How it all began...

15 September

I left home with a strange feeling that I was going to die, that I would never see my family again. With this sobering thought in mind, I noticed with more than my usual attention that Cornwall was without a doubt one of the most beautiful places on this earth, that I had never really appreciated just how wonderful my father was, that the clear blue sky reflected in a calm sea was quite mind-blowing and the colour of fresh grass by the roadside in the morning sunlight was truly wonderful.

My father took me to the bus station in his silver Volvo estate and we queued in the warm September sunlight while the ancient public address system blared out Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto to frighten away the tramps and drug addicts.

After Dad had dropped me off, I was again conscious of that strange premonition that this was the last time for us and I stared after him from my seat on the coach while he awkwardly turned the Volvo around in the car park and drove slowly away.

During the journey up to Heathrow, I tried to surf the internet on my phone and listen to the mp3 player. But my heart was not in it. I skipped listlessly through tracks of the Muse, Jesse Cook and the Rolling Stones but mentally, I was preparing to die.

I arrived at Heathrow, which was undergoing major reconstruction and consequently a total mess, and checked in with a blinding headache. On the plane, I tried to eat but felt sick so made sure that the paper bag was close to hand. I closed my eyes, reviewed my life up until the present moment and felt at peace despite my bodily discomfort.

16 September

We stopped over in Dubai for a couple of hours and I took the opportunity to stretch my legs. The airport in Dubai is huge…and they were busy making it even bigger. The shuttle bus from the terminal to the second plane took over 30 minutes. But by the time I boarded, I was feeling much better. The cabin crew seemed to be of every different nationality you could think of. Apparently, they spoke seven languages. I relaxed back in my seat and started to think about what might lie in wait for me in Bangkok.

I was going to spend a few days in the capital and then head down south. I had been there last time and had been very impressed by the stunning scenery of Krabi and the surrounding islands.

There were friends to look up too. I had agreed to share a hotel room with Leila, a half Thai – half Arabic girl I had met in Bangkok last June. She was due to arrive from America today.

The plane started to descend through the dense tropical rain clouds towards Suvarnabhumi International airport. As we slowed down, I started to get the impression of speed as we approached the runway. There was a slight bump, a rumble of tyres and I had arrived safely in Bangkok. It was cloudy, hot and humid. I was still alive. My morbid fears had been groundless, I thought.

But as I walked through the airport, all the big television screens in the lounges were showing live news coverage of a horrific air crash in Phuket, Thailand’s other big international airport. 89 People had died – over 50 of them western tourists. I had been lucky…

I passed through customs and into the waiting crowd outside. “Taxi! Hey taxi – 400 baht!” chanted the touts. I shook my head and went to catch the express airport bus into town for 150 baht. At Ratchamri, I changed to the skytrain and got off at National Stadium. There is a quiet little soi that is right by the exit. I went to a guesthouse called White Lodge where I got a spotless air conditioned room with hot water for 400 baht.

I showered and then went to eat at the tiny café/restaurant next door. It was a pretty little place with colourful sarongs for tablecloths and lit by small oil lamps. The customers were exclusively farang. A camp little Thai man flitted quietly and efficiently from table to table. It was at least 20 degrees hotter here than England but I felt comfortable. Mosquitoes were kept at bay by the fragrant anti mosquito coils placed under each table.

I had a curry and then retuned to my room. At about midnight, Leila rang me. “I’m outside MBK,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Hang on,” I told her. “I’ll come and get you.”

She was waiting under the huge and now dark shopping centre. She looked the same as I had remembered her – small, slim and dark with big Arabic eyes and long black wavy hair.

“I’m really jet lagged,” she said and kissed me. “Have you already got another girl in your room? Now, don’t lie to me…I KNOW!”

I took her suitcase and we walked back towards my room. Within hours of landing, my troubles with Thai girls had begun…

17 September

I got up late this morning and felt pretty good for it. I went to MBK in the early afternoon and then met up with my old girlfriend Jeab at Starbucks Saladang. She was looking very nice – she is a sweet girl even if she isn’t the most beautiful. When I returned to the White Lodge, Leila told me huffily that she’d come all the way from America to see me – and I’d left her to go see an ex-girlfriend…Not that she, Leila, minded by the way. She didn’t like me because I was a “luke krung” and therefore conceited, probably dirty and generally sub-standard…so there!

18 September

Today I got up early and had breakfast with Leila. She told me that she didn’t love me anymore and that she was “bored” with me. “I think I’m going back to America,” she said. I told her “Som na na!” (Roughly translated from Thai means “serves you right”) And then we went to MBK to check out prices of fake Ralph Lauren polo shirts for my French students back home.

We found the shirts – they were all about 200 baht. Mission accomplished, we took the skytrain to the British Club in Silom. There we swam and Leila, who was a good swimmer, started grabbing me in the water. She would submerge and then moments later appear from below, her fingers reaching upwards, her long black hair flowing around her like some kind of water witch.

I told her to stop behaving like a Khao San Road girl and she immediately flew into a sulk.

“I think I’m going to work in Sweden,” she said. “A smart, clever girl like me can find work anywhere!”

I escaped to the safety of the male changing rooms and stood thoughtfully under a hot shower.

“These Thai girls are proving to be quite a handful,” I mused as I squeezed out soap from the dispenser. “Still, I’m sure they’re not as bad as they seem…”

19 September

Today I got up before 8am and did my exercises. Leila had changed her mind about returning to America and instead joined me late for breakfast at the café next to our hotel. She had done herself up very nicely and caused quite a stir which she evidently enjoyed. We spent the day shopping in the Siam Square district and then ate dinner at a rather pretentious and overpriced Italian restaurant near MBK. The pasta dish I ordered was ok but expensive for this soi and Leila’s pizza was soggy and severely underdone. However, it was a great place for people watching.

“Look at that girl there!” I told Leila as a couple walked by. “She has a great figure and has lovely curly hair – I think she must be Brazilian. Wow, she is so sexy – can you go and grab her for me please!”

Leila was delighted.

“Yes,” she said. “If you like! Because I think that actually ‘she’s’ a ladyboy and he would love to rape you!”

20 September

Today I went swimming at the British Club again with Leila. With her waist-length curly black hair and slim tanned body, she looked like a Brazilian beach babe in her white bikini. She attracted a lot of attention from both men and women alike and was very pleased with herself.

“Look!” she told me. “They are all staring at us! And just now in the changing rooms, a woman came up to me and asked if she could feel my hair.”

She sipped her banana milkshake. “I’m horny!” she said. “I think I’m going to eat you!”

21 September

Today I said goodbye to Leila and took the bus to Chachoengsao to see my mother and grandmother. Chachoengsao is a medium sized, rapidly expanding town about 80 kilometres from Bangkok. It is a busy, noisy, dirty place with lots of big heavy trucks rushing through it and very few farangs. It is perhaps for this reason that all the heavy industry from Bangkok is being gradually relocated there.

Chachoensao is also famous to Thais for having the second most revered Buddha image in Thailand. (The first is the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok). The Buddha image in Chachoengsao is called Luang Por Sothorn. It is supposed to have strong magical powers and make all your wishes come true. It is housed in a massive temple which cost nearly three thousand million baht to build. Well, that’s what someone told me, anyway. People come from all over Thailand to worship a copy of this Buddha image. (The original statue is considered too valuable to be shown in public).

After a two hour journey, the bus pulled into the Chachoengsao bus terminal, which is opposite Big C supermarket. I went to buy some bread and then went to see my friend Kik who sells cheap jewelry at one of the many stalls outside the vast store.

Kik is a 25 year old Thai girl with long dyed blonde hair whose ambition is to have a Farang boyfriend and have “luke krung” children. Last time I’d met her, she’d just spent 10,000 baht on having the bridge of her nose made bigger so that it would look more westernized.

I asked her how she was.

“Not good,” she replied mournfully. “Last week, farang come to Big C. Very tall and handsome. Yes sir! My spec. My friend ask him if he like me but he say that face Kik too much like western girl. He prefer Thai lady – not Thai lady who look like westerner…”

I roared with delighted laughter.

“What did you expect?” I said. If a western man comes over to Thailand, he’s going to be looking for Thai girls, isn’t he? He’s not going to want a western look-alike! Som na na!”

I left her and caught a songtaw (a pick up truck converted to carry large numbers of people cheaply and dangerously) down the main road that runs through and out of the town. It was dusty, dirty and full of black smoke and noise from the huge ancient trucks that thunder continuously past on their way to Cambodia.

I got off at the turn off to Wat Par. I paid my 7 baht and then took a motorbike taxi a couple of kilometers to my grandmother’s place.

Once off the main road, the countryside is completely different. It is still pretty much in the third world. Ragged dressed people pedal rusty, battered bicycles past the rice fields and shrimp farms. Rabid dogs run out to bite you. Wizened old women sell roasted field rats by the roadside. It is a soothing place for the jaded traveler, weary of Starbucks, McDonalds, skytrains and air conditioned shopping malls.

My grandmother lives by the Bang Pakong river in a peaceful, old-fashioned style wooden house on stilts. It is very beautiful and peaceful there. The garden is full of orchids, bougainvilleas, ladies’ finger nails. The air is clean and only the incessant sound of the television set disturbs the peaceful tranquility.

Behind the house is thick tropical jungle full of birdsong. At night you can hear nightjars and also a strange, piercing rather compelling cry which my grandmother says belongs to a singing cobra.

I saw a huge lizard near the house. It must have been of the monitor lizard family. It looked like a small dinosaur and was at least six foot long. The Thais are afraid of these creatures, believing them to bring bad luck. My grandmother told me to take a stick and chase it away.

I picked up a broom and waved it. The lizard took no notice but calmly advanced towards me. It had a kind of odd slithering walk. It moved like a big, heavy python with legs might. Its clawed feet were the size of my hands. A well meaning Australian once told me that when big lizards in the Australian bush panic, they will often mistake people for trees and run up them. Their sharp, bacteria infested claws can do a lot of damage. I didn’t want this Thai dinosaur making the same mistake. I retreated hastily up the steps to the house.

The big lizard moved under the steps and continued until it reached the river. It slipped into the water and swam smoothly away. It was a wonderful swimmer. It looked like a snake in the water with its powerful tail swishing from side to side. It headed towards the opposite bank. Thankfully, I put the broom down again.

23 September

Today I spent a nice relaxing day helping my uncle clean his car. Afterwards, I had the bright idea of wiping citronella oil into the wooden side rails of the sala to ward off mosquitoes.

24 September

This morning I arose at 6.15am to give alms to the monks. The local mosquitoes were delighted. “The early Mosquito catches the early Farang!” whooped a large evil-looking specimen gleefully and swooped down to feed on the sweet blood.

“Hey Garnash! Don’t forget to put down lots of poison while you’re feedin’!” advised his friend. “Make the farang itch and swell!”

“Gollnish! Do I look like I’m stupid, eh? I am poison! In fact, if I was a bit bigger and a lot longer, I reckon I could give King Cobra a run for his money…”

“Yeah, yeah! Didn’t see you the other day when that spitting cobra was around, did we? Where was you? Bad tummy, was it?”

After lunch, I cleaned Dad’s car and took my mother to the temple shop. At about 2pm, Pi At and Pi Nun arrived in Pi At’s car and took me to have coffee at Big C with Pi Domp.

25 September

Today, I took my mother to get a new mobile phone contract. We met Kik at Big C.

She told my mother that I was not nice and that I always teased her.

“You no handsome too,” she added to me. “You balding man, teeth not white…no sir!”

Afterwards, I drove my mother home and then took the air-conditioned coach to Bangkok. It cost me 57 baht for the 2 hour journey. Now I am back at the White Lodge.

26 September

Today I arose at 7.15, took a cold shower and did my Strengthening Exercises. My Strengthening Exercises are the source of much amusement for my friends. They are of my own invention and consist of a sort of yoga, some warm up exercises followed by twenty sit-ups and twenty push-ups. If you do these exercises for long enough, then you will have a toned six pack stomach and never get sick. I always make a point of highly recommending them to my friends but so far without any converts. Perhaps it is because I don’t yet have a six pack.

After being Strengthened, I had breakfast. Twas good. Then I went to the British Club to swim and do my emails. I received an email from Phuket Schools offering me a job but I don’t think I will take it. I also booked my flight to Krabi this Saturday.

My friend Danny from Krabi phoned to say that her best friend Jenny was coming to Bangkok in the afternoon and would I please look after her. I said I would.

I met Jenny outside MBK. She was a tall, dark, strong looking southern girl. We had dinner together and then went to Starbucks for coffee and cake afterwards. It really isn’t a bad life, I thought. I’m leading the life of a wealthy retired person – whilst I’m still young enough to fully enjoy it!

28 September

I spoke too soon! A really horrendous past couple of days. Must have eaten something really bad at MBK on the evening of the 26th because by the early hours was vomiting AND really bad diarrhea almost continuously. I also had a high fever. I was rushed to hospital and put on drips, given injections, drugs – the lot. In 20 hours, I vomited 17 times and had to go to the toilet about 25 times. My stomach hurt terribly. It was a truly horrible experience.

Danny’s friend, Jenny, looked after me at the hospital. It was a strange twist of fate. I was supposed to look after her and she ended up looking after me! It must have been quite a trial for her. In the emergency section of Chulalongkorn Hospital there is no bed or even a chair for a relative of the sick to rest. He or she must stand by the bedside. If they want to rest then they must go outside the building where there are some seats.

All that long night, Jenny stood by me and sponged my fevered body, fed me water and got fresh plastic bags for me to be sick into. I shall be forever indebted to her. At last, when the drugs finally kicked in and I was able to sleep, she went outside and managed to find two empty plastic chairs. She pushed them together and slept.

29 September

I awoke to find a rather stern looking young nurse with a clipboard standing by my bedside.

“I have some questions to ask you,” she told me in Thai.

“Ok,” I said and reached for the plastic bag in my shorts pocket. It had become second nature to me during the last 24 hours, to make sure that there was somewhere to be sick into.

“Have you ever admitted to a hospital before?” she asked.

“No, never,” I said. “I’ve always been healthy.”

“Ok.” She frowned down at her clipboard. “Have you a history of any medical illness?”

“No.”

“Hmmm.” She turned over a page and readjusted the glasses on her nose. “How long have you been here in Thailand?”

“About two weeks.” My head throbbed. I could feel the need to go to the toilet again. I clenched my sphincter muscles.

“Have you been to any jungle areas?”

“No, just Bangkok.”

She was silent for a bit while she read down her list. I looked at the back of my right hand where the clear plastic tube of the drip feed was plugged into my vein. Dark red blood was moving slowly up the pipe. The drip bottle must be nearly empty. I lowered my hand and rearranged the tubing.

“Well,” she said at last. “You might have Somethingorther – it’s a new kind of incurable malaria in Bangkok at the moment….” She read slowly down her list. “Or Hepatitis A from unclean food. Yes, that could be it.”

She seemed quite pleased that she’d found a possible solution to the cause of my troubles. “Were you vaccinated against Hepatitis before you came out here?”

“No,” I said. I was mentally trying to juggle the relative benefits of a new strain of incurable malaria against the older and also incurable Hepatitis A while trying not to shit my bed. At least I didn’t feel like vomiting anymore. You can always find a silver lining to any cloud if you are creative enough.

“Ah!” she said. “Your embassy should have told you to have a Hepatitis vaccination. Right, I’m going to have to take some blood for testing.”

She swooped down on my left arm. I am not a strong man when it comes to blood so I looked away. From the sharp pain though, I gathered that she was sticking some kind of sharp instrument into the inside of my elbow. She straightened and briskly applied a plaster to stop the bleeding.

“Ok,” she said happily and went off with my blood in a little tube. I lay back and closed my eyes. We all have to die sometime, I mused. If not today, then maybe tomorrow or next week…

I awoke to find another nurse, barely more than a girl with a pretty smiling face shaking my arm. Jenny, my cousin Gook and her friend were standing at the foot of my bed. They were all laughing.

“We need to test to see if the bad bacteria is still in you,” said the pretty young nurse and handed me a small plastic tube and what looked like a long cotton bud. All four women broke into laughter again. I looked from the plastic tube and the cotton bud to their faces, nonplused.

“You need to stick the cotton bud up your arse,” said Jenny. “And then put it in the tube and give it to the nurse.”

I sighed resignedly as the nurse drew the curtains around my bed so that I should have some privacy to do the deed. Outside the curtains, four feet away, they broke into fresh laughter. The Thais will laugh at pretty much anything.

A male doctor came to see me about an hour later. He was beaming. That in itself did not necessarily mean that he had what Westerners would consider good news. The first nurse had been pretty cheerful about my Hepatitis. The doctor laid his hand on my shoulder.

“No vomiting today?” he asked me in English.

“No,” I said.

“Good! Go home, eh?”

“Really?” I said. “All my tests ok then?”

“All ok.”

“No Hepatitis A? No latest brand of malaria?”

“No, you’re all clean.”

He detached me from my drip feed and gave me a big bag of pills to take before and after meals. Jenny and I walked slowly to the door and got a taxi back to my hotel.

2 October

The past few days have been spent recovering, eating mostly rice soup. I am pretty much back to normal now.

Today, I got up at 8am and did my Strengthening Exercises. I then ate a full continental breakfast and read the newspapers. There are severe weather warnings for the south of Thailand in the next few days including Krabi and Phuket. Boats have capsized and there have been landslides etc. I have a flight to Krabi tomorrow afternoon so must be on the look out.

I went to Pi Baby’s shop to eat Pak na prick pow and met Marco the Italian. He told me that he lives in a two room apartment in Huay Kwang for 5,500baht a month.

This evening I went to see the movie Resident Evil Extinction with Gook and Jenny. It was pretty silly and unoriginal but was funny because it was so American. They even said, “Let’s do it!” before going off to blow up some evil non Americans with their automatic weapons.

3 October

Today I am going to Krabi for a month or so. This morning was spent packing my suitcase etc. I checked out of my hotel and then went to the main road and flagged down a taxi. The driver pulled up. He was a balding Chinese looking man of about 45 years with a pony tail and pointed beard.

“Can you take me to Don Mung?” I asked. He nodded and I loaded my suitcase into the boot and then got in.

“Ah, er you don’t need meter?” he suggested hopefully.

“Yes, meter!” I said firmly in Thai.

“Oh,” he said disappointedly and turned it on. “I thought you were a foreigner…”

We spent the journey in pleasant chit chat. He told me that he was half Chinese, that he was from Bangkok and that people from the South and from Isan were “not to be trusted”. The women were “worse than the men”, he finished. I thanked him for his advice. By the time we’d reached Don Mung airport, the meter stood at 167. I gave him 180 baht and told him to keep the change. We both departed on our respective ways, invigorated.

I flew with Thai Air and had a good and uneventful flight. We arrived at Krabi International Airport on time and I took a cab to the Grand Tower Inn. It was a different world from Bangkok. The roads were good, the traffic light and orderly and everywhere was so clean. I sat back in the cream leather seat of the taxi and silently rejoiced. This was a place to write.

I checked in and then went to eat at Pizza Firenzi– a wonderful Italian restaurant run by a Thai woman who is married to a retired Italian stockbroker. After a delicious meal, I met with my friend Danny.

Danny was born in the South of Thailand but both her parents were Chinese. I had met her two years before on Koh Phi Phi. She ran a little bookshop there. She was a tall buxom girl, with slanting Chinese eyes, black hair and white skin. Her sister lived in Krabi town.

Last year, I’d had an interview for the possibility of teaching English at a small resort in Krabi. For some reason that I can’t remember, Danny came along as well and posed as my girlfriend. I didn’t get the job but Danny and I stayed the night at the resort and basically had a little thing going for a few days. But all that was over now, I thought. Leila would be coming to join me in Krabi soon. No reason to tell her about Danny. Let sleeping dogs lie….

I guess I was still pretty naïve about Thai girls even then.

04 October

This morning, Danny took me to see an apartment for rent. It was a lovely place, cool and breezy, set in lush gardens. The building was barely a year old and everything was clean and freshly painted. The rooms were top quality with hardwood furniture etc. The balcony rail was stainless steel. A room costs 6,500 baht a month including water. It seems that I have found the perfect place to write. Now I need the inspiration…

I will need a motorbike if I am to stay here though as it is in a quiet area away from the centre of town. You can see the mountains in the distance. The beach is 20 minutes away.

Danny took me back to the hotel and then left me. I spoke to the staff regarding motorbike hire. It costs 200 baht a day but they would let me have it for 4,000 baht per month. I can have a wonderful apartment plus new motorbike for only 140 pounds a month. Perfect.

Leila phoned me to tell me that she was going to come to visit me today. She will arrive about 6pm.

After lunch I spent a lazy afternoon writing postcards and then snoozed. At about four o’clock, I was aroused by the ominous sound of native drums and deep throated chanting. A few high pitched wails rent the air.

