total:spec: Australia

Australians are bloody lovely. I say this not because I have another month in their country and I’m trying to further the already perfectly healthy and don’t need any help thank you very much Anglo-Australian relations, but because they really are genuinely nice people.

I put it down to the weather. It might be a bit gloomy in Sydney at the mo but that’s probably as much to do with the presence of George Bush for the APEC meeting than it is to do with the grey clouds. Australians don’t let a bit of grey cloud and rain (or a bad day, or a grumpy English tourist, or really anything) bother them, and with good reason. They know that pretty much the rest of the year they will be basking in glorious, unfettered, unadulterated sunshine, lucky, lucky people that they are. They know that no matter how bad a day they have, they’re going to have a nice one tomorrow.

An Australian friend of mine gives a different reason for the easy-going nature of his fellow countrymen. He feels that my experience of cheery conversations and warm demeanours in shops, on the phone and even on the street when I look a bit lost is enhanced because I’m British, and all the Aussies love a Brit. He reckons they’re almost grateful when we decide to come and pay them a visit. They’re so remote out here, so far away from the rest of the world, that it’s a pleasurable shock when they meet someone who has ventured this far into the outer reaches of Western society.

I think he’s affording Australians too much humility. In my experience meeting Aussies around the world, they’re just as happy to shout about the calibre of their nationality as we Europeans and those Americans are. But there is a difference – no other nationality travels the world with quite the sense of wonderment and enthusiasm than Australians. For example, Australian travellers are ten a penny in London. There are loads of them there, suffering the rainy weather and high rents for the two year stint their visa allows. Coming here to their country I have to ask why they bother. Why forgo this easy-going lifestyle for the stress of going to work on the Tube?

Well the fact is, by leaving their home far behind, they’re actually on a hunt for some roots. Australia, as the society that it is today, is a mere newborn in comparison to much of the rest of the world. Even the youthful America stopped using nappies a long time ago (though they still like to throw their toys out of the pram, it seems).

It’s this infancy that strikes you when you first arrive in Australia and start to look around at the architecture. I mean, they don’t do themselves any favours - it’s apparently common in most parts of the country that if a building is older than 10 years then it gets knocked down and a new one built. This might have been a jokey exaggeration on the part of my Australian friend, but his point is clear. That is very much the attitude of Australians to their surroundings.

The same friend went on to tell me that to have a look at some old buildings and get some historical culture, most Aussies head to Sydney. I found it hard to stifle a chuckle at this. As pretty as Sydney is, the closest they get to historical landmarks are the Harbour Bridge (completed in 1932) and the Opera House (completed in 1978).



Older buildings are there – I myself have had a look at Hyde Park Barracks, which now makes a very interesting museum but is certainly not a noticeable landmark, and Cadman’s Cottage, which may be the oldest house in Sydney but is a cottage like any other you might find in Britain. I was distinctly unimpressed.



But then, even those two examples were only built in 1810s. The cement is barely dry by British standards. Of course I’m guilty of exhibiting that British arrogance and slightly condescending manner that comes out in various forms in Brits abroad. Don’t get me wrong, there’s more than enough to see here – probably more than you could pack in a lifetime, it’s such an immense country. Australia has some breath-taking natural sights for a start, such as the Rock formerly known as Ayers (now called by its Aboriginal name of Uluru), the haunting rock formations at Hanging Rock, and Australia’s own Grand Canyon in the form of the Blue Mountains, to name a few. Plus they do man-made sights with a sense of humour – the Big Banana, Big Prawn, and Big Pineapple you see on the way up the East Coast are more entertaining than they have any right to be.

But it is true to say that it is our history and culture to which Aussies look for a better sense of their roots. They’re mostly descendants of Brits after all, and it’s our history they’re taught at schools. Talking to an Australian friend of my Dad’s I was visiting about her interest in British history, I asked whether she’d ever felt a bit deprived when it came to Australian history. She just laughed and said, “Not at all! We’ve got yours!”

total:spec - Indochina

Three countries. Five currencies. One month. It all adds up to one exhilarating, exhausting and totally enlightening trip around the Indochina peninsula.

As Thailand becomes as popular a holiday destination with Westerners as, say, Spain is for the British, it in turn is losing its appeal to more hardened travellers. Now, those looking for something a little more exotic are looking further a field.

There’s no need to look far either – the country formerly known as Burma (now Myanmar) lies to the west, and there’s Malaysia if you head south. But many travellers are now doing what any good explorer would do – heading east.

The round trip through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam (the countries border each other in such a way that you can visit in any order you wish) is slowly becoming a well-trodden path. As Thailand loses its exotic feel, its neighbours are proving to offer more to those willing and curious to dip yet more of their extremities into Southeast Asian culture. That’ll be me, then.

With just a month to do the trip, I factor in a couple of flights. While Southeast Asian public transport is probably more reliable than its British counterpart, it is a whole lot slower. And so I visit all three countries comfortably in the time I have, and discover three completely different worlds. Despite continually shifting borders throughout their history, and occupation and invasion by a number of world powers, the three countries have each retained a powerful sense of their own identity.

