TRAVEL: SOUTHEAST ASIA 12 - BACK TO BANGKOK

06/01/03: Hungover. Spend the day occupying cafes, drinking coffee and eating sandwiches and crisps. Get overnight bus to Bangkok via Surat Thani.

I take the Bangkok Post. The international reportage makes it perfect reading for the 12 hour bus journey from Krabi to Bangkok. Its sports coverage in particular is excellent, giving comprehensive cover of both the FA Cup 3rd Round and The Ashes.

I have mixed feelings about our impending mission. The distance we have to cover is considerable, and I am anticipating it to be physically discomforting. I don’t expect to get much sleep, although my hangover gives rise to the possibility. I’m a little sad to be leaving the south of the country and am apprehensive about this whole Laos-Vietnam thing. I am, however, looking forward to relocating to Bangkok for a few days, something that I wouldn’t have thought possible 50 days ago.

The first part of the trip is straightforward enough: we board a single-decked coach that takes us to Krabi’s bus terminal. On arrival, the vehicular form of the second stage of our journey is as yet unclear. Our previous experience of the larger VIP Bus involved a colourful single-decked coach of modest capacity replete with chrome interior, but I suspect that this was tailored to the hedonistic destination to which we were then travelling. At the other end of the spectrum, we have ridden a cosy minibus from Chumphon to Surat Thani, but I’m not expecting that this will be the case here.

I am now concerned by the amount of people apparently waiting for a similar charter to Bangkok. I am concerned because I have hitherto noticed a tendency to squeeze as many people as possible onto any given bus or coach, with a total disregard for notions of health and safety or comfort. I am also concerned because a few of my fellow travellers are voicing a similar tension. What’s more, the VIP Bus is running late.

My fears are soon allayed when two double-decked buses show up, both bound for Bangkok. True to form, they’re colourful things, adorned with various cartoon characters, and there’s even a TV on board. Closer inspection reveals these vehicles to be older than they appear – a stain here, a cracked air-con funnel there – but they are air-conditioned and they do seem to offer a credible degree of leg-room. I’m reasonably happy, although a little annoyed when our half-full coach alights in Surat Thani, of all places, to fill in the empty spaces.

I’m now getting a handle on how long-haul transport operates in Thailand. There’s nothing really 'VIP' about these buses: they’re just regular, long-distance coaches, with functioning utilities, that charge about twice as much than the alternative public model. This still only works out at about £13 for a 400 mile journey, and it will pick you up and drop you off at locations that are convenient.

The only problem now is the person sat in front of me who insists on reclining her chair as far as its fixtures will allow. I would say something but she’s dabbing at a nasty looking wound on her lower leg. Then her companion politely asks if he can borrow my Bangkok Post, leaving me impotent to do anything other than sit back and suffer.

07/01/03: Bump into 'Mel and Kath' from Haad Yao. Book into the Khao San Palace and take a nap. Wally’s for brunch. Sort out Laos visa and buy Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Gulliver’s for dinner, then Dong Dea Moon. See elephant and talk to yank. Hole in the Wall for a nightcap.

It’s Tuesday, about 05:30 on the Khao San Road, and the previous evening’s entertainment is just winding down. I managed to catch about three hours of sleep on the bus, which for me isn't bad going, and now we’ve got to contend with the lingering detritus from the night before. But there’s an excitement about the place, an energy and a coolness to the air, even though the temperature can’t be much below 25°C.

We have arrived earlier than expected – too early to find lodging. The staff at The Palace advise that we return in a couple of hours, whereupon guests will have checked out and rooms will have been cleaned. After about three hours, breakfast, and many cups of coffee later, The Palace is finally able to provide us asylum. We sleep a little and then hit Wally’s for something to eat, with a new found sense of authority gloriously coursing through my veins. I have no problem waving away the hawkers at lunch, and the pushy tuk-tuk drivers aren’t bothering me in the least. I may not have the most active tan in the world, what with the fair amount of southern cloud cover I’ve endured, but I feel a good deal less conspicuous than some of the paler arrivals that occasionally pass us by.

It seems hotter than it did down south and less humid. These are not perfect conditions for traipsing around and deciding which establishment is best placed to process our visa. It doesn’t really matter because, as with the VIP bus situation, everything’s hooked up to the same infrastructure and prices won’t deviate much from its predetermined course. That’s not to say that it doesn’t hurt to shop around, though, and iron out the possibility that some people somewhere might be trying to squeeze you for more than is good and proper.