I leapt from my bed, grabbed my camera and ran outside. If there was going to be a massacre then my blogsite readers must know of it first.

Hundreds of natives in black body paint were marching up the main street. They were banging tom tom drums, blowing into wind instruments. A few ancient crones were dancing, twirling their hands in the old Thai country fashion. At their head strode a huge tall puppet like figure, rather like from a Brazilian carnival. Cannibals! I thought.

I hid behind a small tree and started taking pictures. Every now and again, someone would give a wailing cry which would be answered by deep throated chants. I had no idea what they were chanting. I had a pretty good idea though.

Old woman dancing: Blood! Blood! Give me blood!

The rest of crowd in terrifying bass: Blood! Blood! Give us blood!

Old woman dancing: Farang blood, farang blood! It’s sweet and good!

The rest of the crowd in thunderous chorus: Farang blood, farang blood! It’s sweet and good!

Luckily, nobody noticed me snapping away. Afterwards, I escaped back to my room unharmed.

Later that afternoon, Danny came to see me and we went to have ice cream at Swensens. I told her that Leila was due to arrive soon and Danny started to sulk. I had no idea why. I grew thoughtful. Although I still really didn’t have a clue about Thai girls, it was obvious even to me that more trouble was brewing…

Leila arrived at 6.30pm with a big sack of shirts that she was going to give to a customer of her sister’s. For some reason or other, she was in a bad mood too. The kind of unreasonable sulk that only a hot tempered woman from the warmer climes knows. With a woman’s uncanny sixth sense, she somehow knew about Danny. It was like a bloodhound scenting her prey.

She was clearly spoiling for a fight. However, I ignored her dark mutterings and took her to have dinner at Pizza Firenzi instead. After the second piece of Hawaii pizza that she’d ordered without the ham, she cheered up and started thinking about sex – the other preoccupation of her hot blooded sisterhood.

“Tonight I’m going to give you a good scene because I’m horny,” she told me. “And then I think I’m going to find a man who will spoil me. You NEVER spoil me. Mark used to always come and pick me up wherever I was, AND he would always buy me things…I was so bad to him!” She cheered up further at the thought and ordered ice cream.

5 October

Today, we decided to go to Ao Nang. The boyfriend of Leila’s friend Kay came to collect us in a brand new sports pickup. His name was Anas and he was 23 – ten years younger than her. He took us to a rather posh place called Vogue Pranang Bay Resort where Kay was catering manager.

Kay was a very nice woman in her early thirties. She had recently been divorced and had obviously taken on Anas as a stopgap. She gave us coffee and then took us on an inspection of the resort which was beautifully done with spa, swimming pool, old style wood carvings, lush gardens etc. But it cost over 10,000 baht a night to stay there – which is more than a month’s salary for a Bangkok office worker.

Anas told us that before he had worked for Vogue Pranang Bay Resort as a driver. However, one day Natalie Galvbolva – the former Miss Universe, had come to stay with her fiancée the Thai tennis champion Paradon Srichaphan. There had been no driver to pick them up after dinner one night and, after she’d made a fuss, Anas had been sacked. Now he was looking for driving work again.

After the tour, Anas took us to Ao Nang where we took a rather drab and cheerless room which was by the seafront but had absolutely zero view as the one small window faced a dirty concrete wall about two feet away. However it had air con, hot water, refrigerator, cable TV etc for only 500 baht so was very good value for money.

After we’d unpacked our bags, Leila and I went for a swim in the sea and then had dinner with Kay and Anas at a lovely beach side restaurant.

6 October

This morning it rained and rained and rained! We ate breakfast at a place called Ao Nang Cuisine. The food was nice but very Thai – instant Nescafe coffee with whitening cream, tinned orange juice, toast that hadn’t been toasted etc. As we left, I noticed a sign which thanked us for our custom and wished our families luck forever!

After breakfast, the steady heavy rain continued so we decided to stay another night as there was obviously no point in going anywhere when the weather was like this. After I’d paid, Leila told me that we could have stayed at Kay’s luxury resort for only 1,800 baht! Kay could have got us in on an “inspection”. Why she didn’t tell me before is a mystery! Perhaps she wanted to save it as a subject to argue about…

The rain continued. We sat in our dismal room and waited for the rain to stop. It didn’t. We started thinking about Kay’s luxury resort with swimming pool and spa…

For want of anything better to do, I wrote my diary and Leila wrote her poems. She was very fond of writing love poems. After a while, she went outside. Suddenly she came back in again, beaming.

“I’ve got a refund!” she said. “I spoke nicely to the man at reception and he’s given us our money back!”

I jumped up. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

I packed my suitcase while Leila phoned for Anas to pick us up. In less than 10 minutes we were pulling up in front of the entrance of Vogue Pranang Bay Resort and uniformed and gloved staff were taking our suitcases, bowing and opening doors, ushering us into cream leather sofas while the manager himself brought us drinks and scented white towels to wipe our hands on…

I started to feel suspicious. Surely, not all customers coming from 500 baht guesthouses received such VIP treatment? I turned to Leila, who was smiling graciously and looking pretty pleased with herself.

“Who do they think we are?” I asked in a low undertone. “What have you told them? Who are we supposed to be?”

“I told the manager that I am from Petcherat Marina and that it is an inspection,” she whispered. “Everybody knows Petcherat here. I used to be their marketing manager and I showed him my old card. I think he was suspicious at first because there was no letter beforehand but I told him that I was in a hurry. So I got him to phone my old boss at Petcherat – he is a good friend of mine. And he told the manager that ‘yeah, Leila is with us.’”

Soon, we were viewing the rooms which were pretty palatial compared to what we’d just come from. Leila told me that if it was an inspection from a well known big company, then the resort would discount heavily and give us 5 star treatment because of the hoped for follow up custom.

In the end, we settled for a top end open plan style honeymoon suite complete with big circular bathtub next to the huge four poster bed. The views were a breathtaking panoramic of towering mountains and turquoise seas. There was every luxury you might expect in such a place. The huge screen TV was hidden discretely behind carved wooden doors. There was a charming print from the Karma Sutra to inspire newly-wed lovers. A large platter of exotic fruit was placed by the bathtub. Orchids were everywhere as were scented candles. It was a romantic place. The non-discounted low season price was 15,000 baht and they let Leila have it for 2,500 baht.

After the staff had left us, closing the door softly behind them, Leila and I went round our suite, gloating over every detail.

“Benny, you cannot sleep tonight!” said Leila. “I want to have sex in every corner of this place! See, we can do it out on the balcony…in the big bathtub….on that sofa…”

“What a ridiculous idea!” I told her. “Just feel the softness of this bed! It’s so comfortable. It would be a waste not to sleep at least eight hours in it… And the views! We must spend at least half of our time admiring them…”

Still arguing, we changed into our swimwear and went for a swim in the pool below our balcony.

7 October

When I awoke, the golden morning sunlight was shining through the soft rain falling on the mountains outside our window.

It was a beautiful scene and I stretched luxuriously on the crisp cotton sheets of the four poster bed and watched it for a while. My skin still felt deliciously relaxed and refreshed after the scented bath of last night.

But time was short and this was too special a place in which to waste it. I sprang out of bed and took a cold shower before doing my Strengthening exercises. Some sixth instinct told me that, not far below, a full continental breakfast was calling me…

And so it was. After I had demolished 4 croissants, 3 pieces of toast, a place of fresh fruit and a few cups of coffee, I felt ready for whatever new adventures the day might bring.

The day’s adventure consisted of returning to the Grand Tower in Krabi and then taking an ancient and rather decrepit long boat to Khao Khanab Nam Cave.

This was a wondrous place – part Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings and part Nature’s cathedral. It was lit by natural formed light shafts in the walls of the cave. Tiny swifts nested amongst the stalactites hanging from the ceiling 50 feet above and called quietly to each other as they flitted to and fro. Somewhere deep in the darker places, water dripped steadily. It must have been possible to live here then. Apparently it is not uncommon to find human skeletons here dating from ancient times.

On the way back from the cave, we visited a fish farm. This was a ramshackle affair consisting of floating wooden planks and nets submerged in the brown water. We landed our boat and a small squat Thai man came out of a little floating hut and grinned at us.

“Fish fish!” he said and nodded at the old planks at his feet.

We stared down into the murky water but there didn’t seem much to see. He squatted down on the wet wood and reached into the water. He brought up a fish and grinned at us again.

“See! Fish!” he said.

His fish immediately started gulping in air in a pumping motion and rapidly blew itself up until it was the shape and size of a small football covered in spines. He put it back in the water where upon it deflated itself and sunk below the surface again.

After the fish farm, we returned to our hotel. Danny called to say that there was a studio flat available at the place we’d been to see before. I went to see it with her and agreed to take it.

Leila and I ate dinner at Pizza Firenzi. We invited Danny to join us but she declined. She is still sulking.

8 October

Today Leila went back home to Patanni. I took the boat to Koh Phi Phi. It is a very touristy place – but still one of the most beautiful islands in Thailand and probably the world. I love the way the sheer limestone cliffs rise straight out of the turquoise seas. They are hundreds of feet tall and covered with lush tropical vegetation. And most of the tourists tend to cluster in the town so it is not difficult to get away from it all.

My friends Varn and Duen met me at the pier with a trolley for my suitcase. Everyone seemed glad to see me and I received four separate invites to sleep at their place. In the end I agreed to sleep at Anne’s and Varn’s house. I went for a long swim at sunset. It was lovely to float on my back in the clear warm emerald water and watch the sun go down over the mountains. I returned to Anne and Varn’s shop at dusk and took a shower while Anne cooked me a meal.

9 October

Today I woke up, refreshed after a good night’s sleep. The weather was hot and sunny. I rang my cousin Gook and wished her a Happy Birthday. She told me that today wasn’t her birthday – it was tomorrow but she thanked me nevertheless.

I had breakfast at PP Bakery. On my way back to Anne’s shop, I met a big Thai man with a long ponytail. He was sitting on the sea wall, dressed in old baggy shorts and tee shirt. He pushed his fake Raybans back on his forehead and grinned at me.

“Boat, boat?” he said cheerfully.

“Good morning,” I replied. His smile grew wider.

“You want boat, boat?” he enquired.

“Why not?” I said. “Where does your boat, boat sail to?”

“Phi Phi Ley,” he said. “Verrry beautiful!”

Koh Phi Phi Ley is an island just off Koh Phi Phi. It is uninhabited and reputed to be very beautiful. The film The Beach was mainly filmed there in the year 2000.

I stared out doubtfully at the sea. It looked like there was quite a swell beyond the sheltered bay. Where I come from in Cornwall, that wouldn’t have been a problem but Thai boats are not built to withstand waves. Anything above a metre high is likely to capsize them.

My long haired friend saw where I was looking and laughed reassuringly.

“No problem, no problem!” he said. “Wave not problem. My boat go over wave – not under wave! You see!”

“Ok,” I said.

It would be an adventure anyway. I used to do a lot of surfing when I was growing up in Cornwall so I was pretty confident in rough seas. Although I was now in my early thirties, I was still mentally immature enough to imagine that nothing could go seriously wrong… Why bother growing up and start worrying? After all, I had less of my life to lose than when I was a teenager…

“Ok, you come?” asked the boatman, interrupting my philosophical train of thought.

“Yes, yes I come! I have fifteen fewer years to worry about now.”

“Ok! You come here two o’clock, ok?”

“Ok, I’ll be here two o’clock.”

When I returned at two, I found quite a few other people waiting to go as well. The pony-tailed boatman counted heads and nodded.

“Ok, we go,” he said and set off along the beach in his bare feet.

We followed him. There were ten of us in all. Most were westerners of various nationalities but there were two Korean men who had the same spiky orange hairstyle, wore the same oversized sunglasses, same designer shorts and flip flops. The only difference between the two was their tee shirts. One had an orange tee shirt with same same but different printed on it in black. The other man wore a black tee shirt with same same but different printed in orange.

Both men were very friendly. They told me that they were students on holiday from Seoul. Their names were Bay (orange tee shirt) and Chang-su (black tee shirt). I asked if they were twins.

“No, not twins,” said Bay with a sideways glance and smile at Chang-su. “Just friends. Very close friends.”

“Very good friends,” agreed Chang-su and laid his hand lightly on Bay’s thigh.

“Oh, ok,” I said.

We came to the boat and got in. It was actually quite a big boat with an upper viewing deck. There was another boatman waiting there. Everyone made their way to the top and fastened their life jackets. The boatman’s friend started the engine and we set off.

As we left the shelter of Phi Phi bay, the sea grew rougher and the big boat rolled quite a bit in the swell. It took us about thirty minutes to get near Phi Phi Ley island. We went around it and I could see why Asian pirates of the old days used to hide out there. It seemed to be almost completely surrounded by sheer limestone cliffs that towered some 500 feet straight up from the ocean. There was nowhere to land the boat. It was an immense fortified castle built by nature.

Everyone stared up at it in silence. Here and there were dark, threatening looking caves glaring out from the cliffs. Anything might be in them. The heavy swell crashed against the cliffs, sending up white spray. It was a beautiful and wild sight.

The boatman stopped the boat and turned off the engine. There was a big splash as he threw an anchor overboard.

“Ok! We go island!” he told us cheerfully.

We stared at him.

“Go to the island? How? Isn’t there a bay where we can land? How about Maya Bay?”

“No Maya Bay. Wave too big. Cannot get boat through. We swim through cave. See?”

And he pointed at the cliffs three hundred yards ahead which were being pounded by the heavy seas. When the swell sucked back, we could see a small dark and rather sinister looking cave.

“We have to swim through there?!” we asked incredulously.

He seemed pleased that we had cottoned on so quick. “Yes, yes! Swim through cave to inside island.”

“Can’t you get the boat closer?”

“No, no. Wave too big. Dangerous. You swim. Give me your camera. I take in bag on kayak.”

“Can we use the kayak?”

“Only have one kayak. Kayak cannot go inside small cave. You swim.”

Everyone started arguing amongst themselves. It was crazy, it was too dangerous, we would be smashed against the sharp rocks etc. Then a big Aussie spoke up.

“It’s kinda crazy trying to swim through that cave but it’s our only chance to see inside the island, right? I wanna see it before I go home. Let’s give it a go, huh? Guess we have to do crazy things sometimes. We only live once, right?”

Half of the people agreed with him. A buxom blonde German girl dived off from the top of the boat into the emerald waters. She surfaced a moment later, seemingly oblivious to the fact that her bikini top had come off with the force of the dive. I couldn’t help noticing that her breasts were big and creamy white with hard pink nipples.

She pushed back her fair hair and smiled back at all the men who were grinning down at her. “Come on in!” she called. “Let’s do this!”

“Claudia!” called one of her friends. “Your bikini!”

She looked down and gave a start.

“Oh my god!” she laughed and pulled up the bikini top from her waist.

People started jumping into the sea and swimming off towards the cave in their lifejackets. A couple of people decided that they would stay on the boat.

I was the last to go. Perhaps I had become more mentally mature during the thirty minute boat ride, perhaps I was thinking of all those precious years of my life ahead. One thing I knew from surfing was that rocks and waves did not make a good combination for human flesh.

“Ah well. What the hell!” I said and jumped overboard. “What price adventure, eh?”

I swam towards the cave, still in my life vest and accompanied by a big school of tiger fish and a couple of bright turquoise fish over two feet long. The cave entrance didn’t look so bad close up if you chose the right moment between the waves. I trod water for a bit at the entrance, waited for the water to subside between the waves and then warily entered.

The cave narrowed to a dark tunnel, rocky underfoot. The water was about chest deep and surged in and out. I tried not to think about giant octopuses lying in wait and instead focused on the exit about twenty feet away and ten foot up. I clambered up and through to the other side - and found myself in a dream world.

It was strangely hushed, the cliffs towered just as sheer on the inside as they did on the outside and blocked out the roar of the ocean. Green leafy trees grew up straight and tall with no wind to bend them. The atmosphere was magical, ancient and I was alone. It seemed impossible that this was a real place in the waking world. It was timeless, surreal. This is what the great forests that once covered England must have felt like. Butterflies fluttered by but no birds sang. Despite the countless people that must have come through here in recent years, the place had a forgotten feel to it. This was a lost world.

A white sandy path stretched ahead of me through the dim greenness of the forest and, dazedly, I followed it. There were footprints on the sand of people that had gone before but as everyone from the boat had swum barefoot here the prints were of unshod savages. Time still had not touched this island.

Soon, two paths diverged in a green leafy wood and I took the path more trodden by. On it led. Now, faintly, I heard the roar of the ocean.

Ahead, a magnolia type of tree bent over to from a natural arch. Through it I could see white sand and turquoise sea.

I had arrived at a secret bay, accessible to the ocean by a narrow gateway in the towering limestone cliffs. Through this strait, a small boat may only pass when the sea is flat calm. Weird stalagmites hung down from the overhanging cliffs. An old tree trunk, fashioned into fantastic shapes by the sea, lay half buried in the sand. The wood was bleached white by the fierce tropical sun. The rest of the boat party stood snapping pictures or playing in the waves near the shore.

I took pictures on my camera and also for a girl who had sent her camera ashore in the waterproof rucksack but had been too terrified to pass through the cave.

All too soon it was time to leave. This is a recurring theme on Koh Phi Phi. Time passes too swiftly.

Back to the cave we went. But now fresh danger awaited us. During the hour we’d been on the secret island, the tide had risen considerably. This meant that the tunnel through the gateway cave was now half underwater. To make matters worse, the wind had picked up and the sky was growing fierce. Big powerful waves were crashing over the small cave mouth outside causing water to explode with dangerous force out from the tunnel.

One by one, people went through, clinging onto the rope as they went down the drop into the tunnel, stumbling on the rocky bottom while waves tried to dash them against the dark walls of the cave. It was a very slow process as the sea was now too fierce to swim to the boat and the boatmen were having to pick people up one by one on the kayak.

Darkness fell. It started to rain. Large mosquito Orcs, sensing impending doom, swooped down and began to feast upon the defenceless half-naked bodies. Most people were too scared at the sight of the fearsome tunnel that they knew they would soon have to pass through to even notice the diabolical creatures. And the Orcs chuckled evilly to each other.

“Woooooh! Farung blood! So sweet! Waaaaaahey!”

It grew more and more dangerous as time passed. One girl was almost paralyzed with fear. All around me, people were trying to talk themselves into facing the awful journey.

“Cmon, cmon…we can do this! We’re not gonna die…it can’t be that bad…”

A big muscular German man with close cropped blond hair and sporting a black eye took command.

“Everybody is forming an orderly queue,” he told us sternly. “Women and weak swimmers at the front.”

People moved gladly to obey. The big German seated himself just above the mouth of the tunnel, seemingly unfazed by the violent explosions of water that regularly issued forth and tried to knock him off his perch.

“I was a year in the army,” he told me, as he watched the water being sucked back into the tunnel with a calculating eye. “It was compulsory in my country. EVERYBODY should be made to do National Service – it prepares people for situations like this. There is a danger and somebody needs to look after everybody. You have to watch the situation and see how it is. It is common sense.

“Go down the drop backwards and hold onto the rope,” he told a shaking woman. “It is like abseiling. You have seen how other people have slipped. You can avoid this.”

On by one, people passed into the menacing tunnel. The sea was growing fiercer as the wind picked up. Surging waters tugged fiercely at them as they stumbled blindly on the rocky bottom. One girl was thrown against the rocks and bashed her head. She went limp and was washed out to the man on the kayak outside. Her friend thought she was dead but we later found out that she was simply groggy. It grew steadily darker.

Now there were only three of us left and the water was up to the roof of the cave. The big German surveyed the scene calmly.

“That man is very nervous. I think he should go next,” he told me. “I myself will go last.”

The man disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel. Now it was my turn. I stood by the mouth of the tunnel and waited. A big wave sent a surge of water rushing through. I staggered and clung to the rocks as the swirling torrent tried to knock my feet out from under me. The waters receded with a greedy slurping noise. I bet the octopus was loving it.

“Now!” ordered the German. “Quickly!”

I grabbed the robe and jumped down the drop. I landed awkwardly on the uneven rocky bottom and banged my knee against a sharp rock. I moved forward and a big wave came thundering through. I held my breath and hung onto the rope. I was underwater and could see nothing. The water sucked out again. The man on the kayak was waiting anxiously outside the cave, back-paddling against the heavy swell.

“Swim!” he called. “Swim to me!”

Another big wave came out of nowhere and threw me viciously against the cliff. I tucked my head down and absorbed the impact with my padded life vest. I was underwater again in a crazy spinning world of foam. My bare feet grated brutally against the sharp rocks as I tried to fend off the worst of it. I clung onto the rope and waited.