Laos is my first stop; a beautiful country seemingly unmoved by the presence of humans. The miles and miles of lush greenery and striking limestone peaks hide a dark secret however: the estimated quarter of a million unexploded land mines that still litter the country from the Vietnam War.

But as these are slowly cleared, so tourism grows in this country. That the Lao people have learnt a lot already from their Thai neighbours is quickly apparent. Head to backpacker hotspot Vang Vieng (popular for its caves and tubing down the river) and you’ll find the small town littered with internet cafes and bars showing Friends and The Simpsons much as you would in Thailand’s islands. But that the Lao people are still getting used to Westerners is also obvious. While many Thais now greet typical Westerners abroad behaviour with rolling eyes and a supermarket checkout grimace, Lao people are still flashing genuine smiles as you get your wallet out.


Vietnam, on the other hand, is a whole different net of fish. Laos certainly doesn’t prepare you for it. Not even some time in Bangkok, crazy as that is, can prepare you for it. With a population of 83 million, Vietnam squeezes more people, culture, history and beautiful natural environments on to that thin strip of land than you could have thought possible.

You get a genuine Asian experience in this country as well. While its neighbours are welcoming Western capitalism and its companies with open arms as they strive to encourage more tourism, the only fast food joint you’ll find in Ho Chi Minh City is a Korean one. For hundreds of years the Vietnamese have been expelling outsiders who’ve come knocking – the Chinese, the Mongols, the French and, of course, the Americans –with varying degrees of success, but always with the fiercely nationalistic pride that is still apparent in the people today.

That said, their tourist industry is the slickest you’ll come across in this part of the world. All the tourist spots can be seen via well-organised trips that are suitable even for the budget traveller like me. I went in to a travel agent to organise one trip and came out with my whole stay in Vietnam organised, not because I’m an easy sell, but because that really is the best and easiest way to see this awesome and overwhelming country. A downside to this? That it’s so slick, it feels a bit conveyer belt.

No chance of that in Cambodia, however, where it’s back to the more Thai style of tourism – milking you of cash at every opportunity and shoving as many of you into a minibus as possible. It says a lot about what Cambodians have been through in recent times that their main source of national pride is some (admittedly mind-blowing) ruined temples built nearly a thousand years ago.

Said temples, situated at Angkor, may have made Angelina Jolie fall in love with the country, but the unabashed desperation of the people, still reeling both emotionally and economically from the horrific regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, ultimately makes it a hard place to love.

I suppose it depends on how you look at it. Maybe you can’t blame teenagers trying to sell you bracelets you don’t want for repeatedly using the ‘No money, no school’ line on tourists (the first time is heart-breaking, the 15th time it just feels like a lame con). And maybe you can take the relentless sellers that greet you in your face at the entrance of each sight if you think about how much they depend on the money they earn from doing it.

But when you hear from those charities and organisations that have come to help that Cambodians actually hire children from parents to go and beg from tourists, you begin to wonder which ones are the genuinely desperate and which ones are hiding a more greedy nature.

total:spec - Bangkok protests

It’s a typically hot Saturday night in Bangkok. I’m walking down Ratchadamnoen Klang Road with a Thai friend as we head towards a bar for the night. As we approach the appropriately-named (I will later discover) Democracy Monument, we see that hordes of people are clambering around the four stylized angel wings that reach up into the polluted city sky.

My friend hangs back, telling me the people are a ‘mob’ protesting about the military government and there might be trouble. But I’m curious and we slowly ease closer as the mob heads away from the monument.

“They’re heading towards Government House,” explains my friend, as we reach the monument. There, another mob, actually more frightening than the first one, is gathered. Their tight brown uniforms betray them as Thai police, but their chanting grunts make them sound more like a bunch of football hooligans. These are men ready for (and can I say excited about?) some trouble.

More of the first mob trail past us, waving banners and shouting uproariously in Thai. I ask my friend what they’re saying. He almost blushes. “Some very rude words,” he says, “and that the military government should get out.”

They walk past the police with no trouble, moving on to catch up with their fellow protestors. Apart from the swearing – a highly unusual thing to hear a Thai person doing in public - it seems this protest will be a peaceful one. For now.

Bangkok has taken on a slightly different atmosphere in the past few weeks. I could liken it to the weeks after the bombs went off in London in 2005 – instead of everyone ignoring each other and getting on with their lives, bigger events gave people something in common and created a tentative camaraderie. It’s a bit like that in Thailand now as the country wrestles with the challenge of returning to democracy after last year’s military coup.

At the end of May Thai people were crowded around televisions and radios as a constitutional tribunal gave its verdict on whether Thai Rak Thai – the party that was ousted from government back in September – and the opposition Democrat Party were guilty of electoral fraud. The verdict meant a lot to Thai people – if both parties were found guilty they would be left with a huge political vacuum. If both cleared, people would start to wonder whether a coup was necessary.

Even the King of Thailand spoke up, saying he was concerned about the country collapsing. While, like our Queen, the 79-year-old monarch has little political power, he is much revered by the Thai people, and his words are always taken on board by political leaders

As it was, the Democrats were cleared, while the popular Thai Rak Thai party was found guilty and all its 111 members, including ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, were banned from Thai politics for five years.