We are being told that it will take at least three days to process a visa for Laos. This is not in any way unusual: passports have to be taken to the relevant embassies and are filed accordingly. You could always visit the intended embassy yourself, but I postulate that this would be an approach overly mired in bureaucracy. It seems very much easier to resign ourselves to a few extra days in Bangkok, which I don’t mind at all. I’m starting to feel that the capital offers me some sort of ‘peace at the centre’, a base camp from which to evaluate this whole adventure. The only problem with this course of action is that Bangkok gives me a terrible urge to drink.

Later and we’re back at Gulliver’s taking full advantage of their air conditioning and pork chops in pepper sauce. And when we’ve finished there it’s off to Dong Dea Moon for what turns out to be a relatively quiet night. I talk to a garrulous American sporting a ponytail who regales me with tales of his tight-fisted adventures in Burma. Draped in his own hubris, he proudly examples of how he and a friend refused to disembark from a public bus after being asked to pay double the going rate. Together, they peremptorily declared that it was their right to be charged the same as the Burmese and would not move until their demands for equity were met. This might seem reasonable behaviour on one level, but the likelihood is that they were holding more cash on their person than the average Burmese earns in a month. When I attempt anecdoture of my own (not my forte) I notice his eyes idly taking in the bar’s surroundings. Disappointingly, I am finding that Americans like to talk at you plenty but sometimes aren’t so keen about being on the other end.

08/01/03: Taxi to Siam Square to look at shops and Jim Thompson’s House. Back to Khao San Road for a shandy. Tea and then go to the Than Mago only to find it has been demolished. Return to Dong Dea Moon, whereupon we meet J (Mk.2).

09/01/03: Awake with Sangsom induced hangover. Brunch at Wally’s. Back to Dong Dea Moon to meet J (Mk.2) and his Canadian chum S (Mk.2). Take them to Hole in the Wall, before finding new place around the back

10/01/03: Wally’s. Collect visas. Go to Chart for dinner and watch K-19: The Widowmaker and Panic Room. Sneaky drink in Dong Dea Moon.

We never really escaped our little quarter of Bangkok the first time around. Sure, we made it far as the Royal Palace, the Golden Mount and Wat Indrawihan, but all this is navigable by foot, and abjectly touristic. My partner has a few ideas, though. She’d like to see Jim Thompson’s House and take advantage of the many shopping malls in and around Siam Square. I’m not that bothered about visiting Mr Thompson’s ex-abode but the malls could be interesting, and I like the change of tack. We will take a taxi to Siam Square – a proper taxi with a working meter – through heavy traffic and banal streets. It is estimated by our guidebook that it will cost about 200 baht, and it does, factoring in a 20 baht tip.

Our first port of call is the Siam Center (sic), outside of which our taxi-driver deposits us in great haste. Dating back to 1973, the Siam Center is one of Bangkok’s oldest malls. It doesn’t look that old to me but then my formative experience of the shopping plaza is based upon the Armada Centre in Plymouth and Treaty Centre in Hounslow – beige, eighties fossils both.

As is often the way of the shopping mall, the Siam Center attracts those of a more youthful condition. What strikes me here is how smart these juveniles are. Nobody is wearing shorts, for instance, clothes are of a tighter fit and the prevailing fashion appears to be highly accessorised (hair product, handbags, watches, brand names, etc.). I’m wearing brown needle-cords, a lank white T-shirt and a shabby pair of Converse, and I feel verminous by comparison. Moreover, these more affluent folk seem paler of complexion than their out-of-town cousins, or even those I have seen working on the Khao San Road. This is not so surprising when one considers it. A preference for fairer skin pervades in many Southeast Asian countries, Thailand being no exception, and a whole cosmetics industry is built upon it. It might be fair to speculate that – as was the way in Victorian Britain – darker skin brings with it an association with the labouring classes and that whitening one’s complexion suggests a higher position within the social strata. [This is in retrospect seems obvious, but at the time it genuinely perplexed me.]