I surfaced. The kayak was only yards away. I swam with all my might to it. The lights of the big boat were glimmering through the darkness some 200 yards away. I reached the kayak, pulled myself aboard and lay there exhausted. I had made it!

Oh yeah, snorkelling was great as well. Big shoals of tiger fish, a swordfish (well, it looked like one!), lots of weird and wonderful cartoon fish, a bright turquoise creature nearly 3 feet long with no tail…

10 October

I woke up late today. I seemed to have suffered no ill effects from yesterday. I had washed all my cuts in hot water and applied disinfectant, which stung like hell.

I had breakfast and then went and sat in PP Bookshop with Duen and chatted with her in English. Anne came to join us and made me coffee. Afterwards, I checked my email, applied for a job in Krabi teaching English and then had a Thai massage. It is a lazy and pleasant life here.

I wanted to take my dirty washing to a laundry shop but my friends would not hear of it. Varn insisted on washing it all by hand for me.

In the late afternoon, when the sun was low over the mountains, I played beach volleyball with Dee, a German called John and a few others. I soon discovered that I was appallingly bad but enjoyed myself nevertheless. At sunset, I went for a swim and then returned to Anne’s shop at dusk.

After dinner, I showed Poon a picture of my brother Piers and she was immediately interested.

“P’Ben! Send him my picture!” she urged. “I want farang boyfriend…rich farang boyfriend to take care me. Not stingy man, please!”

The other girls laughed at her.

“Little Elephant! You must to waxing your legs first if you want a farang boyfriend!” said Duen.

“I am to waxing my legs,” said Poon earnestly. “But it hurts because Poon has much hair!”

10 October

I awoke early and went for a swim. The tide was in and the clear emerald water got deep very quickly. The sheer towering cliffs were a perfect backdrop to the palm tree lined white sands. It was paradise.

After a while, the sun grew too hot. I returned to Anne’s shop, showered and then went to help Duen in the bookshop. She started telling me all about her boyfriend troubles.

“I’ve been here on Phi Phi for 13 years,” she said as she taped up a box of books. “But I’ve never had a farang boyfriend.”

“Do you want one?”

“Yes, of course! But I don’t want to sell myself for sex first.”

I didn’t at first see the connection. “What do you mean?”

“I spoke to a woman once who has a farang boyfriend and she told me that she had to sell herself for two thousand baht 20 times before she found a farang who loved her. And I am afraid that I might die of HIV before I find a husband.”

“Duen,” I said. “That’s crazy! You don’t have to become a prostitute in order to have a farang boyfriend! Who was this woman, anyway?”

“Well, she worked in a bar…”

“Well, there you are! And of course the men she met would have been that kind of farang. But not all farang men are here for sex! Think of me.”

“You’re not a farang. You’re half Thai. I think in 100 people, maybe 80 are here for sex first. A farang man told me.”

I decided to change the subject. “How many days a week do you work here?” I asked.

“Everyday.”

“And how much do you get paid?”

“6,000 baht a month and free room.”

Wow, I thought. That’s less than 100 pounds a month for working 7 days a week!

“How much money does this shop take a year?”

Duen reached for the account book and opened it. “Last year we take nearly two million baht (about 30,000 pounds)” she said.

“What’s the profit margin?”

“If we buy a book for 100 baht, we sell it for 350 baht.”

I nodded thoughtfully. It was obvious that teaching English was not necessarily the best way of making money here.

11 October

Today I worked in the bookshop again. I met three Americans who were traveling in Thailand for a month after finishing their studies. They were a nice bunch, two men and a girl. I decided that they must be in Duen’s 20 percent category. They were looking for a place called Garlic Restaurant.

Late afternoon, I went to the island viewpoint. I had to climb 300 steep steps – which were a breeze after the Tiger Cave Temple in Krabi – and then a further kilometer or so up a steepish slope. At the top I was rewarded by beautiful panoramic views of the island and beaches. I saw several exotic looking tropical forest birds as well. One looked like cross between a woodpecker and some kind of great tit and the other bird was large with white wings and a black body. It flew at incredible speed through the forest.

While I was enjoying a well earned drink at the viewpoint café, I met an Irish girl called Kate who had lost her camera whilst drunk at Koh Phang Nang three days ago. I offered to take pictures of her at the viewpoint and email to her. She was very grateful and told me that she and a friend had starting traveling through south-east Asia three months ago and were planning to continue onto Australia for New Year.

In the evening, I ate at an Italian restaurant with Anne then went to bed early.

12 October

Today I ate breakfast at Anne’s shop. After lunch I went to Rantee Bay. This was accessible only after an exhausting trek up a steep mountain jungle path and then down the other side. The path was more of a waterway rather than a proper path and involved lots of swinging off tree creepers and tripping over their trailing roots. There were lots of big mosquitoes as well.

However, the long hike was worth it. Rantee Bay is a quiet, lovely beach with powdery white sand shaded by leafy Caucasian trees. I was hot and sweaty after my trek through the jungle so went straight in for a swim. The water was crystal clear and colourful tropical fish swam around my feet. I couldn’t believe how many there were – I had never seen anything like it.

“I’m going back to hire some snorkeling equipment!” I decided.

I turned to go and tripped over a piece of coral. As I stumbled for balance in the waist deep water, my right foot brushed against something and sharp pain immediate shot through me!

When I looked down to see what it was, I saw a nasty looking animal with long black spines on the coral. I lifted my foot and saw that two of its spines were imbedded in the side below my ankle.

Fearing an imminent and painful death, I hobbled ashore and sought assistance at the little restaurant. Luckily, a very competent Aussie couple were eating there and took charge. They told me that although the fish was poisonous, I wasn’t going to die and rubbed lemon juice into my wounds. I was lucky that it was only two spines and that they were in the side of the foot. It I had trod on the beast normally then I wouldn’t have been able to walk. The black spines were deeply imbedded and could not be taken out. They would be dissolved by my body in about 3 months.

After about 15 minutes, the pain in my foot disappeared, although it was still swollen. I returned to the water with a kayak and my snorkeling gear. I paddled out to a likely looking spot and moored my kayak to a small fishing buoy. I entered the water.

It was the best snorkeling I have ever experienced. The visibility was excellent and there were big walls of coral literally teeming with life. I was surrounded by parrot fish, tiger fish, spear fish and all sorts that I did not recognize. When I returned to where I’d tied the kayak, I looked down and saw a solid mass of moving brown. There was at least a thousand fish in that shoal. They were brown on top but their underneath was silver so that the shoal sparkled as every now and then, one of them decided to turn over.

After many hours, I returned to the shore to find that I had missed the last boat back to the main part of the island. There was no point in attempting that long hazardous trek back through the jungle this late so I decided to spend the night.

The bungalows were simple, bamboo and wood affairs with electricity from 6pm to 4 in the morning. They cost between 300 – 400 baht per night. I took a 400 baht one, although there was very little difference from the cheaper 300 baht option. All had attached bathrooms but they had no roofs so were practically open air. It was actually very pleasant to take a cold shower and see the jungle all around. It really felt like you were “getting back to nature”!

The limited electricity meant that the place was dead quiet except for the noises of the jungle. It was an incredibly peaceful and relaxing place to stay. At night, I ate at the simple restaurant by the beach and watched the hoards of large crabs that chased the big heavy leaves that fell from the Caucasian trees.

13 October

In the morning, a baby monkey joined me for breakfast. The cook told me that its mother had died and the rest of the monkey troupe had rejected it so she had taken it on. The baby monkey was 3 months old male and played happily with a small toddler and a cream coloured cat that also lived there. The cook offered it a banana to eat but it was more interested in my coffee. She told me that it was very fond of hot coffee.

I checked out at 10.30 and then slogged up through the hot, steaming jungle. By the time I got back to Anne’s shop, I was exhausted and my legs were shaking. My shirt was completely soaked with sweat. I took a shower and then went to PP Bakery and ordered a salad sandwich. After lunch, I had a massage and then taught English to Anne, Poon and Dar.

14 October

Today I had breakfast with Jenny. In the afternoon, I went to Long Beach. I had a wonderful time. The snorkeling was even better than Rantee Beach although the coral was not as pretty. But the sheer volume and variety and ocean life more than made up for it. I swam with sword fish and saw at least 10 reef sharks.

Towards the end of the afternoon, the sky grew dark and I decided to stay the night there instead of braving the long trek back to Anne’s shop. I was soon glad of my decision because soon the skies opened and there was a full on tropical thunder storm.

15 October

Today I got up early and snorkeled off Shark Point again. When I returned to shower, I noticed several of the staff staring at a bush near my bungalow. I asked them what they were looking at.

“Snake!” said a man and threw a stone at the bush. I went closer and sure enough, there was a beautiful bright emerald and dark blue snake about a meter long. It was perfectly still on a branch and one third of its body was held stiff in the air. I wished that I could have photographed it.

I checked out and then returned to Anne’s shop at midday and ate lunch with Jenny. In the afternoon I played volleyball with a Canadian, a German, a couple of Americans and a few local Thais. My game has improved greatly and my team even won – with me serving the winning point!

Danny came to Phi Phi today. She seems to have recovered from her bad mood, merely remarking that I was an old, balding man with a bad character who had “more than 10 snakes in my hair…”

I checked in the mirror to verify this but thankfully saw no serpents. I realized that this must be a Thai figure of speech and asked Jenny to explain. She told me that I had 17 snakes in my hair and refused to elaborate further.

I gave up and went to take a shower. As I headed towards Anne’s shop, I heard two local girls planning the evening.

“I know what,” said one. “Let’s go take a shower, dress up sexy and then get drunk…”

I didn’t hear if there was anymore to her plan because just then, the amplified lament of a Muslim calling the faithful to prayer echoed across the island and drowned out the rest of what she said.

The indigenous population of Koh Phi Phi is made up of a mixture of Buddhists and Muslims. Both religions forbid the consumption of alcohol and yet the bars are always full with locals. I have been to only one restaurant here which bans alcohol on the premises. It is run by a quiet Muslim family and serves excellent Thai and Farang food. It is almost always deserted…

16 October.

Today I spent the morning teaching English and reading Dr Jeckel and Mr Hyde. In the afternoon, I went to Long Beach to swim with Jenny and Danny who were spending the night there.

I tried to get a taxi boat there but all the boatmen refused to take me because I was only one person and nobody else wanted to go. So I walked in the hot sun over the rocks and sand and saw two monitor lizards on the way.

When I arrived, Danny and Jenny had already swum and showered. I went in by myself. I spent a lazy half hour floating around and watching the colourful fish who did not seem in the least bit afraid of me.

Afterwards, we went to the restaurant and I ordered a sandwich while they shared a sundae. It was dark by the time I was ready to go back. I went to the where the boat drivers waited.

“You want boat boat?” they enquired.

“Yes, I want to go to Ton Sai,” I replied.

“How many person?”

“Just me.”

“Wait wait. Have to wait for another person. Sit down. Wait a moment.”

I sat down and waited. It was a pleasant balmy night and the stars were bright overhead. The waves murmured on the shore. A passing mosquito, pausing idly to bite one of the boatmen, spotted me instead. He stared for a moment, not quite believing his luck and then rushed off to tell all his mates about the sweet blooded farang who was sitting foolishly in the dark with the sour blooded locals.

I sprayed on mosquito repellent and kept an eye out for prospective passengers. In fact, I was more eager for them than the boatmen themselves. Three young women strolled past. They were all tall, tanned and beautiful. I accosted them eagerly.

“Boat boat! Hey, where you go? You want boat trip? Yes? Maya Bay – we take you see beautiful islands,” I added rather recklessly.

They paused. “How much to go to the town?” they asked.

“One hundred baht,” replied one of the boatmen.

“What, for three people?”

“No, one hundred baht for one person.”

“Why so much?”

Jesus! I thought. Do you wanna trek across the jungle instead? Hurry up, I’m getting bitten to death here!

“It’s night time,” I explained helpfully. “The price goes up for night time.”

They hesitated for a moment and then to my intense relief, they decided to go. We all got into the boat and I needed to use the flashlight on my phone to help them in. They told me that they were all from Canada and were traveling in Thailand for a month before heading off to explore Australia. They wanted to go to the town for some nightlife.

17 October

Today I returned to Krabi. I caught the 2pm boat with Anne, Danny and Jenny. Anne was going to Bangkok to buy new stock for her shop, Danny and Jenny were going to stay with me in my new apartment.

This morning, Leila rang me to say that she was going to come up from Patanni and see me. By now, I had gotten the hang of Thai girls – or so I thought. Warning bells started to go off in my sluggish brain. Leila in the same apartment as Danny and Jenny might not be the best of ideas.

Tactfully, I warned her that it might not be convenient as this was going to be the first night in my new apartment, it might not be ready, my friends might be staying etc.

Naturally, Leila flew into a huff and said that of course I wanted to see all my other girlfriends instead. I told her that she was more than welcome to come – but my apartment might not be ready. What time would she be arriving? Ten or eleven at night. Well, wouldn’t it be better to spend the night in a hotel and see me in the morning? No, of course not.

At 9.30pm Leila arrived at my apartment. I went downstairs to meet her. She said not a word when I told her that Danny and Jenny were also staying due to Danny’s relatives filling her house. She followed me sulkily upstairs and did not look at either Danny or Jenny as she entered but started unpacking her suitcase, her small face dark with rage.

Danny and Jenny gave her one glance and then ignored her. It was an awkward atmosphere that night. I went to bed early.

18 October

Today I woke up in my new apartment and looked about me with a certain satisfaction. The morning light was coming in through the big French windows and everything in my apartment looked clean and neat. Outside, I could see mountains and trees, fresh after the night’s rain. Leila was sleeping on the tiled floor – she liked the floor because it was cool. Jenny was on the bed next to me although on the opposite side.

There was a knock on the door. I got up and opened it and Danny came in. The atmosphere today was so different from last night. All three women seemed inclined to be civil towards each other. After some rather stilted polite conversation, they discovered a common subject of interest – me. Or rather, all that was bad about me.

It is probably not a good idea for one’s current girlfriend and one’s previous girlfriend to get into an animated discussion together – especially when Danny and Leila started comparing dates. To their delighted horror, they soon discovered that my relationship with Danny had quite a considerable overlap with my relationship with Leila. For the rest of the day, they were the best of friends and, amidst much laughter, talked about my faults, the possibility of me having other parallel girlfriends, the invisible snakes in my hair etc. To my amazement, they did not bore of the subject – and even now while I write this at 9.30pm, they are still talking animatedly.

I went to Grand Tower hotel today and rented an automatic motorbike for 3,000 baht for 20 days. I went to buy petrol and it cost 65 baht to fill the tank up from empty.

This afternoon was the Jay Vegetarian Festival – an appalling and rather sickening spectacle. I had seen it in Bangkok and Chachaongsao – but there it had been a harmless affair of a handful of stalls adorned with yellow flags selling vegan food. Here, it was different.

There were the yellow flags and vegan food stalls – but they were only a small part of the festival in Krabi. The first I saw of it was when I was at the Grand Tower to rent my motorbike. Suddenly, there came deafening racket of firecrackers and then two half naked men, covered in body paint, ran into the shop. They were brandishing long whips, waving black flags, wailing in low voices and seemed generally agitated.

Half the staff dropped to their knees with awed looks on their faces, the other staff lounged about laughing and chatting. The two men in body paint were not put off. They rushed to the shrine (most shops in Thailand have a shrine), whacked the floor in front of the shrine a few times and then ran urgently around the shop, waving their flags frantically over the head of anyone who was in their way. The elderly owner of the shop followed them on bended knees and encouraged them to visit every corner of her premises.

The two men then hurried out with their whips and flags and leapt onto the back of a waiting white pickup while their white robed followers set off more firecrackers. The pickup then moved off in a convoy towards the town centre.

In the afternoon, we went to the town centre. There, a big crowd of several hundred people were gathered around a group of about 20 who were all dressed in white. They were engaged in polishing an extraordinary array of lethal looking knives, axes and metal spiked weapons of various sizes ranging from 18 inches to 10 feet long.

These instruments of torture were laid out on a big table and people kept adding to the arsenal. A toothless old man came up proudly holding aloft a huge and ancient tree cutting saw. The crowd watched on with a mixture of delighted horror and admiration. Women held up their babies to get a better look.

We went into Swensen to get an ice-cream. From our table, we had an excellent view.

A pickup drew up, the huge speakers on the back beating out a steady monotonous beat of a bass drum. The people in white started waving flags frantically and running around. There came the deafening burst of firecrackers and smoke. A man burst forth suddenly from the crowd. He was dressed in dark red robes and gaunt shoulders were covered in tattoos. He was shaking his head violently from side to side while he danced and pranced in some kind of uncontrollable crazed ecstasy. He ran out into the road and fell against the bonnet of a pickup, his whole body shaking as if in an epileptic fit.

Two men in white grabbed him and cracked their whips and waved their flags urgently over his head. The drums increased their tempo. More firecrackers were set off. Groups of men in yellow yelled and started shaking what looked like small spirit houses on stretchers amidst the smoke. Everywhere was a riot of noise and confusion. The crowd watched on delightedly.

Now was the time for the main attraction and all eyes turned expectantly to the table of weapons. Four men in white selected a ten foot long steel spike and gave it a final loving polish. The man in the dark red robes came staggering forth, his body still shaking, his eyes rolling and his head turning from side to side.

Two men in red caught him and held his head steady. Someone else produced a large kettle and poured water over his head. I have no idea if it was hot or not. The four men in white with the ten foot long steel spike came up and started discussing the best place to put it.

In the end, they decided to stick it through his left cheek. One of them took aim while the other three prepared to push. The man aiming gave the signal and they rammed it straight in one cheek and out through the other.

I decided to go down and take some photos. By the time I had made my way through the crowd to him, his friends had managed to stick several other smaller spikes into various parts of his face and neck. He stood there, clutching onto the big steel rod through his face, his body shaking as he tried to control the pain. I took his picture – he was a piercing addict’s dream.

There were several other unfortunate people standing dumbly behind him with metal spikes sticking out of their body. I noticed that there was a curious absence of blood. People were pouring water almost continuously over them so maybe the blood was washed away.

The tempo of the drumming increased. More firecrackers were set off, creating more noise, smoke and confusion. I glanced quickly around. Everyone had a crazed animalistic look about them. My instinct told me that it was only a matter of minutes before they would start lusting for human blood. It was time to go. I beat a hasty retreat towards my motorbike. I wanted to live to tell the tale.

19 October

Today I didn’t do much except catch up with my diary. It rained quite a bit so we couldn’t go to Ao Nang.

20 October

Today Leila, Jenny and I went to have breakfast in the town. In the afternoon, it rained. The three girls got rather frisky and started looking around for something to play with. Naturally, it was me. There was much animated talk and laughter in southern dialect – which they knew I couldn’t understand. I thought I heard something about a 3sum – but perhaps that was just my deranged brain. Finally, Jenny stripped down to her underwear and gave me an oil massage. Danny and Leila sat by on the bed and occasionally lent a hand.

It was impossible not be aroused in such circumstances. I was wearing only my boxers and the three girls giggled and took turns to tease me. It was a bizarre experience to have with both one’s present and previous girlfriends AND a third woman! Looking back, I guess I still didn’t have a clue about Thai girls…

21 October

Today we intend to go to Koh Phi Phi. I got up early but had to wait for ages for Leila and the others to be ready. I am growing tired of having guests now. Danny and Jenny spent the morning texting farang men that they’d met the night before, giggling and generally behaving like adolescent teenager girls – rather than women in their late 20s.

All this brought out my conservative puritan side and, after Jenny and Danny had gone, I vented my feelings to Leila.

“This,” I said sternly, “Is why so many farang men look down on Thai ladies. It is the behaviour of girls like Jenny and Danny that make farang men think that Thai girls are easy bar girls etc.”

My lecture over, we drove into town to have breakfast at Good Dream Café.

25 October

Today Leila and I returned from Koh Phi Phi after having spent 2 days more than we had originally intended. I met my friend Duen from the bookshop. She was now working in the massage shop. I asked her how it was.

“It’s good,” she said. “I get to keep half of what I earn and today I got a hundred baht tip. Today a farang asked if I would do special massage but I said no. Go to shop over there.”

And she pointed to the massage shop across the road.

“How much does a special massage cost?” I asked curiously.

“One thousand up. Maybe two thousand. And the massage girl keeps it all because she can’t special massage in shop. Must go to customer’s room.”

“Have you ever been tempted to do “special massage”?”

“No, the girls over there earn more money but they like to use more money so it’s the same.”

I went to see Sally and Poon at Top Charoen, the opticians. Sally is manager and was busy going over the accounts. Poon is assistant manager and was busy texting on her phone. Both looked up as I entered.

“Pi Ben, has your brother seen my picture yet?” asked Poon earnestly.

“Yes,” I said. She brightened.

“Oh good! Does he want to be my boyfriend?”