British people will be familiar with Thaksin. Currently residing in London, he’s been in the news as Manchester City Football Club’s potential new owner, despite his assets being frozen as he is further investigated for corruption during his tenure in government.

But despite police demanding his presence in Thailand to be questioned in the investigation, in other quarters he’s still very popular. When the tribunal verdict was broadcast police had expected demonstrators to hit the streets of Bangkok in protest. The tribunal, however, had timed its announcement well. The following day was a Buddhist holiday, meaning that people were more concerned with marking the religious occasion than they were with the political situation.

This inherent Thai personality trait – that, as long as no one loses face, they’ll take any excuse to avoid confrontation, and especially violence, and have something to eat instead – has meant the demonstrations have so far been peaceful, and I’ve been able to get up close and personal with them.

One Friday night the same Thai friend who’d followed the ‘mob’ with me previously sent me a text to say their might be trouble tonight as he’d seen a heavy police presence moving onto and around Sanam Luang, a scruffy park area that often holds Royal ceremonies. We decided to go down and have a look.

The park was about two-thirds full of Thais, each wearing a yellow headband and waving red and white flags, both of which demanded in bold Thai lettering: ‘Military government get out.’ My friend explained to me that the people present were from two groups that formed an uneasy alliance. One was pro-Thaksin and wanted him back in power, the other just wanted rid of the military government and a return to democracy – two groups of people with ultimately different goals; surely there’s going to be trouble.

But no. The protest had more of a festival feel than of something that might turn violent at any second (though if we’re talking about Reading or Leeds festivals then it could turn violent at any second) - food stalls circled the park area and everyone was sat down, listening to what the opinion-makers on stage had to say. And for the most part they laughed at what they had to say, which, according to my friend, was particularly crude stuff about those currently in power. It was like being at the comedy stage at Glastonbury.

So no chance of seeing the Thai people flex some demonstrative muscle that night. But that’s not to say it’s not going to happen at some point soon. With an election not scheduled until November at the earliest, my boss at the language school feels that the protests can only get more fervent, and escalate to some more extreme action on the mob’s part.

She recalls the trouble that followed the last military coup in 1991, and the extreme violence that occurred the following year. After Army Commander Suchinda Kraprayoon overthrew the government of Chatichai Choonhavan, he wanted to make a constitutional amendment that allowed him to serve as Prime Minister for the life of that Parliament. The Thai people responded in huge numbers, 200,000 people filling the streets of Bangkok. Suchinda declared a State of Emergency and soldiers eventually shot and killed 52 people. That was the official total, anyway.

My boss recalls going out the next day to join the protests, disgusted at the deaths, and at one point having to hide behind a car when shots were fired. Protesting is a serious game in Thailand.

But whatever happens, I won’t be around to see it. It’s time for me to move on and explore new ground. There’s the rest of Southeast Asia to see yet, and I’m keen to immerse myself yet deeper in this strange part of the world.

June

Time for the last round-up of the life and times of myself in Bangkok. This entry is brought to you by the month of June.

This month I have mostly been…

…teaching.
As is always the way when you’re leaving a job, you start to really enjoy it again as the date of your departure looms. The month at work flies by because I get really into it, but is also pretty sad as I realise (as do some of my students) what a bond has grown between them and I.

Mine and Muang for example, who always seem so despondent and disinterested when I visit them, actually show an emotion when I tell them I’m going. We’ve developed a relationship where they pretend to learn a bit of English if I don’t make it too boring, and it seems to work. So news of my going elicits a bit of shock and a grudging admission of their enjoyment of my company. Which makes me a little proud.
My kids class on Saturdays finally becomes something of a success on June 2 when we make it through two whole pages of the book (with some of them actually learning something from it) enhanced by a game that they LOVE. It’s so bloody simple as well. I give them flag outlines. They have to locate them on a poster and colour them in, writing the country’s name on the bottom. Brilliant.

The next class, with terrible twosome Nail and Nenny, is a relative disaster. Nenny treats me with such ambivalence and contempt that I’m at a loss as to what to do with her. I moan about it to some of the teachers and Wasan tells me to have a word with her. I wonder if it would work, what with the language barrier…

Vas and Ice, the brother and sister I have on Sundays are much easier to deal with and teach. They’re actually keen to learn, and, even better, show off in front of each other. It’s a funny relationship though. He’s just 10 years old, an exuberant 10 though; I imagine he dominates his class at school, and she’s 16, yet he dominates her. She’s quite shy and a bit scared of getting things wrong cos he will bellow at her if she does. To get all Disney about it, he always brings to mind a little boar, while she’s a little deer.

I fill in for Jason on one of his one-to-ones, a girl called Pin. She is AMAZING at English. She is proof, to me, that some people just have a natural aptitude for language and can pick it up very easily. I’m not sure that I had to explain myself at any point, she understood everything I said. It was fantastic.

I also teach the incredibly cute five-year-old Tod. He is the first child I’ve come across in the school that doesn’t like colouring in. I give him some to do; he scribbles a bit and goes, ‘Finished!’ ‘Finished’ is his favourite word. He is easily bored and will shout it at every opportunity. I know how he feels.