The shops themselves are your standard high-street conglomerations with goods priced to match, so we don't hang about. The more recently constructed Siam Discovery Center is more upmarket than its sister mall, meaning that I feel even more under-dressed than I did there. The air-conditioning is more aggressive too, and the garments are priced even further beyond my range (constrained by my traveller’s budget or otherwise). A modest exhibition of photographs is on display on the ground floor: a collection of various national scapes.

The MBK Center (sic) is up next, a leviathan of a shopping mall eight stories high, stranger than known, attracting over 100,000 visitors a day, so it’s claimed. MBK was constructed in 1986, and this time it shows. Not as up-market as the previous two plazas, from which it can be accessed via a footbridge traversing the busy junction which all three overlook, you can find both the authentic and ersatz on sale here.

All malled out, it’s time for us to visit Jim Thompson’s House. Jim Thompson was an American silk-merchant who put down roots in Bangkok in the 1950s before making a strange disappearance somewhere in Malaya during 1967. In between he built himself a house wherein he amassed a vast collection of Southeast Asian art. Today it functions as a kind of museum, and you can pay to have a look around the place.

No disrespect to Mr Thompson and his beautiful home, and maybe it’s just because I’m starting to wilt in the heat, but I’m more enthused by the cup of black tea I’m given at the café around the corner. I say ‘given’ because I don’t actually ask for tea; I order coffee but I’m also served a complimentary cuppa as a sort of chaser. The proprietor senses my perplexity and reassures me as to what it is. She misses the point. I am not thrown by the contents of my cup – it’s plain to see that it’s tea – but merely why she felt it necessary to provide me with it at all. Place it in the context of the weather and it begins to make some sense: 'If you must drink hot liquid when it’s touching 35°C – and coffee at that – then at least take a sip of this.' She’s right. It really is quite a revelation, the most refreshing cup of anything hot I’ve had in all my life.

 I am glad when our cab deposits us right at the end of the Khao San Road. I’m not used to this level of activity in this sort of weather and in this kind of metropolis. That said, I’ve enjoyed our trip about town, so we indulge in a shandy to celebrate our modest achievement.

We’re set on having barbecued sea-bass tonight, sitting outside, serviced by the restaurant that trades beneath Dong Dea Moon. The fish is all right, despite the battle with its bones, although I do feel a little exposed eating on the road-come-pavement. But this is a mere introduction to the evening, for we are building towards a night in The Mango (aka, The Hendrix).

Before us, nothing but rubble. At some juncture during the six weeks we had been away, somebody had decided that The Mango wasn’t worth the recovered timber it was built from. This humble bar, where I got stuck into some serious drinking that first, fragile week, covered in sweat and bothered by mosquitoes, to be reduced to this.

So instead we returned to Dong Dea Moon and befriended J (Mk.2), fresh off the aeroplane from England and travelling alone. He took great interest in our story so far, as the Noisy American glanced over occasionally from the opposite side of the bar, and when it came to the subject of the islands and their accompanying Buckets of Joy, Louise saw fit to educate him in the practice. So comprehensive was her teaching that I was forced to bail out of the lesson early.

The walk home was an unsteady one, but I recall it vividly. I remember a desperate need to be back in my room and a fear that I might not make it. It wasn’t that I thought myself incapable of walking the 300-odd metres to the hotel, but more that I might find myself interrupted, be it by the Bangkok Police or a hostile traveller, or even an opportunist citizen. Worse still, I might collapse into a random group of strangers, or some roadside vendor’s stall.

Not surprisingly, the next day was a bit of a write-off for the both of us, although, weirdly, more so for me than Louise, who had shared in a second bucket with J (Mk.2) after my premature exit. I spent much of the day getting stuck into Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, having read Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail many years before but never having gotten around to reading Thompson’s more well known tome. It seemed apposite material, especially given that I was keeping a sort of journal myself, although it did leave me feeling a bit barren in the literary department. Where Hunter Stockton Thompson had a car, a boot full of pharmaceuticals, a typewriter, a few firearms and a contract with Rolling Stone magazine to work with, all I had was a traveller’s itinerary, access to strong lager, and a biro. But I did suffer from a degree of fear, and there was enough about me to inspire a certain amount of loathing, if I could only find a way to convey this in print. In truth, what with my morbid fascination with Apocalypse Now running in parallel, such fantasies were best avoided.