“He says that you look sweet but that he isn’t rich.”

“Pi Ben! No problem! He can get rich! You must send him another picture of me! A more beautiful picture…I will put make up on and you can take another picture of me…”

She went to a mirror and started putting on whitening powder. Sally got up.

“Pi Ben, don’t touch me, ok?”

“What?”

“I’m going to pray – Muslim must pray five times a day. So don’t touch me before I pray. Just a moment, na. Afterwards, you can touch me where ever you like…”

26 October

Today Leila left for Pattani. I got up at 6am and went to the balcony. I looked down at the black asphalt of the road outside my house. Ten Buddhist monks in orange robes were walking in single file below. The lush jungle closed in on both sides. It was an incredible and symbolic sight. I went to breakfast feeling as though the higher being had awoken in me.

I managed to upload my blog despite problems with my internet connection. I lunched at Pizza Firenze with Jenny and then went to visit a mutual friend at Top Charoen, the local opticians.

In the evening, Danny and Jenny went out, leaving me in blessed peace. I wrote my diary and listened to Mozart. Afterwards, I went to eat at Sriboya Tour restaurant on Uttarakit Road. A good meal there including coffee afterwards cost 90 baht. Plus you can choose from the vast selection of DVDs to watch a movie free as well. I saw the Beach. I had been to the location but had never watched the film. It was ok but not Leonardo Decaprio’s best performance. (Blood Diamond was much better!) They had completely deviated from the book as well.

27 October

Today it rained pretty much solid throughout the day with only a few brief respites. I ate cakes and fruit from the fridge for breakfast. Still, it is a nice day for writing.

Leila phoned to tell me that she was “bored with me” and that she was “coming back tomorrow”. Considering that she had originally planned to stay away for a week, these two statements didn’t seem to really make sense. However, I was an old hand at this game and told her to please herself.

I ate lunch with Jenny at Pizza Firenze. The meal was delicious and cost 445 baht.

In the evening, I met Brian, the manager of Good Dream guesthouse. Brian is from the States and has run the guesthouse since last October. I asked him how he was finding it.

Like most ex-pats I’ve met, he seemed embittered by the unhelpful attitude of the local Thai government, the corruption and the general inefficiency of Thais. However, he said that it was better than teaching scuba diving – which he said had ruined his love for the sport. And it was better than teaching English – which is pretty much the only other thing a foreigner can do here.

I mentioned that I was interested in teaching in Krabi and he gave me the name and phone number of a contact at Ammartpanichnakul School.

28 October

Today I got up early. The sun was shining. After the rain of yesterday, the jungle and mountains looked fresh, green and beautiful. I drove my motorbike to eat breakfast at Good Dream café.

I sipped my coffee and thought agreeably about what I might do today now that the weather had at last improved. Perhaps I would take the motorbike to Ao Nang and swim. Or I might visit the famous Emerald Pool, or the Hot Springs, the Ghost Caves…there was so much that I hadn’t yet done in Krabi.

My toast arrived. I started to spread on jam. I didn’t notice that the sky had become dark. Suddenly, there was a loud crack of thunder and rain came pelting down in solid sheets of grey. I sighed resignedly as my plans to go out on my motorbike were washed away. It was a writing day again….

In the afternoon, I phoned Ajarn Wipa at Ammartpanichnakul School. She was surprised that I could speak Thai and asked me to email her my CV.

Leila arrived at 2pm, started arguing with me and then unpacked her suitcase.

29 October

Leila woke up and started arguing early this morning so I went to have breakfast alone and in peace at Good Dream café. Brian, the manager, was there. He told me that he’d been a dive master here before but after the Tsunami, there had been no work so he’d opened up a guesthouse instead.

It started to rain. I returned to my apartment to find that Leila had already packed her suitcase again. She told me that she was bored with me, that I should find another girlfriend and that she was leaving forever.

I told her to please herself and brushed my teeth. Jenny, my friend who had taken me to the hospital when I was dying, gave me some books on Dhamma to read. Unfortunately, they were in Thai so I couldn’t read them. I thanked her nevertheless and wrote my diary instead.

At midday, Jenny asked me to pluck her armpit hairs for her. I decided to put Mr Wilde’s principle to the test and agreed. For all you men out there who are armpit plucking virgins, I would recommend it. It is a curiously addictive sport – not as good as sex perhaps, but a lot less complicated. And it is definitely much better than golf.

The weather was overcast but dry in the afternoon. I decided to take my motorbike and do some sightseeing. Jenny asked me to give her a lift to a travel agency in town – she had some friends there and wanted to show them her wedding photos.

The travel agency shop was just around the corner from Pizza Firenze. It was full of posters and leaflets advertising speedboat tours and beach bungalows. One place promised “Unseen ultimate sunset”, another bungalow resort featured “clean privates”.

Jenny’s friends were exclaiming over her wedding shots and Jenny was explaining who was who and why. “He is very handsome…” “Ah, you should have seen his friend!” “She is beautiful….yes, she has a good figure but she has no bottom and no breasts…”

I left them to it and drove off into the great unknown wilderness of Krabi.

Today was an accounting record for me. I spent just 320 baht – all of it on food.

30 October

Today, at last, the weather seems to have changed. It is now hot and sunny. This morning the electricity failed. Since almost all plumbing in Thailand is reliant on electric pumps to maintain the water pressure, there was also very little water. Electricity in my apartment was restored after only one hour but when I went to town for breakfast, I found that none of the restaurants had power – so no coffee, toast etc.

Today, Jenny, Danny and Leila (despite many promises, she still hasn’t left yet) are going to Koh Phi Phi. I shall be left in blessed peace at last.

This afternoon, Jenny and Danny went to Koh Phi Phi. Leila did not go. At the last minute she changed her mind and said that she was going home to Pattani instead and would never see me again.

However, as I write this at 10.45pm, she is still here…

Towards the middle of the afternoon, the weather changed its mind and decided to rain solidly for 4 hours. Today I spent 340 baht – 260 baht on food and 80 baht on petrol. Leila told me that I was stupid to buy petrol in the afternoon.

“You should buy petrol early in the morning, about 7 o’clock,” she said. “You will save about 20 baht because it is cooler so the gasoline doesn’t evaporate away when you fill the tank.”

2 November

Today I have just come back from Koh Phi Phi. I went on Wednesday. I took the afternoon boat and Leila told me (not for the first and probably not last time!) that she was going back to Pattani and was never going to see me again.

I arrived at Koh Phi Phi and had a lovely time swimming while admiring the beautiful scenery. I met lots of interesting people, socialized with my friends and generally had a good and relaxing time.

For some reason, Halloween is very big in Thailand. There was lots of face painting etc.

The next day, on Thursday, Leila came to Koh Phi Phi. She stayed at the Bookshop and I stayed at the Massage shop.

I returned to Krabi on the afternoon boat with Danny. The weather was wonderful on the island when we left but when we arrived at Krabi, it was bucketing down with rain. Leila stayed behind. She is going to stay on Phi Phi until Sunday then she is going to Ton Sai for a few days.

3 November

Today was a wonderful day. A wonderful day of solitude and adventure. After nearly 3 weeks of waiting for the weather etc., I finally got around to doing what I had planned to do when I first came here – explore the cliffs and beaches of Krabi by motorbike.

First, I headed for Shell Fossil Beach. This is a pretty beach with a curve of golden sand. The big boulders on this beach are made up of thousands of small fossils some 35 million year old. Rather disappointingly, they are all some kind of shell creatures. It would have been nice to have had a few decent sized dinosaurs thrown in….

The best part of the trip though was getting there. The roads are very good, of European standard, with clean air and little traffic. A motorbike is the best way to appreciate it. Some of the scenery I drove through was simply staggering, with towering walls of lush jungle, sheer limestone cliffs hundreds of metres high, sudden and stunning glimpses of the ocean. It was impossible to capture such big scenery on my camera.

After the Shell Fossil Beach, I drove to Ao Nang. Ao Nang is a very northern European orientated beach resort, full of clean-limbed, wholesome looking Scandinavian types walking purposely along the long promenade on their way from the beach to yoga.

I stopped for a coffee and sat on the sea wall under a tree. The wind started to blow and waves began to build. Leaves from the tree above fell on my head. To the east, a storm was brewing. I watched the dark rain clouds build on the not so distant mountains and knew that the torrential rain would reach me before I had a chance to return to Krabi town.

Leila rang and told me that she’d got on the wrong boat this morning and had ended up in Phuket instead of Krabi. So now she was on a bus from Phuket and was going to come and see me instead. But, she said, I needn’t worry. She was only going to spend one night with me and then would go to Ton Sai or Samui and would leave me in peace etc.

It began to rain, heavy spots the size of marbles. I hurried to my motorbike, put my mobile into a plastic bag and stowed it safely under the seat. I knew I hadn’t a chance of outrunning the rain. I started the engine and headed home. Within five minutes, the skies opened up into a full on tropical downpour. I got soaked.

4 November

Today I woke up at 7.30 to find that Leila was in a sullen mood and did not want to talk much. Instead, she started packing her suitcase, telling me that she was going back to Pattani because she was bored of staying with me etc. I did my Strengthening Exercises and then went to have breakfast with her at the Good Dream Café.

By the time we’d got back to the apartment after breakfast, she’d changed her mind again. I wrote my diary.

In the evening, we decided to walk along the promenade after dinner. The promenade in Krabi town is a pleasant place to take a stroll. It is very long and well paved and lined with trees, flowers and 1930’s style lamp posts.

We met a young man who recognized Leila and immediately invited us to join him and his friends who were sitting eating and drinking on the grass. There were four of them, all dark skinned muscular young men who worked on the big boats that went to Koh Phi Phi. Their names were Mat, Boo, Top and Mann and they were eating a rather strange meal of seafood pizza and Isan som dum. (Spicy crab papaya salad).

They very courteously offered us food but we refused politely as we were both vegetarians. They then offered us beer but neither of us drank alcohol. They were not in the least put out. Mann gave Mat some money and he went off and came back with two bottles of water and some salted peanuts.

They were a nice bunch. Mat was the biggest, darkest and quietest. He could have passed easily for a black boxer. His mobile phone was too small for him and he had to use a toothpick to send a text message.

Mann was the natural leader of the group. He took it upon himself to explain the Southern character and why the people in the South were so different from those in Bangkok and Isan.

“Southern people speak from the heart,” he said as he sipped his Singha. “They speak straight and say what they really think. Because of this, when Bangkok people come here they think we have the face of a monster. Whereas Bangkok people will smile nicely even when in their heart is black.

“A Southerner doesn’t have to worry about money because people here will always help. If today my friend needs to go somewhere and only has forty baht in his pocket then I will help him if I can. And tomorrow if I have no money then he will help me.”

“Isan people love their parents,” added Boo. “Wherever they are, they send money home to their family. But here, Southern people love their friends.”

“If you have money, then the Bangkok people will love you,” said Mann. “Here in Krabi, people don’t care. Lots of famous film stars come here but nobody is interested. If a famous actress from Bangkok falls off the boat then she sinks in the water like a poor person huh? Here, we look to see if your heart is good – not if you are rich or famous.”

His friend Top nodded in agreement. “Drink Singha,” he advised and opened another bottle. “If you drink Chang then you will certainly have a headache in the morning. And then you will be in no mood to work. But Singha is fine. Heineken is good too.”

5 November

There was no sign of Guy Fawkes night in Krabi which, considering how readily the Thais embrace pretty much every much every other festival from England, is surprising. Especially as they love loud bangs and flashes.

Not much happened today. In the evening, Noot invited us to join her and her friends at a coffee shop. It was a very Thai affair with music played too loud, lots of mosquitoes and serving instant coffee.

6 November

Today we went on the Baracudas four island tour. The four islands were Koh Tup, Koh Poda, Chicken Island and Koh Yawasam. It was an all day tour and included lunch, fruit and water. The price per person was 600 baht but we went free because Leila used to work for the tour company.

They picked us up from my apartment at 8 o’clock. The songtaw truck was already full of people, all westerners. The driver drove us to Ao Nang and we boarded a big long tail boat.

The islands were all very beautiful. We stopped to snorkel at Chicken Island. As soon as we moored the boat, thousands of brightly coloured tropical fish gathered around. They were evidently expecting food. We donned our snorkels and masks and jumped in. The fish were not put off. Everyone got nibbled. One of the fish even took a fancy to my penis, much to my horror. We were lucky that they had no teeth.

There seemed to be jellyfish in the water as well. Leila and I both got stung and were left with marks resembling mosquito bites on our bodies.

That evening, Leila developed an itchy rash all over her body. She has very sensitive skin. I don’t know whether it was caused by pollution in the sea water or the jellyfish. I advised her not to scratch. So of course that’s just what she did.

Today was a first for us in that for the whole day from start to finish, we did not argue once!

7 November

Leila spent the night scratching her body rash so, of course, this morning it was worse than before. I offered to take her to the hospital but she refused.

We breakfasted at Good Dream Café. They have free wifi there so I was able to check my email and update my blogsite. Usually I use my mobile to connect my laptop to the internet. GPRS coverage in Thailand is very good and in most towns they have EDGE so connection speeds are pretty acceptable. It costs 1 baht a minute with DTAC network.

We spent a fairly ordinary day with nothing of note to put down here. We had dinner at Sriboya Guest House. After we had finished eating, Leila spoke for an hour or so how she was bored with me, that I was no good, that I always believed everything that my friends said but never believed her, that I was jowchew (roughly translated means promiscuous) etc. Finally she ended up by saying that she was going to work on Samui and never wanted to see me again.

I was glad for this outburst. We had not argued for nearly two days and it was clearly getting on her nerves. I welcomed the return to normality again.

8 November

This morning Leila wanted to go to Ao Nang again so I decided to visit Huay Toh waterfall instead. According to my tourist map, Huay Toh waterfall was in Panombenja National Park and only 12 kilometers from Krabi Town. It should only be a 20 minute bike ride. We would be back in time for lunch, I thought. And then we could go to swim at Ao Nang. How wrong I was!

We had breakfast and then set off. The weather was perfect, cool and dry. I pulled in at a petrol station and put 50 baht worth into the motorbike. We headed out of town. After a while, I saw a wooden signpost proclaiming Khao Phanombencha National Park 12 Km.

I nodded happily to myself. Everything was going to plan.

We drove on. As we left the town behind, the landscape grew more and more dramatic. The mountains grew taller so that their peaks were shrouded in mist, the jungle more lush and vibrant. Flowers and orchids grew wild by the roadside. We saw very little other traffic and the roads were excellent.

We drove on. It seemed a long 12 kilometers. Now there were rubber plantations on either side. Every now and then, I saw sheets of rubber hung up to dry. The mountains were in front and also to our right. I spotted another wooden signpost coming up. I slowed down to read it.

Khao Phanombencha National Park 12 Km.

Strange, I thought. We’d been driving for at least 30 minutes and yet, according to the Krabi Tourist Board, had gone nowhere. I drove a little faster….

After another 30 minutes or so, another wooden signpost loomed up by the roadside ahead. I squinted at it eagerly. We must be nearly there now.

Khao Phanombencha National Park 12 Km.

I stopped the motorbike and took a swig from my water bottle. Was it me or was it them? I asked Leila. Them of course.

“The tourist board want to get people to visit the National Park so they pretend that it’s closer than it actually is,” she explained.

There was nothing to it but keep driving. I found myself wondering how many unsuspecting tourists had run out of petrol trying to get there….

The road became narrower and there were no markings. Soon it dwindled into a dirt track. In the distance, I saw a now familiar looking wooden signpost.

Khao Phanombencha National Park 3 Km.

“Hooray!” I shouted and drained the last of the water from my bottle. “We’re here at last!”

We drove on. After 20 minutes, another wooden signpost….

Khao Phanombencha National Park 5 Km.

“Huh?” I said. “Now not only are we not going anywhere….now we’re actually going backwards!”

But there was no point in returning the way we’d come because the signs still pointed forwards. We must drive – or face the same terrible fate that befell the early pioneers in Death Valley…

We drove on. After another 20 minutes we came to a signpost, bigger than before. I stared at it, not quite believing.

Khao Phanombencha National Park.

We had arrived! We had done what perhaps no other Europeans before us had done. We had found our way to Khao Phanombencha National Park. We were up there with Scott, Drake, Columbus and John Wayne.

We paid our entrance fee, parked up and then explored. It had an English country park feel to it with well kept lawns and labeled mature shrubs and trees. There were graveled walkways through beautiful woods, little wooden bridges over streams. Mosquitoes were strangely absent. We could almost have been strolling through Mount Edgcumbe Country Park in Cornwall.

But if one looked closely, the foliage was more lush and exotic. There were giant ferns growing amongst the trees. And the butterflies were definitely much bigger than any found in England. They were bigger than many of the tiny birds. They glided rather than flew.

The path climbed upwards. The stream running to our right grew bigger and faster until it was a small river. Finally we came to an amazing waterfall. It gushed out from the mountain side some 200 feet above and then was broken into several deep pools. The noise of the torrent was awesome.

It was an incredible place. The tall trees of the forest, the limitless sky above and thousands of gallons of water rushing past. Leila stripped off down to her bikini and jumped into the nearest pool.

“Urrggh! It’s cold!” she said. “Come on in!”

I stripped to my boxers and stepped carefully over the wet rocks. I wondered if there were any leeches in the water.

Leila was enjoying herself.

“This is fun!” she said and splashed me. “Ben, I’m horny!”

She bent down, took my penis out from my boxers and started to suck on it. I glanced around nervously at the surrounding jungle. What if somebody came along? Was it illegal to have oral sex in public in Thailand? Would I be thrown into one of the notorious jails?

I still hadn’t quite got the hang of Thai girls.

9 November

Today is my last full day here. Mournfully, I packed my suitcase and checked out of my apartment. We drove into town and checked into Grand Tower for one night. Tomorrow morning, I need to leave at 8.30 for the airport.

Leila and I went for a wander in the town and discovered a really good café with amazing home made bread and fresh coffee. It is called May and Mark, after the couple who own it and is near the Thai Hotel.

In the afternoon, we went to Ao Nang and met up with Leila’s friend Sara. We went for a coffee and she brought Leila up to date with her life and told me all about herself.

Sara and her husband are both TEFL teachers from the north of England. Sara has two babies and it sounds pretty tough for a westerner to bring up children on a low income in Thailand. She cannot send her children to the local school because they would not receive an English education. International schools are expensive and there is no help from the state. If she were back in England then she would have all sorts of income support, grants etc. However, she seemed to think that the lifestyle here was better than at home.

She told me that her house was near the forest and that snakes were sometimes a problem. Once her daughter heard a loud hissing coming from the bathroom. Sara went to investigate and found a large cobra rearing out of the toilet bowl. It had found its way through the plumbing from the klong outside the house, apparently.

What amazed me was the way in which she “dealt” with it. After a while, she said, the snake “went” away but would sometimes reappear.

So rather than calling in the experts from the local snake farm or zoo, she was happy to sometimes share a bathroom with a deadly snake! Still, I guess nobody spent longer than was strictly necessary on the toilet – so queuing time for the bathroom must have shortened considerably.

I personally have a bad reputation at home for spending “hours” on the toilet of a morning. My mother would always shout through the door.

“Ben! If it won’t come out then don’t just sit there, dear! Get on!”

I should imagine that having a cobra swaying under your exposed bottom would “make it come out” pretty quick!

After we’d had coffee, Sara went off to a job interview and Leila went to see another friend and I went for a swim. The sun was setting and the beach was lovely. I went for a run and then cooled off in the not so cool sea.

It was nearly dark by the time I had dried myself and changed back into dry clothes. We ate at an Indian restaurant opposite the Irish Pub. Half the menu was vegetarian and all the staff were Indian. It was my first at a proper Indian restaurant and the food was really delicious. We ate and ate.

Afterwards we went for a stroll along the seafront to help digest our enormous meal. At night in the high season, the place was bustling with wholesome looking Scandinavians browsing the many stalls. There was food, drink, clothes and pretty much everything.

I saw a maimed beggar sitting on the ground with the stump of his amputated leg stretched out beside his begging bowl. He seemed oddly out of place in this clean, up market resort. I noticed that his face was unusually bright for a beggar with large intelligent eyes. Leila laughed when she saw him.

“Look at that beggar! He is very rich, you know. He was here last time.”

A middle aged western woman stopped when she saw him, her eyes filled with concern when she saw his leg. She stooped down to put a 100 baht note into his bowl and say a few kind words to him. He replied in good English. Leila snorted.

“See, he speaks English! A beggar who has enough money to learn English. But he is very rich. Everyone knows him here. He has land worth 20 million baht. He was born with a silver spoon…”

We had coffee at a little Swedish Café and then headed home on the motorbike. After we’d left the lights of Ao Nang behind, the road through the mountains was very dark. Fog was creeping down from the forested peaks and the air was very cold.