I suppose the same could be said for Game, the impossible 30-year-old woman I teach on Sundays. Each lesson is a tense affair as I try desperately to engage her. I’m not sure whether her obvious desire to be somewhere else is a lack of confidence or her being a bit thick and unable to engage with it. Amazingly she starts giving me presents as our time together comes to an end. The first one is a Thai mermaid pen holder, which is probably the most disgusting thing I have ever been given. The following week she gives me a dice type thing from Vietnam, which is weird but a bit more interesting than the last gift. But then the last lesson is the worst. She is so unwilling to try things that I become incredibly frustrated. At one point I lose my composure and a dark look quickly flashes across my face. Unfortunately she looks up in time to register it and the lesson goes downhill (yes even more so!) from there. She is one student I will not miss.

Jess and I don’t see Ekachai and Fon for a while, until Ekachai comes back and explains Fon was sick. It seems he won’t come if she doesn’t! We end up meeting up with them one bored Monday off. It’s pouring with rain and after a couple hours playing cards in Jess’s room we head to Khao San to meet them. I’m keen to go elsewhere in Bangkok, get them to take us somewhere we’ve not been before, but after meeting them in Burger King we end up going to a bar on Khao San. Jess tells me she sees my shoulders visibly slump as we step on to the road. Yes, I’m that bored of the place.

They take us to a bar called Tom Yum Gung and we order some food – ostrich with chilli and basil, fish balls, spring rolls and rice. Jess, amazingly, loves the fish balls. And the ostrich. Man, if she was staying a bit longer I could really get her trying new stuff. But she’s not. But at least she’s trying.

I have a drink but no one else does. I thought Ekachai would get on the beers with me but even this legendary drinker is tee-total today as he’s driving. Goddamn. We play pool and chat but they soon head off, disappointingly.

It’s the last time we see them. They cancel the next few lessons and we’re both gone before they come back. I’m a bit gutted. Having spent so much time with them I’d have liked to say goodbye.

My adult class continues to be a joy up until June 12. I have an excellent lesson prepared going over the exam paper and revising things they were weak on. I go in. In the classroom my students seemed to have doubled. There are a good 15 people in there. I walk out again and have a go at the girls on the desk. They tell me my new class was due to start today. I tell them no, it wasn’t. We to and from like this for a while. Turns out one of the recent public holidays has caused some timetable confusion. I have no choice but to knock my lesson on the head and start with the book. It’s a pain cos it’s a new class and I’ve not gone through the book myself yet to prepare extra stuff. So I just wing it, as I’ve proved adept at. But it doesn’t work brilliantly. Some of my previous students are in the class and one of them, Dao, says, ‘Will not like new students.’ I explain to her what happened but it’s clear my grumpiness has been way too obvious and not very professional.
But they still love me. My long term students hang around after my last lesson a few days later to say goodbye and give me a present – a fluffy monkey toy – and a card. I’m gonna miss them. We had fun.

Another student I don’t get to say goodbye to is Max. A couple weeks before our last lesson I tell him I’m going and his face drops. Again his despondent teenage attitude has masked an at least slight enjoyment of our lessons. He may be frustrating in his inability to remember most things I teach him, but he’s one that has taught me a lot and has been great company as well. It’s the rain’s fault we don’t get to say goodbye. His folks phone and cancel the lesson cos they’re stuck in traffic due to the bad weather. Once again, I’m a bit gutted.

Saying goodbye to Nop is a pleasant experience. We got on well in the end. He’s driven me hard as a teacher and we were finally getting somewhere towards the end of it. He really made me think about what would be good for him as an individual and taught me to treat each student like that. It really isn’t a job where there’s a set way of doing things. Sure there are guidelines you follow but you need to take each case as it comes and go from there.

In Karn’s case that was easy. He drove me hard as a teacher as well, but in a way that was enjoyable for me. He just saw me as a resource and tried to get all he could out of me, rather than leaving all the work to me like Nop did. Our last lesson we go over by 20 minutes cos chatting so much. At one point he does describe gays as abnormal but I let it go. I’m leaving and I can’t be arsed to get into that with him.

My last lesson is with the teenagers on the Sunday afternoon. Again there’s a whole bunch of new students with the old ones. I’m in can’t-be-arsed mode and just go through exercises in the book with them. I see Kung, Mark and Mew passing a note and confiscate it from them. (I’ve never ‘confiscated’ anything before in my life, it’s quite god fun.) I take it to Maew to translate. She tells me it says the lesson is boring (oops, sorry kids), and that the new guy in the baseball cap looks quite cool. I take it back and have a laugh with them about it.
Then…finished!

…saying goodbye to Vanda.
Vanda’s a wanderer. She’s been travelling, or at least away from the UK, for the best part of a decade. Now she’s off to Oman, of all places, to a teaching job there. She’s been an interesting character to meet – her initial (and continued, actually) elusiveness making those moments when she reveals something all the more interesting. She’s another one running away from a broken heart, not really realising that she carries it with her. I wonder what will finally make her stop and settle – will it be falling in love again? We have dinner together on her last night – a greasy Pad Thai at a local place (I promise myself not to eat here again, it’s not great food). We chat about her plans and mine. She tells me her folks are living in New Zealand and says I might be there when she visits. We make loose plans to meet up if we can. Our meal is brought to an abrupt end by Shanthi, a friend of mine from London, calling and announcing her presence in Bangkok. A swift goodbye and Vanda is gone.

