identify an obvious point of origin prior to them descending on my miserable rag. There were no holes, no nooks, no nests. The room was clean, I could give it that.

Insects eliminated, and starting to lose my mind, I decided to leave my room and buy pineapple from one of the many street vendors that work the Khao San Road. This proved to be of great benefit and I soon witnessed a significant improvement to my constitution. By the early evening we were out drinking again. What this lugubrious episode represented, I do not  know. Maybe I was suffering from mild heatstroke, or perhaps I was just homesick. Either way, for a while it had me staring into the abyss.

The Mango

There is a road around the corner from the Khao San Road – do a right at Gulliver’s and then first left – where everything feels a bit more laid back (emphasis on ‘a bit’). You can eat out on the street without too much interference, or take a drink in one of the many bars there with travellers who don’t seem so intent on drinking themselves into a stupor. Dong Dea Moon (now deceased) was particularly pleasing, run by a Korean guy who could flick the tops off bottles with the end of a lighter at a high velocity, for entertainment purposes only.

Further on down there used to be The Mango. It amounted to little more than a sort of garden with wooden tables, a wooden bar, a few small trees and a pond, which attracted mosquitoes. But they would often play an old BBC Jimi Hendrix session on rotation, the tunes inter-cut with broadcaster Brian Matthew providing a bit of background on the recording. They didn’t make a big show about calling themselves Mango and so neither did we, referring to it  as ‘The Hendrix’ instead.

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.’