“Drive fast!” said Leila as she hugged me from behind to keep off the chill. “Bandits may try to rob us on the mountain roads where there is no-one. They don’t just usually rob – they will rape the girl as well and maybe shoot the man. Drive fast and stick to the centre of the road.”

I drove fast.

10 November

My time is up. I must leave the clean air and tranquility of Krabi and return to Bangkok to start earning money. There is a silver cloud in this dark polluted sky though, I will be meeting my father after nearly two months and we can compare notes.

Nothing has changed and everything has changed. Nothing ever changes, just our perception changes. It comes down to the same thing though.

I had a pleasant flight. I sat next to a Moroccan girl called Hafida whose uncle runs a resort in Ao Nang. She told me how wonderful Krabi was and invited me to come and stay at her place in Montpellier.

Now I am back at White Lodge guesthouse.

14 November

My fears when I first started this diary proved to be unfounded. I met my parents in Bangkok and they showed no sign of any horrible disease. I spent a pleasant few days with them.

My father gave me a book called The Secret.

“Read it and use it,” he told me. “It’s marvelous stuff.”

I read it. It was about realizing the goals in ones life by positive thinking. It sounded like my kind of thing. I decided to try it in my day to day life.

I rented an apartment at VIP Place in Huay Kwang. It costs 5,000 baht a month, is close to the MRT, has hot water, bathtub, air con etc. It even has a sofa!! I have taken it for three months so that I will have time to work and hopefully save some money to go traveling again.

Today I received an email from Hafida, the girl from Montpellier who I met on the plane.

Hello Ben,

How are you? I was nice to meet you!!!!!

I've got a good trip to Paris and after to Montpellier.

Tomorrow I will send you the pictures.

Take care dear Ben and enjoy your trip!!!!

Bye

Hafida

She attached lots of photos which I plan to use on my blog. She is a much better photographer than me!

15 November

I woke up this morning at my grandmother’s house near Chachoengsao. It was quiet and peaceful. I sat on the veranda and watched a small, brilliantly coloured kingfisher catching his breakfast.

After my breakfast, I went into town with my parents and met my friend Kik at Big C. I had not seen her for a while and was immediately struck by her appearance.

“What have you done to yourself?” I asked.

“No do anything! I more beautiful! You crazy!” she added. “And you fatter than before!”

I stared at her, trying to work it out. Was she taller? No, she was simply wearing high heels as usual. Was her face paler? No, that was the whitening cream. Her fake nose? But she’d got that done last time. Sure, her hair colour had changed but she dyed it a different colour every week. Then I got it.

“Your eyes!” I said. “You’re wearing green contacts, aren’t you!”

She nodded proudly. “Beautiful huh?”

“I didn’t realize that you needed glasses. Are you short sighted or long sighted?”

“My eyes very good. I wear contacts this colour so that I look farang…”

I went to have coffee while I waited for my parents to finish their shopping. I picked up an Off Road magazine and idly turned the pages. The prices of prestige cars in Thailand are staggeringly expensive. Especially when you consider how poor most people are.

A Porsche Cayenne turbo costs 16,750,000 baht. That’s over a quarter of a million pounds or half a million dollars, whatever way you like to look at it. A humble Volvo XC90 costs more than a Range Rover in Britain. A Range Rover in Thailand is the same price as a Bentley in the UK. In contrast, a plumber or electrician is lucky if he gets 7,000 baht per month. And yet, the Bangkok traffic jams are full of Range Rovers, Porsche Cayennes, Volvos etc.

Unlike its near neighbours, Thailand was never Communist.

18 November

Today I am back in Bangkok. I went to MBK to buy some shirts for work. I met up with my cousin Gook and we browsed the shops together. The shops were very farang friendly with lots of signs up in English. One notice proclaimed:

No Refund

No Return

No Change

No Discount

I wanted to photograph the sign to put in on my blog but when I took my camera out, I was told “No photo!”

We ate dinner at Fifth Avenue in MBK. This is an excellent place to eat. The brochure advertises it a place to “Savour the Craving Satisfaction” but in reality, it’s a souped up food court cum International restaurant. There are uniformed waiter types and a man playing classical guitar. There’s a huge variety of food from all over the world to choose from. Each stall has sample dishes on display, you chose and then they cooked it up for you then and there.

While we ate, Gook told me about Kik in Chachoengsao. The reason why Kik tries so hard to look like a farang (dyed blonde hair, fake nose, whitening powder, green contacts etc.) is because she wants to attract Thai men – not farang men. Apparently, Thais like the farang look, so Thai girls must look like farangs in order to attract them. If a Thai girl wants a farang boyfriend, then she must have dark skin, small cute nose, slim figure etc.

It is, I reflected, a strange world that we live in….

19 November

Today I woke up late and then went to a meeting with my teaching agency. They have a new student for me. Her name is Amy. She is 8 years old and goes to Harrow International School. It costs her parents 1,000,000 baht (16,000 pounds) per year to send her there. Apparently, the school is not very good – unlike its famous English relation.

Amy has two older brothers, both of whom are also at Harrow. Presumably, her parents are either very rich or have taken a very big loan to pay for all this. Just think, they could have sent their children to the local temple school and then, with the money they’d saved, gone to England and bought a Porsche instead….

20 November

Today was a good day. I went to eat lunch at Pi Baby’s café opposite my apartment and met a young lawyer who asked if I could teach him English. It turned out that he lives in VIP apartment – he is one floor above me. He is only 22 and has just started working in Silom.

We agreed a price of 350 baht per hour as it was so convenient. He booked 30 lessons and offered to pay for them in full upfront. If only all my students were like this! He also told me that his company wanted an English teacher to come in twice a week and check their letters and emails. I told him I would do it for 600 baht per hour.

His Thai name was impossible for me to pronounce. Every time I tried, he and Pi Baby fell about laughing. At last, he told me that I could call him Brian. He was a good looking fellow, tall and slim and an intelligent face. I imagined that he must be popular with the ladies.

I met up with my friend Jenny in the evening. We went to Siam Paragon to buy a map of Bangkok. It’s amazing how useless most of the maps of Greater Bangkok are. They are almost all invariably confusing and never show the sois where your students live! The best map by far is made by Nelles.

We had coffee and muffins at Au bon pair at Siam Discovery Centre, took a table by the window and people watched.

“I never can understand why tourists go for tuk tuks,” I said as we watched a gesticulating tuk tuk driver trying to lure a bemused looking young couple into his motorized buggy. “They’re dangerous, dirty, you breathe in all the fumes, no air con and the drivers always try to cheat the farangs.”

I spoke from bitter experience.

“You’re much better off taking a metered taxi,” I added. “It’s more comfortable, you’ve got air con and you pay the same price as everyone else.”

“I prefer the bus if there is no skytrain or MRT,” said Jenny. “Taxi drivers sometime deliberately go a longer route so that the meter runs up. When my mother was dying in Ramathibodi Hospital, I used to go there by taxi everyday from Nonthaburi. It used to cost 260 baht to 280 baht depending on the traffic. But never more than 280 baht.

“One day, I went and the driver went this way and that way, down this soi and whatever. When we arrived at the hospital, the meter read 300 baht. I gave the driver 260 baht and told him that if he wanted the extra 40 baht then he could go to the police!”

I laughed. “What did he do?” I asked.

“His face was very red. I don’t like people cheating me! I guess I’m jai rawn sometime,” she added.

21 November

I lunched at Pi Baby’s Café and met Mario the Italian. He was dressed in shorts, tee shirt and trainers and was beaming.

“I just come back from my school,” he said. “Today is sport day so I only teach for 45 minutes but I get paid for whole day! You see, you should teach full time instead of part time – it is much better!”

He sat down, ordered kai dow puk puk (fried egg over vegetables) and continued. “Last month there was a virus going around the school. We have to close the school for two weeks. All the part timers did not get paid – but I did! The full time teachers got paid for doing nothing…

“Aargh! Ice!” he exclaimed suddenly as he looked at his glass of water. “I cannot have ice. I am very sensitive. I will have bad tummy if I have ice…”

Carefully, he emptied the ice out onto the street and poured in fresh water.

“I don’t know why, but last three days my stomach have problem…”

A young fashionably dressed Japanese man came into the shop. His face looked vaguely familiar. He glanced at me then took of his mp3 earplugs, smiled and held out his hand.

“Hey, how are you? Haven’t seen you for a while.”

I recognized him as Toru, a former gigolo from Tokyo who was on a permanent holiday from Japan. I had seen him at Pi Baby’s shop when I had worked in Bangkok last year but had never really spoken to him.

I shook his hand. “I’m fine. Just got back, actually. What have you been up to?”

Toru sat down. “Oh, not much. Just been partying a lot cos one of my friends from Japan is over and he likes to go to the disco a lot. It’s getting a bit much now though. I’ve been going out partying and drinking every single night for a month and never got to bed before 8am. I’m just exhausted.”

“I not like party every night!” called Mario eagerly from his table. “It’s no fun. Always you get tired and more tired and everyone is fresh but I am tired and no have energy. I go party once a month and then I am very fresh and it is great!”

“Well, my friend went to Chang Mai this morning – I am gonna sleep!” laughed Toru.

I looked at him. I thought his face looked remarkably fresh. He didn’t look like he’d been partying non stop for a month.

“How old are you?” I asked, guessing that he must be about 25.

“Thirty,” he said. “I’m starting work next month. I’ve been on holiday in Thailand for three years and now I’m totally broke!”

“What sort of work are you going to do?” I asked.

“Same as before. Gigolo. Down in Sukhumvit soi 22. There’s a new place just opened up. There’s not that many establishments in Thailand that caters for women but we’re trying to change that. In Japan it’s very big – especially in the last five years. Here in Bangkok, it’s mostly places for men.”

“What kind of clientele do you have?” I asked. “What kind of people are they?”

“Rich Thai women. You get a few Japanese but they’re mostly Thais. Usually the wives of powerful business men or mafia leaders. Thais are crazy about Japanese.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to go with wives of Mafia leaders?”

“No, well yes. Sometimes. When I was working in Tokyo, I got involved with the wife of the top Mafia boss but I was really lucky because he was caught and put in jail for a long time! Usually though, they don’t care if they don’t see it because they themselves have lots of other women and it keeps their wives quiet, I guess.

I found myself wondering if Toru’s three year long holiday was not just pleasure orientated. Perhaps he was keeping out of the way of angry and dangerous husbands for a while!

“So what exactly do you do in your work?” I asked curiously. “Do you have sex with your clients or just be an escort?”

“It depends,” said Toru as he sipped his Pepsi. “It’s up to you and the customer. Usually, you just have a drink with them first. You try and get them to spend because whatever they spend is split 40/60 between you and the establishment. There are lots of techniques to get them to spend. If you just have a drink with them, maybe go to a disco with them or whatever, then they’ll ask if they can have sex with you and offer you money. If you have sex with them too soon then they might lose interest and go elsewhere. But if you don’t have sex with them then they might get bored and go elsewhere as well! You have to know to judge the time.”

“How many days a week do you work?” I asked.

“30 days a month. We finish work late too. Maybe 5 in the morning because most people don’t come to us until after the discos shut at 1am, right? So that means we have to pay the police so that we can stay open late because you’re not allowed to open after 1am. So it’s expensive. Our place is under a hotel and they help protect us because our customers will use their hotel. If we weren’t under a hotel then it wouldn’t be possible - the bribe money would be too much.

“You can earn lots of money, though. If you work hard, then in one year you can buy a new Mercedes. In Japan the money is much better. I remember the first time, this woman came for me. Her husband was Director of the waterworks in Tokyo. Anyway, we went to a hotel and had sex. I was 25 and she was 50 and I was just thinking, you know, Toru you can’t do this! It’s just too much, having sex with old women. But the next morning at breakfast, I told her that I was very poor, that someone had stolen my motorbike etc and she just gave me, you know how much? The equivalent of 8,000 US dollars!

“It’s one of the techniques, you know. You have to say that I am very poor boy etc. etc. It’s the same as what the Thai girls use. That’s why, when the Thai girls try to get money from me, it doesn’t work. Because I know the tricks – I am a professional too, you see!”

“It is better to stay in the soi,” said Mario as he carefully cleaned off the last of his rice. “If you leave the soi then…one thousand baht! Just gone like that…”

23 November

Today I had lunch with Dad at the British Club in Silom. It was lovely and quiet. We swam before we ate and the water was actually quite cold! The cool season has finally arrived. It feels like a warm summer’s day back in England.

After lunch, it was time to return to my apartment and start preparing to teach my new young student Amy. For some reason, I always seem to be late when working for this company. This time I was determined not to be. I set off 90 minutes early.

I had studied my (Nelles) map of Bangkok beforehand and decided to do the first main stint of the journey by bus and then take a taxi for the final short hop. I decided to take a different route from that recommended by my company – a dangerous game to play because if I was late, I would be in trouble.

I stood in the heat and fumes of the bus stop and waited. After a while, number 137 bus came along and I boarded. I then had to wait 15 minutes while it stood stationary in the heavy traffic. At last it moved off and then, one stop down the road, turned into a high rise car park and stopped. The driver switched the engine off and everyone got out. Great.

The clock was ticking (a metaphor of course as my phone clock doesn’t tick). Nearly 30 minutes and 7 baht had been wasted on that bus. Luckily, I was close to an MRT metro station. I descended into the cool underground and rode the metro for one stop then came out again and caught another number 137 bus. This time it ran straight and true and I arrived at my destination with 15 minutes to spare.

My lesson went very well. After I had been shown into a large sitting room dominated by a 60 inch HD flat screen TV, Amy’s mother rang me to say that she was very sorry but they were running 25 minutes late. I didn’t mind in the least as I was paid for my time there rather than the time I spent actually teaching. I switched on my laptop and checked my emails while the maid brought me fresh apple juice, a big plate of exotic fruit and a glass of water.

Amy arrived with her mum. Amy turned out to be a bright kid with a pretty much photographic memory. She was a pleasure to teach. After the lesson, her mum chatted to me about the difficulties of sending her three children to a good school.

At Harrow School in Thailand, there are very few English children attending as only the very rich Thais can afford the tuition fees. So the rich Thai kids don’t get to practice their English outside the classrooms. There are cheaper and better schools with lots of English kids – but there is a big waiting list. Amy’s mum wanted to send her children to Harrow in England – but again the waiting list is decades long. Also, it would mean that she would be parted from her children.

I asked her what she did for a living and she told me that she and her husband owned a company which imported exotic European cars such as Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bentley, Porsche etc. to order. She told me that it was crazy that anyone bought such cars in Thailand as there were no roads worth driving fast on and they had to pay 200 per cent import duty tax as well. As a result, Thai millionaires had to keep in the garage a car that they’d paid two or three times the going rate for. A Mercedes SL500, for example, costs 15 million baht….

After we had talked for a while, she drove me home. I went to eat at Pi Baby’s. I was starving. The café was empty except for Pi Baby herself and a cat which was prowling hungrily about under the tiny tables.

Suddenly, there was a flash of movement and a giant centipede came racing out from the wall and straight towards me with the cat in hot pursuit. It was a horribly repulsive, orangey creature, the sort of colour that makes you feel sick just to look at. It was about a foot long and armed with big fangs.

Hastily, I lifted up my legs out of harm’s way as the cat pounced under my table and tried to kill it. But this was no ordinary centipede. It was more snakelike than insect. It wriggled and tried to bite with its poison fangs, it jumped and rolled and ran while all about it, the cat was a raging fury of teeth and claws, of lightning fast strikes, pounces, swipes and bites. But still it did not die.

At last, the cat managed to pick it up behind its head. It was evident that the cat wanted to eat it. It did not in any way play with it as an English cat might play with a mouse. But just then, Pi Baby hearing the commotion came out from the kitchen with a pair of big tongs. She grabbed the frantically wriggling centipede from the cat’s jaws and threw it out into the gutter where upon it promptly made its escape down a drain. The cat let out a loud and reproachful yowl. It obviously didn’t appreciate its dinner being snatched away from him.

“I feel sorry for the centipede,” said Pi Baby, as she returned to the kitchen. “The cat mustn’t eat it. He can eat fish instead.”

27 November

I spent the weekend in Chachoengsao with my parents and grandmother. The weather was very cold at night – relatively speaking, of course. Lots of my cousins have gone down with heavy colds. Thais are very susceptible to changes in the weather. They like air conditioning so much that they don’t turn it off when it’s not needed. Instead, they prefer to huddle in blankets – in the rather odd belief that it makes their skin white!

Why they think that air conditioning will make their skin whiter is a mystery. I suppose they think that the cold temperatures in “farang” countries make the farangs white – rather than the lack of sun.

This obsession with white skin is difficult for a westerner to really understand and is very unfortunate for the Thais. I see so many people who have ruined their beautiful golden skin by plastering on powder and “whitening” lotions, creams etc. which probably contain all sorts of dangerous chemicals. The result is an unhealthy sallow colour which looks even worse when accompanied by the brownish orange hair dye which so many Thais liked to ruin their hair with.

Today I met up with Jenny and Danny at Pratunam. It is an amazing place…so many clothes, shoes, suitcases etc at very cheap prices. Jenny wanted to go to Starbucks.

“I want an ice Mocha with lots of Whipping Cream,” she announced.

In England, we usually have mocha coffee with whipped cream. But this is Thailand. People tend to be more active here.

28 November

A lazy day. When I went to bed last night, it was hot. When I woke up in the early hours, it was freezing cold. That’s what you get when you live in a city of concrete. As a result, I felt slightly under the weather this morning. My company rang me to say that my class this evening was cancelled.

I met Mario the Italian at Pi Baby’s café.

“I am as sick as a dog!” he complained. “This weather is making me have a fever and I can not sleep. I don’t want to think about what nightmares I might have! I have taken two paracetamols but still I am aching all over my body. It is not good. Two paracetamols are ok - it's aspirin you have to be careful with. If you take aspirin with coffee then it becomes a very powerful drug - the same as the banned sports drugs. I remember when I was playing football once, I forgot that I'd taken one aspirin because I was not feeling well. At the break, I went with everyone else and had a cup of coffee. Well, when I went back on the field...whoosh! I didn't know what I was doing! I have never run like that before!”

He sipped his chicken soup for a while in silence, apparently deep in thought and then looked up.

“The electricity wiring in Thailand is terrible!” he pointed at the rickety fuse box above my head. “It’s crazy. I have worked as electrician in England before. The English are so practical – not like in my country…”

29 November

Dad came to Bangkok for the day so I met him at the British Club as before. We swam in the cool pool, lunched and then took the skytrain to Siam Paragon – Bangkok’s most prestigious shopping mall.

I took him to see the book stores and then we window shopped exotic cars. We saw a Bentley Flying Spur. The price tag was 25,500,000 baht. I wonder if they would have knocked off the 500,000 baht if we’d offered them cash….

Dad left at 3.30pm. I returned to my apartment and prepared some lessons for tomorrow. Leila phoned to tell me that she didn’t want to see me again because I was jow chew and could I please send her money so that she could catch the train to come and see me? I told her that I had no money and that she should fly her helicopter to come and see me instead. We spent a pleasant half hour arguing over this and then wished each other goodnight.

30 November

Today I taught Nong Amy. Her house is just around the corner from Pi At’s house so I arranged to see her and Pi Nun beforehand. Theirs is a very pleasant housing estate not far from Lad Phrao. It is surrounded by a moat and guarded at all four entrances by smart uniformed security men. The sois are lined with mango trees and bougainvilleas and no beggars or stray dogs are allowed. It would suit me just fine. I noticed one house near Pi At’s was for rent. 100,000 baht per month.

I arrived at Pi At’s house and she brought me fresh strawberry juice made from Chang Mai strawberries. We chatted for a while until her son arrived. He is studying Accounting at university and is very polite but shy. His mother encouraged him to speak English with me but it was a pretty one sided conversation.

After a while, he left to pick up his car from the garage and I showed Pi Nun a program on my laptop which I planned to use to teach her students at the temple school in Chachoengsao.

At a quarter to five, we walked to Amy’s house. Pi At tried to give me money for speaking to her in English, which I refused and then we said goodbye. I taught Amy for a couple of hours and helped her with her homework. Afterwards, her mother invited me to go to Siam Paragon with her and her eldest daughter to buy a guitar for her.

We set off in her SUV. The traffic was terrible – even by Bangkok standards. It was soon obvious that we would not get there before closing time. Amy’s mum decided to go to the Bangkok Motor Show instead.

The Bangkok Motor Show was held at the giant Impact Centre. Amy’s mum had VIP tickets – I guess it must be something to do with her work. We had a great time. The place was full of exotic cars and beautiful girls. For every car on display, there seemed to be two stunning girls on hand to smile for photographs, drape themselves gracefully on the bonnet or simply perform wriggling motions in time to music.