Rather perversely, we met up with J (Mk.2) again that evening, who brought along with him a Canadian he’d befriended somewhere or other. Not even the Hole in Wall could inspire us this time around as my partner and I wearily shuffled through the motions and soon bade farewell to our newfound friends.

On Friday we collected our visas and prepared for our exodus to Laos. This involved the acquisition of anti-malarial tablets, the north of Thailand and beyond delineated as a higher-risk environment. We were probably over the worst of it because the rainy season had finally come to pass, depriving the common vector – the mosquito – of the conditions necessary to reproduce en masse. In any case, malaria isn’t a critical issue in Thailand (although persistent enough not to be discounted completely), but near and across many of its boarders one is advised to take precautions whatever the time of year. This is because the prevalence of jungle wetland enables the vector to proliferate. In built up areas such as Bangkok, on the other hand, the chance of infection is practically nil.

Malarial or otherwise, the mosquito is still an irritant that needs to be confronted. So far we had been relying on N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide – more commonly known as DEET – as a means of self-defence. DEET was developed by the United States Army and it is an aggressive solution. Sold as a roll-on or spray-repellent, I’d knocked out a couple of unwelcome bugs on the islands with this stuff. Directly applied, it can kill a cockroach of substance within a matter of minutes. I’d more commonly spray it onto our mattresses – in anticipation of bedbugs – or beneath doors, or into any ominous looking holes where creatures might feasibly take refuge. The idea really is to apply the liquid directly onto the skin, whereupon one will experience a general tightening of the epidermis, maybe even a slight burning sensation, but should otherwise remain unbitten.

Another weapon in our armoury is the mosquito coil. Made from pyrethrum – a natural insecticide derived from the dried flower-heads of the humble chrysanthemum – the hardened tendril is made to smoulder, mustering a light vapour repellent to most insects. It is as effective as any draught will permit, and therefore best utilised in enclosed spaces. Only the reluctance to let them burn while you're sleeping – especially in wood-based dwellings – prevents their more regular usage (it is claimed they will burn for up to 8 hours).

If the mosquito succeeds in breaching these defences, one can alleviate the discomfort with a camphor or menthol based balm. I use the Monkey Holding Peach brand. It’s a competent application – as good as any balm, I should imagine – but when confronted with the work of the Asian Tiger Mosquito [Aedes albopictus] it can be found wanting. The wounds these insects inflict are quite nasty: bruises as big as your fist, throbbing welts that visibly pulse, blisters prone to infection. Fortunately for me mosquitoes aren’t very interested in my blood. Unfortunately for Louise they're rather keen on hers.

Of course, we should have sorted all this out before we left England. I actually obtained a prescription for a drug called Malarone three weeks before I was due to travel, but it took me another two weeks before I bothered doing anything with it. In Plymouth, a week before my flight, I sauntered on down to Hyde Park Pharmacy, not appreciating that anti-malarials aren’t the sort of thing a chemist stocks as a matter of course. Assuming my departure to be still some way off, the staff seemed quite put out when I told them how quickly I needed these drugs in my possession. And when they offered to rush the order through, only for me to balk at the price (over £120 for a month’s supply) and tell them not to bother, they appeared even more so. But it was the right way to go because I managed to find the same amount of Malarone in the Boots on Khao San Road for less £40, and we embarked on our 37-day course – as prescribed – with immediate effect. [WARNING! This financial disparity no longer applies: on subsequent trips to South Asia I have found that the Malarone on sale there is nowhere near as affordable as it once was. Conversely, charged by the pill, it is cheaper in the UK in 2012 than it was in 2002.]

With greater motivation we could have departed there and then, but for some reason we decided against it – we had the days to spare on our visa so why not use them. It was also determined that we would try the overnight train, offering us the beauty of sleep and saving us a night’s rent, the same trick that we’d pulled off on the journey back to Bangkok.

We agreed that drinking profusely was best avoided and settled for supping a few shandies and watching a couple of films in an institution called Chart. K-19: Widowmaker and Panic Room were the movies in question, and they weren’t bad – the former in particular – although the watching of films plein air, in what amounted to someone’s backyard, felt odd.

We dusted off with a drink in Dong Dea Moon, possibly to keep at bay the inchoate unrest that tomorrow’s activities would assuredly deliver, and certainly because there’s very little else to do at night when you're slumming it in Bangkok.

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 with a book, 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 - 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.’