…seeing Shanthi.
(See separate entry.)

…socialising.
This month I hang out with the Thais a fair bit. On June 2 I meet up with Aom and Aor and a friend of theirs in Gulliver’s on Khao San. Sai isn’t out because she doesn’t drink. Sensible girl. We have a good time in there, chatting, eating chips (Aom screws her nose up at them though), dancing and gossiping as much as we can through the language barrier. Their friend has a German boyfriend who isn’t out tonight. She gets embarrassed when I ask about him and I can’t get much out of her. I ask about Aom’s love life. Aor says Aom doesn’t have a boyfriend cos she’s too fat. I’m not sure whether this blunt reply is a Thai thing or a sibling thing. I’m thinking the latter. We watch the pool players but soon the tables are moved to make a dancefloor and we have a bit of a dance.

Shanthi and Tim show up for a quick drink but don’t stay long because they have an early start tomorrow to get to Cambodia. After awhile at Gulliver’s I persuade Aor and the others to come along to a housewarming party Joey is throwing for her new flat. We get a cab over there but the party seems to have died when we get there. Xavier is there, Robbie, a gay Irish guy who I’ve met briefly before, and some other people I don’t know. I’m a bit embarrassed, having dragged Aor and the others away from Gulliver’s. But I’m a bit drunk now so don’t care too much. I’m in piss-taking mood and start ribbing this blonde girl about her dress. It looks a bit like it was made from cushion covers or something. I tell Joey she’s nicked the curtains. Luckily the blonde woman finds this funny. The same doesn’t go for an Irish brunette with large breasts who doesn’t take too kindly to me talking about said Irishness or breasts. I retreat before she gets physical.

Robbie and Xavier are flirting outrageously, and I become convinced they’re gonna end up doing stuff tonight, Xavier’s heterosexuality notwithstanding. I tell Joey as much and she’s intrigued. I tell her about my own experiences with straight boys. During our conversation she somehow convinces me to go to a club in Silom with her (I imagine the conversation went something like, ‘Do you want to come to a club in Silom?’ ‘Okay then.’). Work tomorrow is far from my mind obviously.

The club’s called Tapas but that’s about all I remember of it. I remember having a long chat with Joey about her new lesbian love – Xavier’s ex-girlfriend Mary no less. God it’s all so confusing. She’s big in love but unsure it’s gonna go anywhere cos Mary’s showing some reluctance to throw herself into it. I remember banging on about how if it all goes tits then she shouldn’t let it overshadow any other relationships she has after. I think her relationship with a straight/unsure girl hit a bit of a nerve.

Thank God Aor and Aom are with me because their departure prompts me to remember I have work the next day and I leave with them. Joey apparently gets home a few hours later. God I’d have been in trouble if I’d stayed!

The next day after work I manage, despite not feeling my best, to attend a t-shirt fair with Maew. It’s at JJ Mall, a big shopping centre near Chatuchak Market. (A quick note – there are few definitive spellings in our letters of places in Thailand; words are just spelt phonetically so you find many differences in spelling. Chatuchak can sometimes be spelt Jatujak, hence JJ Mall.) First though we go for soi food near work. My hangover renders me incapable of using chopsticks and Maew laughs at me without sympathy. She does show me a better way of holding them though, and eventually I get through my noodle soup, albeit dignity in disarray. The bus to Chatuchak takes a while and we chat loads on the way; she’s going to Australia to do a course in graphic design, and wants to start her own business eventually. I ask her how her parents feel about her going so far away and she paints me a picture of her home life – her the sheltered daughter who’s never washed her own clothes before, or cooked her own food, them the doting and constantly worried parents, who work hard (they’re both executives in a phone company) to make sure Maew is well catered for. Maew’s a bright, interesting and funny girl and I can’t help thinking our relationship might become quite intimate were it not for my lack of romantic interest in women.

We get to the market and Maew calls her friends to find out where they are. As we walk through the market I take a lot of pictures as we go through the pet section on the way to the mall. Never have I seen so many different types of fish – hundreds of them, all in water in plastic bags just sat on the floor in front of the stalls. We also see baby turtles and tortoises, insects for feeding, frogs and lots and lots more fish.

At the mall we meet Maew’s friends - a boy and a girl. I’m friendly but they’re very shy and say little to me. We pack ourselves into a tiny lift and go up to the 6th floor where it’s very busy. A corridor leads to a big hall where all the stalls are. Hundreds of trendy-looking Thai teens mill about and I ask Maew if she thinks I’m the only farang here. She quickly spots a couple but we are very much in the minority here. We have to shuffle to each stall – it’s absolutely rammed. The t-shirts are okay – all one-off designs – but nothing really grabs me. Maew points out the odd Thai pop star manning a stall. It explains the popularity of this fair with the Thai teens. It’s in aid of some charity apparently, though Maew is unable to explain any more than that. The Thais crowd around the pop star manned stalls, making them impossible to get to, but as they are unrecognisable to me I’m not overly upset.