Amy’s mum seemed to know a lot of people there and was obviously an important person for them, judging by all the wais that she and I received. As I was with her, people naturally assumed that I too was a wealthy business person looking to invest. The manager at a Coffee World shop asked if I was interested in buying franchise. I thought briefly of the sorry state of my bank balance, battered after a hedonist two months in Krabi and the South but smilingly told him that I was on holiday from

England and was not looking to invest.

Amy’s elder brother was studying marketing and pointed out the various stands on show from a professional point of view. For example, the Alfa Romeo stand for the convertible Spyder with its circular stand surrounded by running water and with two beautiful models was stunning – but photographed badly because there was too much black. It would not look good in a magazine.

The stand for SsangYong featured its off road models on big ramps tilted at 45 degrees and with the wheels turning. There were also six big screens showing a short film with a SsangYong Rexton playing a tough Russell Crowe type while the soundtrack was from Gladiator. They even showed the Rexton driving in slow motion through a field of wheat.

The people from Lamborghini did not need to bother with such clever or sophisticated marketing tricks. All they had to do was to put a black Murcielago and a white convertible Gallardo. And the people came flocking to gawp and take photos. It struck me that Lamborghini’s marketing was the simplest and best. Simply design a totally impractical car that looks like nothing else on the road, drop in a suitably over the top engine behind the driver and people will come running.

There was, however, one car there which nearly stole the show from Lamborghini. The Bugatti Veyron. This car is so fast that, apparently, you could let a McLaren F1 accelerate to 120mph, and then start the Bugatti, and the Veyron would beat the McLaren to 200mph. Capable of 253 miles per hour (though not of course anywhere in Thailand) and priced at 165,000,000 baht… It looked good as well.

5 December

Today is the King’s birthday and so a national holiday. Leila phoned and asked me to send her some money so that she could come up to Bangkok to see me. I told her that I needed to save first as I was spending more than I earned, had lots of kiks (Thai slang for fuck buddy) etc to look after and that I had caught a cold. She told me not to “hit the Bush” – whatever that means. Apparently, it’s an American expression.

I met up with Jenny and Doi today. Doi is from Surin, near Cambodia. They started talking about Black Magic. The Dark Arts are apparently very much alive and well in Thailand. Jenny told me that her elder sister had caught the eye of a Muslim boy when she was a girl. The boy had asked someone to put a spell on her to make her like him. It hadn’t worked – but ever since, Jenny’s sister has been “possessed”.

Jenny described how, as a young girl, when she slept with her sister, there would be a certain point of the night when her sister would cover her head and say that “it was coming”. The overhead fan would slow down and Jenny’s sister would see a “dark shadow” moving across the wall. Naturally, both girls were terrified.

When Jenny’s mother died, as is the custom amongst Buddhists, her body was placed in an open coffin in the living room and monks were invited to the house to chant for the dead. When Jenny’s sister entered the room, she could not bear to be in the presence of monks cried out and ran away. When the family questioned her later, she claimed that she remembered nothing. She “did not know herself”.

Later, when the monks had gone, Jenny’s sister approached the body of her dead mother with the intention of paying her respects for the last time. But when she reached out to touch the body, she gave a loud scream and starting crying. She said that she could not touch it because it was “hot”. Jenny said it was because of the small gold Buddha image that her mother was holding when she died and still clutched in her right hand.

Jenny’s family took the girl to the local temple to exorcise the spirit but were told that a dark spell created by a Muslim could only be removed by the person who cast it. Black Magic as found in Cambodia, on the other hand, could be removed by any decent Buddhist monk.

Now Jenny’s sister lives on Koh Phi Phi and is married with two children. She is not troubled at Phi Phi because “there are lots of Muslims there”.

It was a strange tale, and rather disquieting because there was no happy ending or solution. The two girls told me other strange magic that the Thais did. The worst magic always seems to be connected with love. Jenny told me that, in order to make sure that her husband will love only her, a Thai woman will collect some blood from her menstruation and put a little into his rice when she cooks it.

Well, all I can say is, if I ever catch MY wife doing anything so disgusting then I’m DEFINITELY going to divorce her!

6 December

Yesterday afternoon I developed a cold. This morning I awoke with a fever. I cancelled my lessons and stayed mostly in my room to recover.

7 December

I awoke at 10am, feeling slightly better but still weak. I got up, showered, did my exercises and then was ready for breakfast. My cheap electric toaster gave me a mild shock when I put toast into it. It is obviously time to replace it. I had to drink tea instead of coffee because my cafetiere broke last night.

I ate breakfast and tried to decided whether or not I should teach today. If I cancelled my classes again then I would be 1,500 baht down – and I needed to buy a new cafetiere and electric toaster. More importantly, if I did not teach my student Amy today then I couldn’t really go to the motor show with her mum tomorrow. Last time I had taught Amy, her mum had told me that there would be a special “show” on Saturday and invited me to go with the family.

But if I taught today, perhaps I would get worse. I still had a temperature and a runny nose. Hmmmm. I rang Mary at my teaching agency and told her of my dilemma.

“Teach!” she said hardheartedly. “Take medicine and then teach!”

That was that then. I thought of my friend Doi, who is working today from 8am until midnight at Siam Paragon. For those 16 long hours, standing in a department store, she would probably get paid less than I would for my two hours of sitting in on a comfortable sofa. My lot wasn’t so bad, really.

I took two paracetamols and then went to teach.

8 December

My alarm awoke me at 7.30am. I felt ok but still not yet 100 per cent. This morning I had to teach at Thong Lor.

I took the subway to Sukhumvit then changed to the skytrain and rode it two stops to Thong Lor. It was an easy hour’s teaching. I returned to my apartment at 11am and then had lunch.

After lunch, Amy’s mum picked me up and then took me to her house. For some reason, her dog took a sudden violent dislike to me and decided to attack me. Fortunately, I was wearing jeans and shoes so was able to ward him off. Nasssty little brute! We doesn’t like it, does we Precioussss? Not nice.

I escaped into the house and, while Amy got changed, Amy’s mum took me upstairs to the third floor.

“I want to show you something,” she smiled and she led me into a darkened room.

I entered warily. I had not quite got over being unexpectedly attacked by the family pet. It was strange because it had met me at least five times before and had always seemed rather shy.

Amy’s mum flicked a few switches and dim lights came on. At the same time, with a smooth whirring sound, a giant screen rolled down from the ceiling at the far end of the room. I realized now that we were in a very elaborate home theatre.

There were stacks upon stacks of expensive looking amplifiers, routers, speakers and all sorts of equipment that I could only guess at. Amy’s mum was turning on this and that and meddling with various remote controls while digital displays flickered out seemingly random numbers and information.

“Let me show you the power of my music room,” said Amy’s mum, who was now searching through a vast selection of dvds. “Do you like Santana?”

“Umm. Yes, I think so.”

Amy’s mum inserted the dvd. There was a brief pause and then music, light and colours flooded the room and drowned out everything. The screen and projector were of extraordinary high quality. To the eyes of a hifi novice, it was indistinguishable from that of the HD flat TV screen downstairs.

After watching Santana for a bit, we headed off to the motor show. We had VIP passes and were able to get in ahead of the considerable queues. There were lots of scantily dressed girls dancing around the cars. Amy’s mum wanted to take a photo of me amongst them. Unfortunately for the readers of this blog, despite several attempts, she didn’t manage to get the hang of my camera phone. However, that didn’t stop twenty or so photographers from various magazines snapping away. I intend to google the motor show after a few days and, no doubt, there will be pictures of me surrounded by beautiful women….

12 December

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love rang me to say that she didn’t want to see me again because I was a no-good “luke krung” who wasn’t even a proper farang and told me that she was going to travel south-east Asia by bike with a friend of hers. I wished her luck but warned her that to cycle across south-east Asia was going to take longer than to cycle to work at the Green Mango on Samui.

Today I had two lessons, both in the same private housing estate. The first student just wanted to practice conversation. I was shown into a large and comfortable air conditioned living room, a maid brought in a tray of coffee, water and Thai sweetmeats and then we chatted in English.

We talked about future plans and my student told me that she intended to go to Switzerland for Christmas and also take in Vienna and Florence. After an hour, it was time to collect my money and go to my next lesson.

I walked around to the next soi to Amy’s house. As I approached the electric gates, I was wondering what to do about her dog. It had done its best to savage me last visit. It was a young male and this was the mating season so its testosterone levels were high. No doubt last visit it had sniffed me out for the alpha male that I was and been filled with jealous rage.

I decided that it was probably afraid of me, as well as envious. I had spoken kindly to him last time and he’d taken this as a sign of weakness and a signal to attack. Well, this time I would ignore him.

I pressed the bell and the electric gates slid open. He was waiting for me on the porch, his fierce red eyes watching me intently. I strode towards front door, coldly ignoring him. He yelped at my direct approach and ran off around the side of the house.

I went into the house and seated myself in the large and comfortable air conditioned living room. A maid came in and brought me a tray of fresh coffee, freshly made mango juice, mineral water and a large fruit tart. Private lessons are so much more agreeable than teaching in a school. Especially when there are 60 or so students to a class.

As I relaxed on the leather sofa, my mobile rang. It was Amy’s mum.

“Mr Ben. Amy’s mum speaking. Are you at my home?”

“Yes, just arrived.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. We have a problem with Amy. The maid could not find her and nobody knew where she was.”

I sat up. “Has she got a mobile phone? Have you rang her school yet?”

“Oh no. I have found her now. She is sleeping in the back of my car. She is very sleepy. I brought her home about an hour ago and I thought that she’d got out but she didn’t because she was asleep and nobody noticed. But the maid took her shoes into the house so now she can not go to the toilet. I am at the supermarket. We will be home in about another twenty minutes. I am so sorry, Mr Ben.”

I relaxed back on the sofa. “No problem at all,” I told her.

Amy’s mum might have sent all her children to Harrow and prefer Europe to home – but her sense of time was definitely Thai. Her ‘twenty’ minutes would be an English forty minutes at least or probably a German hour. I took out pen and paper and wrote my diary.

13 December

Today Jenny left for Canada. She is not coming back to Thailand for at least three years as she is applying for citizenship. I got up at 5.30am and took a taxi to the airport to see her off. When I got there, I was glad that I’d come because I was the only one. Her family is from the Deep South and her sister in Bangkok was too busy.

She left without any problems. However, it is minus four in Toronto now – compared to thirty odd degrees here.

As I rode the airport express back into town, I glanced idly through the Bangkok Post. Suddenly I sat up straight in my seat. A letter written to the editor had caught my attention. I read and re-read it, hardly daring to believe what I was seeing. It was by a Ms Sutton in Chaing Mai and when I had finished re-reading it, I laughed aloud with joy.

It is very difficult for oversized women to travel in Bangkok because of small taxis and little seats on the skytrain and subway. You have almost nothing in the stores for oversized women.

Thai women all look undernourished; the way they dress is disgusting, and the cosmetics they use are cheap and tacky.

Please address these issues in your newspaper.

Only last Tuesday, I had been searching for a suitable letter in a newspaper to use on my students. The idea had been for them to read, understand and then write a letter back either agreeing or disagreeing from their own point of view. Now, as if by magic, it had appeared! Seek and ye shalt find!

Leila sent me an email today telling me that she was traveling, had been staying in “high class, 5 star resorts…and there were no low-so jow chews there…” I told her that the Green Mango was neither 5 star nor high class.

I did my washing and went to have my hair cut. The hair dresser was a ‘Tom’ from upcountry. She cut my hair and then stared critically at me in the mirror.

“You are going bald,” she said and fussed about with my hair for a bit. “Why do farangs like to go bald?”

“Well, they don’t usually choose to,” I said. “It just happens. I think it’s genetic.”

“It’s because you use hot water,” she told me. “Hot water makes your hair fall out and your hair go grey as well. Still, you don’t have any grey yet.”

This evening I taught at Thong Lor then went to swim and have dinner at the British Club.

14 November

This morning, I took the opportunity of catching up on sleep and got up late. Then I went to have lunch with my father at the British Club, as I do every Friday.

As I walked into the club, I met Pi Piro.

“How are you?” I asked.

He beamed. “Yesterday I won the Thai National Tennis Championship! It is the first time!”

“Wow!” I said and shook his hand. “Well done!”

“Thank you my friend. The important lesson is never to give up. If I cannot win it at 25 then I must keep trying and win it when I am 50! Now I am waiting for my friend. We are going to discuss an important new invention which we hope to make a lot of money out of.”

I wished him luck and then went off to find my father. He was talking to Jack, an old friend of his from England.

“I’ve just bought a condo down Rama 3 way,” Jack was saying. “But I’m not looking at it as an investment. I don’t think it’s worth investing in Thailand these days. Not in property, anyway. I mean, you might make a profit – but I wouldn’t bank on it. I’ve still got the place in Hua Hin…beautiful down there…should go there and stay someday…”

I greeted my father and then went to swim. When I got back, Jack had gone.

At four o’clock, I left the club to go and teach Amy. I taught for two hours and then returned to my apartment. I changed and then went to eat at Pi Baby’s café. I met a girl I’d known who’d worked in the office of my last apartment. Her name was Dee but everyone called her “Nok Huak” or “Owl” because of her love of nocturnal activities. She had dyed her long hair brown, put a curly twist to it and was wearing green contact lenses.

She told me that she was now working for the mobile phone company True at Fortune IT City at Rama 9.

“What do you do there?” I asked.

“Customer Service,” she said.

“Do you have to speak English?”

“Yes, but all I say: Hello, jup jup kiss, goodbye. If I can say more than I have higher salary.”

“Well why don’t you learn to speak English then?”

“Because I afraid make mistake.”

“You’re crazy! How can you learn if you don’t make mistakes, eh? It’s easy. You just learn some basics first and then go on.”

“Will you teach me free?”

“Yes, if you want.”

“It too difficult. Is speak Thai difficult?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Huh! See!” she said triumphantly. “So English too difficult for me. Cannot. Afraid make mistakes. Cannot do.”

16 September

Today, I came to Chachoengsao. I had a strange but interesting experience coming down. The fastest way to get to Chachoengsao from Bangkok is via train. Thai ordinary trains tend to be incredibly cheap – but the downside to this is that they also tend to be hot, dirty and crowded. However, once a day, an air conditioned express runs at (I thought) 12.20 from Hualanpong.

I took the subway from my apartment. I arrived at 12.13 – to find that the train departed at 12.10, not 12.20.

I decided not to panic but use the Secret instead. I envisaged a comfortable empty seat on my train and then made my way to platform 10. There was a huge crowd gathered. But no train. I asked the nearest man if the train to Chachoengsao had left yet. He told me that it hadn’t come yet.

Just then, a woman announced in Thai over the public address system that the train to Chachoengsao was running late and would arrive at platform 10 in 20 minutes. I went off to the local mini mart to get some lunch.

When I returned, five minutes later, the train was already at the platform at people were swarming all over it like frantic ants. Thais may be well mannered, polite people most of the time – but when it comes to trains, all that disappears. They barge, shove, queue jump and fight to get a seat first.

As I joined the scrum to enter the last carriage, I discovered that this crowd was no exception. It was a case of biggest and strongest first. Everyone seemed to carrying an extraordinary amount of luggage as well.

I edged closer to the door and saw through the windows that all the seats were taken and people were now competing for the best standing room. A fat woman with unpleasantly dyed red hair pushed in front of me and squeezed in the doorway. I did not retaliate but kept envisaging my empty comfortable seat waiting for me.

I entered the carriage and shuffled along with the crowd towards the end of the train. It was completely packed. People who had already reached the end of the carriage without finding seats were coming back the other way. The fat woman with the dyed red hair turned back too.

I was struggling to squeeze between her big hips and the full seats when suddenly I saw my empty seat waiting for me. I could hardly believe it. This was the first time I had successfully envisaged anything.

“Is this seat taken?” I asked the woman sitting next to it. Perhaps she was saving it for her husband or something.

“No, it’s free,” she said.

I sat down. For some reason, this carriage seemed more comfortable than usual. It was cleaner and there were individually controlled ceiling fans in addition to the air conditioning. The seats were covered with velour instead of plastic and there were foldaway stainless steel footrests as well.

I reclined my seat back, stretched out luxuriously and smiled.

17 September

This morning I taught at the local temple school. At one-thirty, it was time to leave and I asked Pi Nun to take me to Big C. I intended to see Kik briefly before catching the coach back to Bangkok. I was just saying goodbye to Kik when my mother rang to tell me that my grandmother had died peacefully in her sleep at lunch time.

Although she was nearly ninety and had died peacefully, it was still very sad news. She had been such a wonderful person with a great sense of humour and a heart of gold. Kik told me not to worry.

“Are you going to cry, Pi Ben? Well, you don’t need to. In Buddhism we know that everyone must die and your grandmother is very old so it’s ok. It’s only her body that’s dead. She’s going to go to a better place. My grandmother’s dying too. She’s in the hospital now. She just sleeps now. Soon she will die. It is the way.”

I thanked her for her concern. She nodded. “I will ring Gook and tell her the news,” she said.

“Don’t!” I said. My grandmother was very popular with my cousins. “She will cry. Let her mother or someone else tell her.”

“Don’t be silly! Of course she’s not going to cry!”

She opened her phone and dialed. “Hello Gook? Where are you? Yes, I’m with Pi Ben. Yes, he’s not going back to Bangkok today because, of course, his grandmother’s died…What? Yes, she’s just died. Didn’t you know? Hey, why are you crying…?”

She handed me the phone. “She’s crying!” she said.

I took the phone and put it to my ear. “Hello Gook,” I said somberly.

“Pi Ben!” wailed Gook at the other end. “Grandmother is dead! And I didn’t go to see her before she died! Ooooooh!”

I comforted her as best I could and then rang my lawyer student to cancel our lesson this evening. I returned to my grandmother’s house.

My grandmother was lying in her bed. Her body had already been washed and her hair combed neatly. She looked just as if she were asleep. Bending over her, it seemed incredible that she should be dead. Her face was serene and peaceful. I felt a sudden gratitude that she had gone so easily and painlessly in the home that she’d lived in all her life. So many people die young, in pain, far from their home and family.

She is the first dead person that I have ever seen.

Various relatives started to arrive to pay their respects to the dead. My grandmother had lived a long life and had been a popular figure in the community. Soon there were twenty or thirty people wandering about, chatting, arguing about the funeral, making food discussing what should be done.

In the evening, four monks came and chanted over the dead body while candles were lit and incense was burnt.

More people were still arriving. Tables were set up and laid outside the house by the river and everyone started eating and talking. Nong Varn told Bom not to whistle as it would “call the ghosts”. Laughter and loud talk rang out as relatives who had seen each other for years caught up on the latest news and gossip. A Thai funeral is a social event.

19 December

I am back in Bangkok. This morning I taught Amy. We read Thumbelina. I vaguely remembered reading it as a young boy but, coming back to it as an adult, I was rather surprised at the explicitness of this old fairytale.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who lived alone in the middle of a wood. She had a beautiful garden full of flowers. She liked to work in her garden to keep her hands busy.

The woman was very lonely. “I want a child!” she said. “If only I had a child!”

At night when she was alone in her bed and her hands were not busy with the flowers in the garden, she would say:

“I want a child! I want a child!”

One day, a strange old man came to her house while she was working in the garden with her flowers. He spoke kindly to the woman.

“You look sad, my dear,” he said.

“I want a child,” said the woman. “I am lonely and I want a child!”

The strange old man smiled. “I will give you a child!” he said. “I have a magic seed. We will put this magic seed in your pot tonight and in the morning you shall have the child you want!”

So the woman put the strange old man’s magic seed in her pot that night and the next morning she found a beautiful little girl kneeling on her flower.

“Why, you are only as big as my thumb!” said the woman. “I shall call you Thumbelina.”

So she did and they all lived happily ever after.

Amy put the book down and we started revising the simple past tense. I found myself wondering what happened to the strange old man. Did he live happily ever after? I rather suspect he did, in his own fashion. After all, there must have been plenty of other gullible lonely women wanting his ‘magic’ seed.

In the afternoon, I went to Chachoengsao to attend one of the funeral rites for my grandmother. There will be seven days of monks chanting in the temple for her and then on Monday, her body will be burned and that will be that.

I went to the temple early with my parents to receive the guests. After the chanting, there would be food for everybody. My grandmother’s coffin lay in state at one end of the temple hall, surrounded by flowers, joss sticks and candles. Hundreds of plastic chairs had been provided for the guests. At the front were some rather impressive carved rosewood seats. I asked my mother who they were for.

“They are for the extinguished guests,” she told me.

21 December

Today I taught Amy in the morning. She and her family are going to Italy for Christmas so I shall have some days off. Perhaps I will go to Koh Samet for a few days. But first, I must attend my grandmother’s funeral this Monday.

