Out of Asia

The gap between entries gets longer and longer - must be just having too good a time.

I soon had a 'local' bar in Lonely Beach, Koh Chang, that I went to most nights. The owner is called Porn but for some reason thought it inappropriate to call it Porn Bar, so named it Pon's Bar instead - trouble was when they made the neon sign they had to join the P and the O so it looks more like Ron's Bar. The staff at the bar became close friends and I was invited to go on a trip with some of them to a market on the Cambodian border. Sat in the back of an open pickup truck for a couple of hundred kilometers getting blown away, but it was worth it for this huge and extremely cheap market. That night we stayed at Porn's family house and having turned down so much meat that was offered me, I feared that I was upsetting my hosts, so decided I'd relent and eat what they regarded as a real delicacy - fried bugs! Something like grasshoppers fried alive in Tamari. In fact they tasted okay, just as long as you forgot what they actually were. Back at the bar and one night I'm stood at the moonlit lit urinal when I notice this dark shape on the wall next to me. Looking closer it turns out to be a huge creature with enormous pincers. I call one of the bar staff. Rather suspicious as I beckon her into the mens toilet, but understanding when she spots the creature. She grabs a handy piece of 4"x2" and smashes it to a pulp. She says it could have given me a nasty nip to the leg. I say it wasn't my leg that I was worried about!

Well, I went through many weeks where I was convinced I was still 18. Drinking, partying, dancing the night away. In fact I never partied that much when I was 18, and at that time I was inhibited when it came to dancing - here I had no inhibitions whatsoever. But of course it all had to end, and it was meeting up with Molly that brought me back to realizing that I'm really not 18 any more. She's a calming influence on my life. 25hrs traveling up to Bangkok and an overnight trip down to Koh Samui to meet her: taxi, ferry, bus, bus, bus, ferry and taxi. It's great to see her, we move on to Koh Pah Nang and a small boat to Bottle Beach (not a recycling centre thanks Helena), which is only accessible by boat. We were roasting hot on the boat, even just in shorts and tee-shirt, but as you can see the boat owner found it chilly enough to wear a balaclava, which he adjusted specially for the photo.

After two wonderful relaxing weeks a trip back up to Bangkok, but this time by overnight train. A couple of nights there and guess what - another room with a mirror along the length of the bed. Another overnight train up to the Laos border and by tuktuk into Vientiane which I only found interesting in that it's where Tim Page started his career as a war photographer. Laos is a beautiful country but tragically the most heavily bombed country in the world ever, even though the USA never actually declared war. It means that most land is unusable and can't even be walked over due to unexploded ordinance. On to Vang Vieng, and I go 'tubing.' Given a tractor inner tube and dropped off upstream of the town. We went into the water and floated back down. Bar owners hold out bamboo poles and if you grab them they pull you in for a few beers and free Lao whisky. There's even 'special tea!' There's zip lines and slides over the river - it's great fun! I even have to negotiate a herd of water buffalo cooling themselves in the river. This was my high point in Lao and though a beautiful country I just found I couldn't relax and was soon on the move back to Thailand. Taxi, bus, bus, tuctuc, bus, tuctuc, overnight train, bus, boat and taxi and I'm back at Lonely Beach. Out of cash I find the ATM won't pay out, so after 40hrs without sleep I can't get anything to eat - just beer on credit from my favorite bar. Next day I feel ill and it takes me several days to fully recover but this time I'm staying in a bungalow over the hill from Lonely Beach and it's a lot quieter, more rustic and peaceful. The attached restaurant curiously named "Ms Naughtie’s Restaurant."

I hear from Rick, my brother that he is going to be in Sydney but as it is I'll miss him by just a few days, so I decide to bring my flight forward so we can meet. In any case I'm getting a little Thai'd out and for the first time I'm actually missing things like Radio 4 and soft furnishings. So back to Bangkok one final time and rather than the VIP Travel Mart bus I get the ordinary national bus and arrive at an unfamiliar bus station. Looking a little lost I'm grabbed by 3 policemen who search my bag, frisk me, paying particular attention to my groin area, and check my passport. "Ah, English. You like football? You smoke? You go with lady tonight? Okay, good night." I didn't like 3 of them around me. All too easy for one of them to either pinch something or to plant drugs, but no problem. To the hotel which, wow, has a bath. My first bath for 6 months! A shower in Thailand often means dunking a plastic bowl into a trough of water and pouring cold water over your head. I've got used to this, not to mention eating with a spoon and fork, up being on with switches and buying gasoline in refilled whisky bottles from the side of the road. I go out for a drink one evening. There are just 3 people in the bar and when I order a beer the barman disappears out of the door. I watch him as he goes over the road to the 7eleven store and comes back with my bottle of beer. Each time I order a beer he goes back to the 7eleven.

Finally I get a taxi to the airport and everything runs smoothly until it comes to getting on the plane. There's an electrical fault and we're delayed by 3hrs. Then it turns out the electrical fault is that in 3 rows the seat belt light doesn't work. By reassigning these rows we're finally able to take off and it's goodbye to SE Asia and the start of a new chapter in my travels.

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