Down at the end of the hall there is a stage where the singers and bands are taking turns performing. It’s impossible to get near it but you can hear it perfectly clearly – it’s the usual MOR stuff I’ve been hearing on the radio, nothing particularly upbeat, which seems typical of the more trendy Thai pop music.
We lose Maew’s friends fairly quickly. But we luck out in terms of popstar spotting when we pass one manned by a guy from hip hop outfit Thaitanium. Maew gets very excited and asks me to take a picture. He strikes a typically hip hop pose and I snap away. Unfortunately the flash isn’t on and the pics come out blurry. By the time I sort out the problem, Mr Thaitanium has turned the other way and our opportunity has gone. I go find Maew and she’s a bit gutted. So I go back and see if I can get another picture. Being unable to communicate my problem to him, I just kind of stand there and wait for him to face my way again. When he starts looking at me like I’m some kind of stalker I leave and go and make my apologies to Maew.
I eventually find a stall with some tees that I like and buy a green tee with a cassette and headphones on. It’s 250 baht. Amazing. We wonder around a bit more, mainly waiting for a singer Maew likes to come on. Eventually she gets bored of milling through the heaving crowd and we head out of there. My hangover is grateful. We get the Sky Train down to Victory Monument where we get some KFC for dinner. Maew amuses me with her primness – she uses a knife and fork to eat hers. Then we get the bus back up to Pinklao. It takes ages to leave and we talk some more. Maew tells me how her parents have worked their way up from nothing. Both came from very poor backgrounds and made their wealth through good old-fashioned hard work. The whole story is quite sweet really, not least cos they’re kids have turned out so well – Maew at least. She’s totally unspoilt, no airs and graces about her at all, very down to earth, yet obviously quite well-off in terms of Thai society. I really like this girl.

Otherwise I spend much of the month hanging out with Beer (see separate entry), Ark (see separate entry), and Jess (see below). Jess and I do manage to catch up with the rest of the gang on June 18 though, the evening of our uneventful day with Ekachai and Fon. We find ourselves in Gulliver’s 2 and I find myself chatting to a girl from Leeds called Jo who the others know well. We’ve not met before because she’s been down in Ko Tao (a smaller island near Ko Pha Ngan) volunteering, teaching in local villages. She can’t find the words to describe how much she enjoyed herself, and her enthusiasm is quite contagious. Yet she’s about to go home. As she talks it becomes quite obvious she’s far from ready to go home. She has been and still is having the time of her life. I ask her why she’s going home and she tells me she’s been here a year and needs to go back to work. Her sabbatical is done. She seems quite upset. I vow to myself there and then not to go home until I’m absolutely ready. The evening is otherwise uneventful, a bit of a catch-up session. Though I do discover that on a recent trip down to the islands Irish Karen and Canadian Xavier got together. I press her for some details but she becomes coy and says nothing. Not knowing her well enough, I don’t push it. How different I’d be with a friend back home! But seeing them canoodling (an old-fashioned word, but appropriate in this case) in the corner later confirms that, yes, they are together.

…hanging out with Beer.
(See separate entry.)

…worrying about my father.
It’s the traveller’s worst nightmare – a relative becoming seriously ill and having to go home to be with them. I start to think I’m going to have that awful situation when my Dad calls on June 5th. I’m sat on my own in Oh My Cod on Khao San when he calls. I just really fancied fish and chips. When I tell him I’m out eating he curiously asks what. He laughs when I tell him. We organise Catherine’s birthday present, then he starts telling me about a recent visit he had to the doctor’s. For some time he’s had what he calls a ‘growth’ and ‘rupture’ on his inner thigh and Mum finally got him to go to the doctor about it. It’s all very fucking worrying and it’s all I can do not to say the ‘c’ word. He doesn’t say it so I refrain. I realise it’s such a big word when it’s used in relation to someone you love that I feel there’s no need to use it unless we need to. Dad seems very calm and reassures me with his tone. He says he thinks it may be an old rugby injury that has suddenly flared up. He says he does remember getting a bad blow there during one game. The doctor told him he’ll need an operation, an overnight job in hospital. It’s all a bit scary but it’s hard to know what to feel. Dad is calm to the point of nonchalance, but that’s very much his personality. I decide not to worry too much until I have to. Promising to call him after his operation, I say goodbye.

A couple of days later I call him. He sounds very tired but okay. He’s quite upbeat really and shows off that they sent him home after the op – no overnight for him. On paper my Dad might be a 70 year old man, but on meeting him the doctor’s realised he was more robust than his age might suggest. Now all we have to do is wait to find out what on earth it was in his leg.

I call him again 10 days later for Father’s Day. There’s no news but he’s much better, sounds just like he normally does. It’s hard to worry about him when he sounds so well.

…finishing Prison Break.
Wow, that was good. Could any more have gone wrong for them? It has to be the most disastrous prison break ever and yet, somehow, they still got away! Or did they? Brilliant, gripping television. Being the TV snob I am though, I still find it too trashy to think of it as a properly amazing TV drama. It doesn’t have the intricacy of Lost, the insight into human relationships of Six Feet Under, or the same consistence of excitement as 24. But it just goes to show that, even when they’re not trying very hard, the Americans can currently knock out the best TV drama in the world.