After I had taught Amy, I had lunch at Pi Baby’s café and met John, an ex-pat from East London. He had recently split up from his Thai girlfriend of six years and was still feeling aggrieved about it.

“You know what?” he said as he sipped at his water. “Lots of people like to go on about the Thai culture of “Mai pen rai” but I tell you, most of the time it’s just sheer apathy! You miss the bus – mai pen rai. Some poor geezer gets run over on a motorbike – mai pen rai. Somebody’s getting beaten up – mai pen rai…none of our business. I mean, we British are an interfering people. Sometimes that can be bad – but sometimes it can be good as well.”

25 December

Today is Christmas day. Ok, so you knew that anyway! This morning we gave breakfast to the monks. It was the final thing of my grandmother’s funeral. It has taken seven days. Seven exhausting days. I think the western way is better.

The last breakfast was finished off by my uncle and aunt giving money to the monks – which is forbidden by the laws set down by the Buddha – but was accepted nevertheless.

Leila came today. She told me that she was happy to see me, that she was glad that I was such a nice, good and handsome boyfriend etc. In short, the opposite of what she usually says. I don’t know what has possessed her to come out with such sweet words – but I rather suspect that that it won’t last long!

26 December

Today I taught two evening lessons. Leila and I did not go anywhere during the day and so Leila soon became bored and, during the late afternoon, started to think about her favourite activity – arguing.

“I think I’m going to go back to Pattani,” she announced. “I’m sick and tired of arguing with you. All you can think about is other girls. Any girl. No matter if she is ugly or beautiful. It’s like, oh this girl has no tail – I will put my nong chai into her…”

I held up my hand to stop her before she got too carried away. “Leila,” I said patiently. “I’m getting old. I’m going to be 32 next month. I haven’t got time to listen to other people. I don’t like to listen, I like to talk. Now I need to go and eat because I have a class soon. Do you want to join me?”

“No, I don’t want to join you! I’m not hungry. And I don’t want to eat with a jowchew good-for-nothing etc…”

I went to Pi Baby’s. While I was eating, Leila sent me a text message saying she was catching the 9pm flight to Pattani, that she was never going to see me again, and that she wished me luck with my future girlfriend.

I finished my meal and returned to my apartment. It was nearly time for my student to arrive. Leila was still there, looking pleased with herself. Two large suitcases stood waiting near the door.

“No, I’m NOT going to change my mind!” she declared. “When I walk out of this room, you’re never going to see me again! You can be happy with all your kiks…”

I interrupted. “You’ve forgotten to pack your jewelry,” I pointed out.

She started to tell me that she didn’t want it, that I could give it all to my future girlfriends when there was a knock on the door and my student entered.

“Good evening!” he smiled.

“Good evening, Brian,” I said. “Leila, this is Brian my student. Brian, this is Leila my girlfriend.”

Brian shook her hand and then eyed the two suitcases by the door. His smile widened. “You are leaving?” he enquired.

Leila and I looked at each other and laughed. “Shall I tell him?” asked Leila.

“Yes, tell him,” I said. “In English!”

29 December

I woke up at 7.30 and prepared to go to teach at Thong Lor. Yesterday, my school rang to tell me that I was to teach there. But when I rang my student’s mother, she told me that the school had got it all wrong. The next class wasn’t until after the new year. Thankfully, I ate a leisurely breakfast and decided what to do with my free day.

I lunched at Pi Baby’s café. Mario the Italian was there. He looked up morosely as I entered.

“So,” he said. “I have four days off – and I don’t know what I’m going to do. If I go out of this soi then I will have to spend money. My girlfriend is stay with me. She is crazy about shopping. Always she spend, spend, spend. But it is all her money – I don’t spend for her. But you know the girls they like a man to spend his money on them. It is the only way a girl can appreciate you…”

I nodded in sympathy. “Yes, you’re quite right,” I said, glancing across at Leila. “Take my girlfriend, for example. Always everyday, I have to spend at least 20 baht on her…”

“Don’t say it!” interrupted Leila, her dark eyes flashing. “Always I pay for you. It’s MY money! Yesterday, I sent one thousand on you. I bought you a shirt, when we went to Krabi, I paid for that 5 star hotel…”

“It’s a lot of money,” continued Mario. “I remember, I go back to visit my girlfriend in London. She want to eat at this restaurant, Chinese restaurant. We eat duck, you know. And she want to order a whole duck and the bill it thirty-eight pounds! THIRTY-EIGHT pounds! Unbelievable. And of course I have to pay the bill. Thirty-eight pounds…”

“I think I’m going back to America,” said Leila, stamping her foot. “People there appreciate me. I’m tired of Thailand and Thai people…”

“It’s completely crazy,” said Mario. “I mean, you just leave this soi and…puffff! You spend one thousand baht…”

I left the two of them to it and returned to my apartment.

In the evening, Leila and I had dinner at the British Club. We were treated to some Thai style service. I ordered a jacket potato, salad and beans. When my order came, the jacket potato had been magically changed into beans on toast.

After some time spent explaining to the confused looking waiter, my order was taken away to be changed. While we were waiting for the replacement, Leila’s order arrived. She had asked for the vegetarian pizza. It turned out to be the strangest looking pizza we’d ever seen. After a few mouthfuls, she discovered that it was Sweet Fried Chicken Curry on Pizza.

While Leila went to the toilet to vomit (she is allergic to meat), I remonstrated with our waiter.

“Oh,” he said, looking bewildered. “I didn’t know that she was a vegetarian!”

Like many Thais, he’d obviously thought that vegetarian food was “mai aroi” and had kindly decided to change her order for something more palatable. I could just imagine the scene in the kitchens as he discussed our order with the chef.

“He’s ordered jacket potato. Well that’s not going to be nice. Let’s change it to beans on toast. She says she wants vegetarian pizza. Urgh! Give her the fermented fish som dum…it’s my favourite. What? We’re out of fermented fish? Hmmmm how about dumping some nice chicken curry on the pizza base instead…”

1 January

First day of the year in Bangkok. The city is unusually quiet, cool and clean – half the population have gone back home to the provinces for the holiday. The roads are blissfully traffic jam free. If only Bangkok were always like this…

I noticed in my diary that Luke, my seven year old student from Thong Lor is due to have a class. I rang his mother to confirm that he really was willing to study on New Year’s day.

“Oh, it’s up to you,” she said. “Do you want to come?”

“I don’t mind. I’m not doing anything today. Does Luke want to study today?”

“I just ask him. Luke! Do you want to study with Mr Ben today? Yes? Ok, he wants to study. Can you come at five o’clock?”

If only all children were consulted before having private lessons…

3 January

I woke up late, had breakfast late and then had lunch late. I hate getting up late. Tonight, I’m going to set my alarm. Today was a pretty uneventful day. Leila sulked a bit because we didn’t argue.

At five, I went to Thong Lor to teach Luke. It was an easy lesson. We sat by his garden pond on a little wooden pier and went over his homework. Then his mother gave me money and a rather classy looking little gift bag.

“A new year present from Luke,” she smiled.

Inside was a boxed set of Dolce and Gabbana tie, cuff links and handkerchief. Teaching in Thailand can be a very rewarding experience, I have found.

7 January

One of the many things that Thai are obsessed with is “high-so” and “lo-so”. (High class and low class). The other day, one of my students told me that she liked men with tattoos.

I was rather surprised. This girl was of the “old school” Thais. She always dressed modestly, believed in sex after marriage, didn’t drink or smoke etc. She admired the British accent because it was “more hi-so than American” and in general, seemed to be a fairly bright girl. Now what was all this?

“Why do you like men with tattoos?” I asked.

“Because it is hi-so,” she answered.

I was even more surprised. “Hi-so? How is it hi-so? Do you know anyone hi-so who has a tattoo?”

“Yes, Eminem!” she replied earnestly. “And David Beckham….”

10 January

Yesterday, my friend Kik from Chachoengsao came to Bangkok. I agreed to meet her at Siam. My cousin Gook would join us later.

It was Kik’s first time to Siam Square and all the shopping centres. When I met her, she was at Siam station. She was standing by the 7-11 store which was probably the only thing familiar to her and gazing fearfully at the skytrain she had just left. She had been crying because she’d never been to downtown Bangkok before and was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to find her friends in such a big city.

“Well, why didn’t you phone me then?” I asked.

“Oh, Pi Ben…cannot!” she wailed. “Kik is afraid that Pi Ben is with his girlfriend and she will be angry with me! Perhaps she does something bad to Kik…Pi Ben, Kik want to pee!”

I took her to the toilets in Siam Paragon and she gazed wide-eyed at all the glittering window displays. Then we went to meet Gook at the rather more down-market MBK centre. We went to the food court on the 5th floor. Kik could bear it no longer. She dug out her mobile phone and started ringing her friends.

“Noi, Noi! I’m at MBK in Bangkok!” she burst out. “Yes sir! It’s so very high-so mark mark! Farangs everywhere…”

This evening, my cousin Bow asked me to help her with her course work. She had taped herself interviewing farangs on what they thought of Thailand for her project and she couldn’t make out what they had said. I told her to send me the sound file via msn messenger. The tapescript was funny. It made me realize why some farangs had such a hard time here in Thailand. When they spoke to her, they made no effort to slow down or simplify their speech.

Bow (reading slowly from her prepared text): Excuse me, please. Do you have five minutes?

(Man with strong east London accent). Yes.

Bow: My name is Bow. I am doing an interview project on how feel about Thailand. What is your name?

(Man with strong east London accent) Uh, Brad.

Bow: What are you from?

Brad: Uh, I’m from London, England.

Bow: How long have you been in Thailand?

Brad: Uh, eighteen months?

Bow: How many times have you come to Thailand?

Brad: Well, bout four times, I think. Yeah, I think four times.

Bow: The first time why did you come?

Brad: Uh, holiday, I think.

Bow: What about this time?

Brad: Umm I’m studying.

Bow: What are you interested in most about Thailand?

Brad: Umm oooooh erm…(pause) erm Buddhism aaaand the food…everything! Weather…lots of things.

Bow: What about other thing?

Brad: Sorry?

Bow: What about other thing?

Brad: Other things. Ummm I don’t know…my wife huh, alcohol…er…what else?

What else is there? Just relaxing really.

Bow: Before you come, what’s your idea about Thailand?

Brad: I thought it wouldn’t be as developed. I thought it would be…no roads and nothing…but this was years ago…well, I came here eight years ago and now there’s roads and you know…things. I didn’t think it’d be as developed as it is. It’s very developed…

Bow: How about now?

Brad: What do I think about it? Erm..(pause) Sorry, can you ask the question again? What was the question? Start again…

Bow: (confused) Before you come…uh and now…uh

Brad: Oh right! So what I…sorry..(long pause) Oh, what do I think about it now? Oh right! Well, I think it’s great. Has everything here that I want, erm…nice like I say, nice weather, good entertainment everything…I can…a lot more relaxed here…than in London…so…

Bow: How long will you be here?

Brad: Uh ‘til I finish my degree, I think… three more years maybe…but then I might stay, I dunno.

Bow: Do you think you will come back again?

Brad: Yeah.

Bow: It’s been very nice speaking to you. Bye bye.

12 January

I woke up early, caught the skytrain to Thong Lor and taught Luke for an hour and then returned home. I did my washing, relaxed in the afternoon and then met up with a friend in the evening. I returned home at about 9pm. It was a quiet day.

13 January

Today is my birthday. I am 32. So young!! I went to Central shopping mall at Rama 3 to meet my cousin Gook. We had dinner and then Gook treated me to an ice cream at Swensen.

17 January

Today Leila and I went to Siam Square with my parents. Leila liked my father very much.

“He is just like me!” she said. “He is jai rawn! And I am very proud to walk beside him because Thai people think that he is millionaire guy and I am his young beautiful wife.”

At five, I went to teach at Thong Lor for an hour and then joined Leila and my parents at the British Club. Leila told my parents that I was a no-good, jow chew who would stick his nong chai into any girl without a tail etc. It was a pleasant change to hear her saying all this to someone other than myself for once.

We swam and then had dinner. Later, we walked back along the Silom Road market and I stopped to look at some polo shirts.

“This is nice,” I said, picking up a dark blue one and holding against my chest for size. “But I’m afraid that it will shrink once I wash it.”

“Do not worry Sir,” said the seller, hurrying forward. “You are thin, but with a chicken chest. Believe me, this shirt will fit you just fine.”

“Thank you,” I said. “In that case, I’ll take it.”

We carried on walking. A Thai boy ran after us and handed Leila a business card.

“What is this for?” she asked.

“Farang there tell me to give you,” replied the boy. “Give me twenty baht and tell me give you quick.”

“Sorry, but I already have a handsome boyfriend,” said Leila. Another man approached her. He was in his early fifties.

“Look live sex show?” he enquired. “Just see first. If not like then no pay. Free. Ping Pong show. Fuck fuck!”

“No thank you. I don’t like.”

“Just take a look!” insisted our friend, walking beside us. “No need to pay money. Ping pong. Live Sex show. Fucking.”

“No, thank you. We don’t need to see a sex show. Our own show is the best.”

“Yes, yes! Our show the best! Come see. Live show. Ping pong. Fucking….”

He continued in this vein for another hundred yards and then slowly fell behind. His voice gradually faded into the street market din of people, traffic and music.

18 January

This morning, I did my washing. In the afternoon, I went with my Harrow student’s mum to see the latest addition to her imported car showroom – the new model Ferrari F460 in gleaming red.

It was a wonderful machine. I’m not a massive Ferrari fan – but this car was certainly special. When I sat in the cream leather seats and took the steering wheel, it felt instantly right. The instruments were beautifully simple and clearly laid out. The gears were paddle shifts behind the steering wheel. Even though this is the first of the new generation of lighter, more environmentally friendly Ferraris, everything felt reassuringly solid and of top quality. It felt like the best of the German cars.

I turned the key and pressed the big red start button on the steering wheel. The big V8 engine started into life in its glass box behind me. I blipped the throttle a few times and the needle on the rev counter swung towards the six thousand mark.

I think it was Jeremy Clarkson who once wrote that “nothing beats the sound of a Ferrari on an Alpine road. I couldn’t say, having never been to the Alps. But I can tell you that the sound of a F460 in a glass Thai car showroom is pretty awesome. It is a crackling, howling F1 roar and sounds way better than a Tuk Tuk.

20 January

Today I took Leila to cut her hair. The hairdresser was a woman in her forties with a fake western style nose. She looked astonished when she saw Leila’s hair.

“Very long!” she said. “So much hair! They say that clever people have very little hair. Ok, I will cut it very sexy. I think you should dye it blonde – very beautiful na.”

“No thanks. I like it black,” said Leila, tossing her glossy locks. The hairdresser was not discouraged.

“See, look,” she said, coming over to where I sat and showing me some samples. “I think we should change it to this colour, don’t you think?”

And she pointed to a horrible orangey, brownish kind of blonde.

“If she changes her hair to that colour,” I said. “I will take her to the market and never see her again!”

“Oh,” said the hairdresser, looking disappointed. “Ok, just a shampoo and cut then.”

21 January

Today is my charity day so I got up at 5.30am and took the train to Chachoengsao. I was going to teach at a temple school called Wat Saam Lom.

The one hour journey cost 12 baht and the railway carriage was from probably 50 years ago with wooden seats and paneling. It was very nice.

Pi Nun picked me up from the train station in Chacheongsao and drove me to the school. It was a lovely rural place by the Bang Pakong river. The school was an old style wooden building with massive teak floorboards. The students were aged between four and twelve years old and were from poor backgrounds, mostly farmers and fishermen.

I taught two hours before lunch and then another hour after lunch. Then it was time to catch the only air conditioned train back to Bangkok at two in the afternoon.

When I got back to Bangkok, I met the Essex Boy at Pi Baby’s café. He was unshaven and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked exhausted.

“Hi Essex Boy, how are you?” I asked.

“Oh hi Ben! How are I? That’s a good question!” he grinned. “Well, I’m just come back from the rave at Bang Na. You know what? The last couple of days have just been like full on. I’m been to Cambodia, to Bang Na, my mate just left at four this morning… You know what? I think I’ve only had two hours sleep in forty-eight hours. I’ve been doing so much partying and that much sleep…”

And he held up his finger and thumb and indicated a small space between them.

“But Bang Na was good,” he continued. “Lots of beautiful women, good music, plenty of booze. In fact, good class of people. You know, there were Thais, Luke Krung, some good young farang girls, people who’d been abroad and whatever. You know, people who knew what was going on.”

23 January

Today I went to swim in Silom. Then I went to teach Amy. It was a nice lesson. Afterwards, her mum drove me home and took the opportunity to practice her English with me. We talked about families and the good and bad points of having children.

“What do you think is the most difficult thing about having children?” I asked.

“Bringing them up to be good and successful people,” she answered. “I think now young people copy a lot of bad habits from the western people. Now in Thailand there are a lot of men who are not men – gays! And there are women who are not women…do you know Toms?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Now there are so many, many! And in Pattaya it is not just girls who – what do you say? Girls who sell their bodies, what is the English word for them?”

“Prostitutes.”

“Ah, Prostitutes! Pros-tit-tutes! Now there are not just girl prostitutes but the man who sells his body to the other man…”

When I returned to Pi Baby’s café for dinner, the Essex Boy was there with a couple of his farang friends. There were several empty bottles of Singha on the table in front of them. They’d obviously been there for a while.

“Ah, here’s Ben!” said the Essex Boy kindly.

“Hello Essex Boy,” I said. “How was your day?”

“How was my day? Well, it all depends on which way you look at it. Lots of things happened but whether it was good or not just depends upon your viewpoint.”

The Singha had obviously made him philosophical. I guess it must have been the formaldehyde.

25 January

Today I came to Koh Samet, a little tropical getaway island about three hours drive from Bangkok. I went alone because Leila had some things she had to do. Actually, it was nice to travel on my own again.

I took the VIP bus from Ekamai bus terminal to Ban Phe and then took the slow boat to the island. It took just under an hour to get there.

There were lots of touts waiting on the concrete pier but it was still early in the day and I was in no rush to find a room. I shouldered my backpack, clamped my hat on my head and started walking.

The first beach was Hai Sai Kao. The sand here was blindingly white and as soft as talc. However, it was fairly crowded and quite touristy. I was feeling the need for a little bit more laid back solitude sort of place after the hustle of Bangkok and Thai girls. I continued walking.

On I walked through beautiful beaches, past beautiful and not so beautiful people, nubile topless western girls with golden skin, older women of the beached whale variety clad only in thongs, picturesque little bars set against the lush vegetation.

It was hot but I had my big wide brimmed hat for protection and fake Raybans to shield out the fierce glare of the tropical sun off the white sand. The beaches grew progressively quieter and less touristy. At last I came to a lovely little enclosed bay full of flowers and big leafy trees providing welcome shade on the beach. There was a resort there called Tubtim. Everything was well kept and clean. I decided that this would do.

I paid 800 baht for a new bungalow and then ate a late lunch. The food was delicious. Most of the people staying there seemed to be northern Europeans. One middle-aged Swedish couple told me that they came here for 4 months every year. This was the best place to stay and eat. They told me to watch out for Great Hornbills. These rare birds were regular visitors to the jungle just behind the resort, apparently.

After lunch I returned to my bungalow and had a bit of a snooze. At about five, I headed down to the beach for a swim.

A slim young Thai man dressed only in a tight pair of leopard skin swimming trunks was coming other way. He looked spookily like a male baggage handler who had tried to pick me up at the airport. His soft brown eyes gave me the quick once over and he smiled.

“Helloooo!”

“Hi,” I said and continued down to the sea.

I entered the water. It was silky to the touch and warm as a bath. I swam out a couple of hundred yards. It was dusk now and I could feel but not see the shoal of fish that I was swimming through. The island looked enchanting in the half light.

When I returned to my bungalow, I saw that the slim Thai man that I had met on the path was sitting on the veranda of the bungalow next to mine. He was with a portly middle-aged western man with a short grey beard and what sounded like a German accent. They were talking in low intimate voices. The Thai man was still dressed in only his leopard skin briefs and the western man had his hand lightly resting on them. The two men looked over and smiled at me.

“Friendly sort of neighbours I’ve got here,” I mused. As I hung up my towel I noticed that on the veranda of the bungalow opposite, a fit-looking shaven headed man was sitting holding hands with a Thai youth. They both waved and smiled.

“Beautiful evening!” called out the shaven headed man in a northern English accent.

“Beautiful!” agreed his young Thai friend smilingly.

”Certainly is!” I said heartily and went into my bungalow. I made sure the door was locked while I showered.

After my wash, I put on my mosquito repellent trousers and a t-shirt then went to dinner. The restaurant was on the beach with little bamboo tables set out on the sand beneath the stars. The lighting was done with oil lamps. It was very romantic. There were a handful of older, European couples but over half of the customers were Western men with their Thai boyfriends.