…hanging out with Ark and seeing Bangkok get angry.
(See separate entry.)

…hanging out with Jess.
Myself and my Bangkok companion pick up just where we left off after her visit to the islands. She tells me about her amusing Full Moon Party experience (being a woman she immediately had male companions for the evening) and gave me lots of tips for Samui and Pha Ngan.

We hang out with Joey and Anna at the Hippie Bar and tell Joey, who has just been dumped by her lesbian/unsure lover, to wallow a bit but not for too long. The rest of that evening we spend trying to work out who the seventh dwarf is. No one is convinced there’s a Sleepy!

At Bangkoknoi we watch some Thais feeding the massive fish in the canal and I have yet another meal that makes me cry – it is spicier than anything ever made in the history of the world, it is actual agony on a plate. And yet I leave too spoonfuls. Get in.

I discover that Jess has secretly got a tattoo – “I made the decision and just had to do it. I never would have done it else.” It’s beautiful – the flame design you see on all the temples in Bangkok surrounds the word ‘Thailand’ in Thai lettering. I love it.

One evening, before going to see Fantastic Four at the cinema, we go to Maccy D’s for dinner. I get chatting about a book I’m reading called The Five People You Meet in Heaven, which is about a man who dies and has to talk to five people from his life before he can move on. We wonder who we’d meet in heaven. Jess immediately says she knows who one will be – a lad who used to play pool in the pub where she worked. Just 18, he was very shy – ‘wouldn’t say boo to a goose’, as Jess puts it, but loved playing pool and practiced all the time, becoming something of a pool player. Jess is out clubbing one night with her best mate Jade when she sees the lad with some girl. He’s drunk out of his mind, stumbling all over the place, hanging off this girl’s shoulders. Jess thinks, that’s not like him, not like him at all. It’s almost like he’s been drugged. She turns to Jade and says, “I’m gonna take him home, he’s trashed.” Jade tells her not to worry about him, he’s not her responsibility. And anyway, he’s with someone, he’ll be all right.

The next day he’s found drowned in a river. My hand clamps over my mouth and I say: “Oh Jess.” Tears well up in her eyes. I tell her it wasn’t her fault. Jade was right, he was with someone. But I can understand how she feels. She says she understands it wasn’t her fault but she can’t help but think, what if.

We forget film, we’ve been talking too long, and instead we go home and play cards.
A few days later we’re watching a dodgy DVD of Fracture – a psychological thriller with Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins – which is as entertaining for its plot as it is the unwarranted laughter that comes from the audience in the cinema where it was secretly filmed. Scenes are missing due to the camera being switched off at points. But most annoyingly the DVD fucks up during the last 10 minutes, so we don’t get to find out how, or whether, Anthony Hopkins gets away with murdering his wife. Bollocks to dodgy DVDs!

So yeah that’s me and Jess – lots of dinner, cards and dodgy DVDs. I’ll miss hanging out with her a lot.

…watching some films.
Jess and I watch Freaky Friday – the Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan one, not the old one – and it’s actually not bad, quite funny. One of those films that’s rather like eating a McDonalds – you know there’s nothing good about it but you enjoy it anyway.

We go and see Ocean’s 13 – out of lack of anything else to do rather than any keenness to see it, though the trailer did look quite good. And it is quite good. Much better than the bloody awful second one. This one actually has funny bits, and exciting bits, and a good-ish plot. We like.

We also go and see Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer. I’m quite excited about this one because I quite enjoyed the first one, plus the trailer looks awesome. They do actually show most of the good set-pieces in the trailer but it’s still fun to watch. It’s actually better than Spider-Man 3!

Then there’s Fracture, which I mentioned earlier. Apart from the disconcerting and distracting fact that Ryan Gosling is the spitting image of my ex-boyfriend, it’s good fun in a trashy way. Anthony Hopkins riffs on his Hannibal persona so is suitably menacing, and Gosling is also good, playing the charismatic lawyer with aplomb. I liked it a lot. So much so I saw it twice. (See below.)

…getting a tattoo.
(See separate entry.)

…reading some books.
After hearing about it for so long I finally get around to reading We Need To Talk About Kevin. It’s awesome, and I can barely put it down the entire time I’m reading it. One of those books you look forward to picking up again the moment you’ve put it down. Told from the view point of a mother, the story unfolds via her letters to her husband about their son, who is in jail for killing some fellow students and a teacher in one of those infamous American high school killing sprees. Totally fictional, it’s given a fearsome bite of reality by the topical nature of the subject. It’s absorbing despite the unsympathetic characters of both mother and father, and the startling ending is the ideal pay-off for such an involving story. Read it, it’s brilliant.

Jess lends me Welcome To Hell, a real-life tale written by ??, which tells of the author’s experiences as an inmate in Bangkok’s horrific prison ??. It’s not well-written, ??’s written the book without the help of a ghost writer, but it’s absorbing enough thanks to the fact it’s a true story and because I’m in such close proximity to the actual jail. The moral of ??’s tale seems to be don’t do business in Thailand, you’ll get ripped off, and if you do and you need to go to the police, make sure you bribe them more than the person who ripped you off.

I also read a historical novel about Hannibal, which was quite good. I learnt a lot about Hannibal I didn’t know. Before it was just travelling through mountains on elephants. Little did I know that this excellent general used this ingenious method of travel to help kick plenty of Roman arse, before the shocking rape of his wife by Roman centurions takes the wind out of his sails. It’s quite a sad story really, as the bad guys win in the end.

…going on a date.
I’m a bit of a sneaky boy with this one. Another Thai bloke contacts me via MySpace and he seems quite intriguing so I agree to meet up with him. It means blowing Jess out though, which I feel bad about because we’ve not got much time left together. But blow her out I do, telling her I’m meeting Ark, and go and meet this guy, name of Bas.

We meet at the swanky mall Siam Paragon, and go and get some food in the equally swanky food hall there. He’s tall and big built – not a Thai build at all – and his English is extremely good. That said, I do most of the talking; he seems a little nervous. He’s in marketing and works for a swish hotel on Sukhumvit. The conversation flows okay but only cos I’m making all the effort. When he suggests a film I gratefully say yes but also think, God am I boring him?? We have a Starbucks while we wait for the start of the film and I’m chatting away again. The only time he gets animated is when he talks about his hotel.

We go and watch Fracture, which I don’t mind seeing again because of the cuts and missing ending on Jess’s DVD. It’s much better second time round, what with it making more sense, and has a satisfying ending. He holds my hand through the film, which I find a bit weird given him being so unenthusiastic otherwise, but go with it. Then we leave and get separate cabs home. All a bit odd but I can’t say I’m bothered. It’s a classic case of their being a complete lack of spark. What a waste of time.

…saying goodbye to Bangkok.
(See separate entry.)

Shanthi

Shanthi is the latest in a series of unexpected visitors to Bangkok. Tom, Jessy, Sean, Paul, Shereen, and now Shanthi – all of them are either acquaintances or friends that are early on in the relationship. But it’s great to see them all, and out of context. Shanthi and I used to work together back in the day, when I got my first job for PA – subbing TV listings.

Since we both moved on we’ve kept in irregular contact, and very rarely our busy London schedules would allow us to meet up together with other PA Listings alumni. Now she’s here in Bangkok with her long-term boyfriend Tim (they’ve been together 11 years, which is very sweet) who, incredibly, I’ve never met.

After having dinner with Vanda I head to Khao San and meet them outside their hotel Buddy Lodge, the same place Paul stayed at. We have some beers and a catch-up. Tim is a nice bloke, a photographer, and he claims to have met me briefly once. He’s probably right. After awhile they tell me they’re pretty hungry, do I know anywhere good to eat? I’d assumed they had and apologise for not taking them somewhere earlier. We head to my favourite cheap and cheerful little restaurant where they eat ravenously. The heat is too much for them however (I’d forgotten how overwhelming it is when you first get here) and they ask me if I know anywhere with air con. I can’t think of anywhere but remember that Gazebo has fans that also blow sprays of water, so take them there. We smoke shisha and drink mojitos and I have an absolute blast hanging out with them, but it’s Saturday tomorrow and I have to work. Eventually I unhappily knock it on the head.

I meet up with them again briefly the following night – my night out with Aom and Aor and Joey – but they’re off to Cambodia then Vietnam and so I don’t see them for well over two weeks. When they return on the 19th they are changed people!

I meet them in Soi 4 in Silom, which Shanthi discovered earlier and yet has no idea it’s full of gay bars. The bar she suggest we meet in is right at the end of the soi and dead quiet when I walk in. It’s like some kind of piano bar and there’s a man playing acoustic guitar and singing badly on the little stage to people who I assume are the staff, it’s so dead. I walk out again cos there aren’t any customers in there, let alone Shanthi and Tim. As I walk back down the soi they are walking up. Their clothes are looser, there are less of them and they both look a little more ruffled than when they left. They look like travellers.
Shanthi apologises for her unstraightened hair, but I tell her it actually looks nicer all wavey and natural. She looks great. We go to another bar – too quiet; we go to another one – too expensive; then we go to The Balcony. I’ve not been in here before but I know it’s a gay bar. Despite this being apparent from the clientele, Shanthi still doesn’t realise she’s in amongst the gay bars until I tell her. We have a laugh about it.

They tell me about Vietnam and Cambodia - Hanois in Vietnam is lovely, Ho Chi Minh City not so; they went to Halong Bay which was beautiful. I’m overwhelmed by the stuff they did and wonder how they manage dot pack it all in. The answer is flights. They flew a lot to get to the places they wanted to see.

In Cambodia Tim was trying to uncover more about a story regarding Angkor Wat and the alleged subsidence there. It’s a good place to get away with taking pictures I guess. They met some crazy characters as well – one highlight was the very gay staff at the Golden Banana in Siem Reap (near Angkor Wat).

After getting me all excited about my own trip to these countries, they suddenly have to leave. Their flight is at one am and so they make a move. I’m a bit gutted, they’re such fun to hang out with.