The food was delicious. I returned to my bungalow feeling full and pleasantly sleepy. I went to bed.

At about four in the morning, I was rudely awakened by the sound of shouting and banging from the bungalow next door.

“Peter! Look for me, Peter! Let me in!”

It was the voice of the slim young Thai man with the leopard skin briefs. (Although whether or not he was still wearing them I could not tell you – being way too tired to get up and look).

Bang, bang, bang! “Peter!” his voice was strident now and not soft and sensual like how it had been when I had met him on the path. “Look for me, Peter! I tell you!”

“Fuck off, you dirty fucking slut! You dirty fucking whore!”

It was the portly middle-aged German man. His voice was low, venomous and filled with hatred. “Fuck off back to your other boyfriend!”

“Not my other boyfriend, Peter! I love just you! I tell you!”

“Why were you…? (There then followed an unpleasantly graphic description of a sexual act) …then, eh? You were blatantly….(more unpleasantness) …at the Apache Bar. You filthy SLUT!”

His voice rose on the last word. Evidently, it was a subject he had strong feelings about.

“Not mean anything to me, Peter. Just fun for me. I love you, Peter! Let me in!”

“How can you love me when you only met me three days ago?! Now FUCK OFF! I NEVER want to see you again!”

He was shouting harshly now. The slim Thai man didn’t like this.

“Look for me, Peter! I give your money back!” he suggested.

“Fuck off!”

“I tell you, Peter. I give your money back…it’s promise. I not go to Police now. Look for me…”

“FUCK OFF!”

This went on for several minutes with not much variation except that both men’s voices became increasingly emotional. Finally, the slim Thai man decided to change tactics.

”You not look for me, Peter! I DIE for you, Peter!” he shrieked. “I LOVE you, Peter!”

“FUCK OFF!”

There came the sudden sound of smashing glass and then a low groan. “I die now, Peter! I die for you…” (Muffled sob.) “I die for you now, Peter…Look for me…”

There was a short silence broken only by the (presumably) dying groans of the slim young Thai man. Then came sounds of doors opening, of people exclaiming and calling out. I recognized one of the voices as being that of friendly shaven headed English man from the bungalow opposite.

“Fuck! He’s bleeding like fuck! Get a towel quick...doctor...he needs a doctor immediately...what happened?”

(The middle aged German man’s voice - he sounded worried now). “He kept threatening to call the police...met him in a bar...came back late on drugs...crazy... slut... jealous... no need for police...”

(Other voices I did not recognize). “Is there a doctor on this island? Bind that towel more tightly... hasn’t stopped bleeding... speedboat... need a speedboat... doctor on mainland...”

(Middle aged German) “Slut…I saw him giving that American a blowjob in the bar…fucking slut! Paid him five thousand for this trip as well…”

(Friendly shaven headed English man) “It's two grand for the speedboat...are you going to go with him?”

(Middle aged German man) “Yes, I'll go with him...slut! I'll pay for the boat... no need for police...”

He must have been in Thailand long enough to know that farang sex tourists are a major source of income to many low paid policemen.

I got and went to the window. The slim young Thai man was sitting in a pool of blood, a towel wrapped tightly around his forearm. He was still dressed in his skimpy leopard skin bathing trunks. A crowd of people gathered around him.

It was obvious that he was being taken care of and that there was nothing I could do. I went back to bed.

27 January

Today I returned to Bangkok. I never knew what happened to the middle aged gay German or his slim young Thai man in leopard briefs. Perhaps he died in the speedboat, perhaps his German lover was caught by the police and thrown into one of Bangkok’s notorious jails. I suspect though, that he was simply fined and the slim young Thai man in leopard briefs lived to prowl another day.

2 February

My brother Mark has arrived and has been busy. On the second day in Bangkok, he spotted a university student in a café and got Leila to ask for her mobile number. Since then, he has been going around with a slightly vacant, crazed and harassed look in his eye.

“Ben! Leila! I’m late! I said that I’d meet her at Siam at one thirty…and it’s now twelve! I haven’t got time for lunch…”

“Mark, I thought you agreed to come and meet my Harrow student’s mum. She’s expecting you. She wants to practice her English. Perhaps she’ll buy you a flat in Mayfair if you play your cards right…”

“Ben, I can’t!” His gaunt face wore a hunted expression. “I don’t know which shoes to wear with these trousers….these brown loafers or these trendy black ones….” His face suddenly brightened as a happy thought struck him.

“Ben! I’m gonna give her a good seeing to! She’s got a great figure….well, at least I think so. She was wearing this long baggy thing last time so I couldn’t really tell. But she definitely wasn’t thin. And she’s a good height….”

I left him to it and went to Pi Baby’s café for lunch. The Essex Boy was there with Mario the Italian. The Essex Boy was doing the talking and Mario was looking depressed.

“How’s long a piece of string? I can tell you. Exactly the same length if you cut it in the middle! I’m telling you, Mario! Wherever we are, wherever we find ourselves – we’ve arrived – in that exact spot!”

“Doesn’t make any difference,” said Mario glumly. “I just fed up with Thailand and Thai girls. Always spend, spend, spend my money. I tell you, it’s not cheap living here in Thailand…”

“Mario my man, if you’re STILL thinking those kinda thoughts then you’re obviously not drinking enough. You need to drink more and think less. Go out and get another bird. Have another beer, mate. Get some vitamins into you…”

“I need to make a phone call,” said Mario and stood up. He went out of the café into the street. The Essex Boy turned to me.

“Bloody ‘ell, Ben. Haven’t a sharp knife handy, have you? Cos think am gonna slit my throat. Talking to Mario always makes me feel so cheerful…”

11 February

Today I awoke at 5.30am and went to teach at the temple school at Chachoengsao. I returned to Bangkok on the afternoon train. I had coffee and cakes with Leila and my friend Mark in my apartment. Leila wanted Mark to listen to the Backstreet Boys.

“They have a song “Incomplete”. Do you know it?” she asked.

Mark gulped his coffee and checked his watch. “No, I don’t know it. I have to go!” He stood up and I noticed that a glazed look had come over his face. “I said I’d meet Noi at five in Silom…and it’s nearly four o’clock now!”

“Mark! You must listen! I will play it from the internet…”

“Gotta go,” muttered Mark as he went out of the door. “Meeting her at five…”

Leila didn’t like men walking out on her. “Mark!” she called after him. “If you don’t stay and listen, I will tell Nong Noi that you had sex with her!”

But Mark had already gone.

13 February

Today I got up early and caught the skytrain to Thong Lor. I had a new class at my school.

My new “class” consisted of one girl. She was 23 years old, tall, white skinned and beautiful. Her spoken English was very good and her written English was very bad. She told me that she liked watching movies and going shopping.

“Your accent is very good,” I encouraged. “Have you ever been abroad?”

She smiled and nodded which, among Asians, usually means that they don’t understand.

“Have you ever been to America?” I asked.

She shuddered. “Oh no! Too big. Dangerous!”

“Have you ever been to Australia?”

She shuddered again. “Oh no! I’ve never been to Europe! Don’t want to. Too big. Dangerous.”

She smiled at the nonplused look on my face. “I like going shopping,” she said. “In Thong Lor…”

After the lesson, I took the skytrain to Silom where I played table tennis with a middle aged Thai businessman who turned out to be an ex government official.

In the evening, I met up with Leila and we had dinner together. After, as we came out onto Silom Road, we saw an old beggar hobbling slowly and painfully along the pavement with the aid of a crooked walking stick.

“Ben! Look at that poor beggar!” said Leila. “I feel very sorry for him.”

Just then, another beggar who was crouching in a doorway called out jeeringly to the old man with the stick.

“Ho! So you’re walking bent over with a stick today! You’re clever huh? Guess you’ve made lots of money today hey?”

“What business is it of yours?” demanded the old man straightening upright and suddenly appearing much younger. “How about you? Got our arms back today, have we? Seems that yesterday when I saw you, you had your arms stuck inside your shirt and was pretending that you didn’t have any! Well, guess that trick didn’t work, huh?”

18 February

The last four days, I have been at Koh Samet with Leila. We had a wonderful time. Four blissful days of white sands, warms seas, hot sun and good food. There were even half decent waves to bodysurf.

We stayed in a lovely little rustic “village” consisting of three wooden hobbit like huts set around a miniature village green with streams and even a small waterfall. It was a fantastic place. All the furnishings inside were made of beach driftwood, doors were two halves of ancient tree trunks, weathered from months spent floating around in the sea. It was, however, an extremely comfortable place with a flushing toilet and hot shower. The wooden thatched roof meant that it was pleasantly cool compared to most modern Thai bungalows.

20 February

Early this morning, I was awoken at five o’clock by a knocking on my door. I had been dreaming about dark and cold English winters and so was slightly disorientated when I got up to open the door.

My friend Mark stood there, his face gaunt and pale.

“Ben, can I borrow your kettle a moment? I’m going to this island near Pattaya with this girl and I need some coffee!”

He stumbled into my apartment and continued. “Yeah, met her on the train. She’s really sweet…”

I was too tired and confused to listen to his latest conquest. I went back to bed and returned to my English winter while he made himself coffee and then left.

Two hours later, my alarm went off. I got up, had a big breakfast and then set off to Thong Lor to teach my student who believed that Australia was part of Europe.

I took the subway to Sukhamvit, changed to the skytrain and rode it two stops to Thong Lor and then had a pleasant stroll to the school. Thong Lor is one of the few streets in Bangkok which is actually nice to walk along. For a start, it has clean pavements (or sidewalks, if you prefer them) that are worth walking along and blissfully free of motorbikes. There are also quite a few trees to provide shade.

When I was halfway to the school, I received a phone call to tell me that my student had called in sick but that they would pay me for the first hour anyway. I went shopping instead.

One of the nice things about Thailand, I mused agreeably, is that you can get paid for simply having a nice morning…

21 February

Today is Makhabhucha Day – the day in which, roughly 2,600 years ago, some 1,200 enlightened monks decided spontaneously to visit the Buddha. They all arrived at the same time and gathered in the light of the full moon.

I had to teach my Harrow student at 10.30am so I hailed a taxi outside my apartment. The driver was a pleasant, middle aged man and when I first got into his cab, I was struck by the fact that pretty much the whole interior was plastered in money. The headlining, the dashboard, the A pillars, the B pillars….everywhere, in fact, except the seats and actual windows.

There were banknotes and coins of pretty much every country you could think of. There were old faded notes and shiny new coins. It was really quite extraordinary. I asked him where he got it all from.

“My customers,” he said. “I have been working as a taxi driver for 25 years and I often go to the airport. My customers give me tips and I stick their money up in here. When foreigners see all this then they usually give me more to add to my collection.”

I asked him if people ever stole the money.

“No, never. They just want to add more to it.”

He seemed a happy and contented man. He told me that he owned the car and therefore could work as often or as little as he liked. Most taxi drivers in Bangkok work for someone else and usually earn between five to seven thousand baht per month. He, however, had managed to put aside money every month over the years until at last he could afford to buy his own car outright. Now everyday he worked until he had earned 1,000 baht and then went home.

He seemed to have done very well for himself compared to most taxi drivers. He had bought his own house, sent his three children to university and now they were all in good jobs. I asked him if it was sometimes dangerous driving a taxi in Bangkok. I had heard many tales of taxi drivers been beaten and robbed. He shook his head.

“I only think about good things so I only get good things,” he said. “Yes, bad things can happen to taxi drivers during the day or night but if one always thinks about good things then one will attract good things. See, my money everywhere in my taxi. People never steal from me. They just want to give me more.”

He was good cheerful company and I was sorry when we arrived at my Harrow student’s mansion. I gave him a tip, wished him good luck and when in to do my morning’s work.

Nong Amy had not got up yet. Her mother told me that everyone was still asleep and took me up to the movie room. There, I was fed coffee, fruit and biscuits and a Kylie Minogue DVD.

After a while, Amy appeared and we had the lesson. We worked on a story she was writing about a girl called Googee who lived in a castle with her dog Memama.

Presently, Amy’s mum called us to lunch. She had ordered vegetarian pizza for me from Pizza Hut. After lunch, it was time for me to go to my next student at Thong Lor.

My Thong Lor student had just returned from a weekend in Hong Kong and was anxious to show me his purchases from Toys R Us. He got out a laser gun set (Two laser guns with strap on electronic shields that flash, beep and give you a mild shock when you are hit by your opponent’s gun) and insisted on trying it out with me. I managed to convince him to wait until the end of the lesson and then we ran about the big garden, shooting at each other.

It is perhaps not every 32 year old man’s cup of tea but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. In the end, I got behind one Mercedes limousine and he got behind the other and we spent a happy time blasting away at each other until finally his electronic shield malfunctioned and refused to accept any more hits.

I decided to call it a day and took the skytrain home to my apartment. I came out of the subway station and the usually gaudily neon lit massage parlors opposite were strangely dark and silent. They were closed for Makhabhucha Day. Although Thailand often seems overwhelmingly materialistic, it is still a Buddhist country.

As I was walking to my soi, I saw the full moon hanging huge, low and yellow above skyline. It suddenly struck me that this was the very same moon that the 1,200 Enlightened monks had seen 2,600 years ago. Despite the balmy heat, I got the goosebumps and every single hair on my body stood on end.

When I got to Pi Baby’s café, I found the Essex Boy and Mario the Italian sitting down with a beer. Pi Baby’s nephew Nong Noom was sitting alone at a table behind them. He was 23 years old and had just started working in Patpong. He specialized in Asian men.

“Hello Ben,” said the Essex Boy. “You been working hard?”

“Not really,” I said, sitting down. “Just been running round shooting toy guns with an eight year old. Usual stuff and all that.”

“Good. Hey, did you hear what happened at VIP Place on Friday?” The Essex Boy leaned forward, his face serious. “Korean guy committed suicide. Hanged himself. I mean, bloody hell…”

“Wow,” I said. “He must have been depressed!”

“Yeah.” The Essex Boy added more beer to his mug. “Mind you…” A thought suddenly struck him. “Can’t say I blame him. I’d top myself if I was Korean. I mean, not much point living if you’re one of ‘em is there?”

“My students are not so bad,” said Mario gloomily. “They are sometimes a little naughty and they never listen to what I say…”

“Pi Ben, I need to improve my English,” said Nong Noom to me in Thai. “Because sometimes my customers book me in advance on the internet and I need to lie to them that I am away somewhere on business so that I don’t get a double booking by mistake. I don’t want to let my customers down. Last week, a Korean guy took me to Pattaya for three days and gave me 100,000 baht.”

He paused as his mobile phone beeped and buzzed on the table. He picked it up and frowned thoughtfully at the screen.

“Pi Ben, what does it say? It is a SMS from my Malaysian boyfriend but I don’t understand everything about the English.”

He showed me the phone. I glanced at it. It was written all in capitals.

HELLO SEXY DARLING NOW I HOSPITAL TWO DAYS BUT SEND YOU MONEY TRANFER TOMORROW LOVE DADDY

“He’s going to send you the money tomorrow,” I said.

“Ah, good,” said Nong Noom and went outside for a cigarette.

“I tell you, Ben,” said the Essex Boy. “I’m getting horny sitting here and watching all this totty walking past. I think I’m gonna have to go out tonight and bag something…”

Mario slipped moodily at his beer. “It is no good,” he said sadly. “I cannot tell a joke. Not after last night. Last night was a joke.”

23 February

I woke up this morning feeling exhausted. I had breakfast and then went downstairs to fill my water container. I met Mario the Italian coming the other way.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Not too good,” I replied. “Got a slight sore throat and feel really tired.”

His face brightened. “Yes!” he said eagerly. “It is this place. Always I wake up with something wrong…. Always a little something make me feel not good. If I ever wake up feeling good then it’s halleluiah! You know, I have to save some money because I know one day, something bad is going to happen…”

24 February

Today was a good day. I got up at half six in the morning and then went straight to the British Club with Leila.

It was deserted when we arrived. The only other members present were a couple playing tennis. The water in the swimming pool was like a mirror. We lay on the sun lounges and watched the sun rise while listening to the sound of birdsong.

“It’s like having our own private villa,” said Leila and she was right.

We swam ten lengths, showered and then had a big leisurely breakfast complete with lots of good coffee, baked beans and newspapers. Then we strolled up Silom Road went shopping at Sala Dang. After an hour or so, we took the Skytrain to Au Bon Pair at Siam, drank more coffee and ate giant cookies.

After half an hour or so, my brother Mark turned up and we went shopping at MBK. I tried on a pair of jeans at a shop on the ground floor and was served by a rather cute, button nosed girl from Korat. She caught Mark’s eye and he was immediately interested.

“Look Ben, Leila!” he said in an urgent undertone. “The shop assistant! God, look at that bottom…”

“I will ask if she has a boyfriend,” offered Leila. “Excuse me, do you have a boyfriend?”

“Yes,” said the girl from Korat. “He’s Spanish and he likes my skin dark. Actually, he wants my skin to be darker than this.”

“Hmmm,” said Leila. “Are you a virgin?”

The girl from Korat looked surprised at the question.

“No,” she said. “I’m Thai. I’m from Isen, see?”

1 March

I woke up early and went to teach at Thong Lor. I returned to Huay Kwang for lunch and ate at Pi Baby’s Café.

“How are your family?” she asked me.

“They’re fine thanks,” I said. “My brother is coming out here in two weeks.”

Pi Baby pricked up her ears.

“Is he handsome? Is his skin white?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes, he is very white because now it is the middle of winter in Europe.”

“Ah, I will give him my younger sister!” she said. “She is fat and very white all over. Beautiful. Just a like a movie star!”

“You’re very kind,” I said. “I will tell him that a nice fat white girl is waiting here for him.”

“I am saving her for a good man,” said Pi Baby happily. “I will not let Mr Essex Boy have her because he is too jow chew and not rich enough.”

In the evening, I helped a 24 year girl called Nong Omm complete a work application. Nong Omm described herself as “Korean style” which meant that she put on lots of white face powder, dyed her hair reddish brown and wore blue contact lenses.

“Thai men very crazy Korean style,” she told me. “I have lots of rich boyfriends who give me money. I will buy new Motorola Razr V8 (a fashion accessory which is also a fairly average mobile phone) and Nong Omm like verrrry much! Very hi-so! My boyfriend he have two Benz. One of my kik he luke krung – half Holland, half Thailand. He is television presenter. He is verrry jealous! Always ring me. “Where are you?” Nong Omm have to say “At my house!” because I am with my kik!”

She laughed happily and then her face grew serious. “But Nong Omm not like because he make me lie and it bad to lie. So I think maybe just be friends with him and not kik. But if not kik then he not give me money…hmmm.”

I picked up her application form. She was applying to work for Sony. She jabbed a finger at it. Her fingernails were painted red with white spots like the back of a ladybird

“See,” she said proudly. “My friend he already write for me. Verrrry clever, my friend. Verrrry good English, don’t you think?”

I looked at what he had written. It was very “Korean style”.

I want to work for Sony because I have good mental hygiene and trendy attitude demeaning viscous idea for lifestyle...

“Well,” I said tactfully. “It’s not what we in the west would call good English…but it’s nice to meet someone with clean mental hygiene…”

5 March

Today, Leila went home to see her mother.

In the morning, I met Mark. He seemed agitated.

“Ben,” he said. “I’ve just been reading your blog – and you’ve gotta take me off it cos my family are gonna read it and know that it’s me and my dad will think that I’m crazy!”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll change your name so no-one will know it’s you.”

“Of course they’ll know that it’s me! I mean, Mark and you know chasing all the girls…well, they will definitely guess.”

“Ok, ok! I’ll take you off it then!”

“Yes, you’d better!” His face cleared. “You never guess what! I met this WONDERFUL girl last night coming off the subway. I first noticed this great bottom ahead of me on the escalator so I speeded up to see what the face was like…anyway, she looked at me and I looked at her and we both smiled…She’s got this lovely smile! Then I said to her, you know, ‘Where do you live?’ So she took me back to her place….”

I lunched at Pi Baby’s Café. The Essex Boy was there with Mario.

“Hello, Ben. What have you been upto? Have you been lizarding yet now that your girlfriend’s not here?”

“No, just been working hard. Did two whole hours today so am too tired. How about you?”

“Ah,” said the Essex Boy happily. “Well, got com-plete-ly drunk last night. Here actually. Just got totally wasted. Woke up this morning completely fucked with a verrry big hangover. So…” he held up a bottle of Singha. “I bought this because…I know I don’t need it yet…but I might just later on in the afternoon.”

And he proceeded to open it with the steel bracelet on his left wrist. He poured a mugful and then nodded.

“You know what they say? What doesn’t kill you, cures you.” And he turned suddenly to Mario.

“You know the fastest way to put out a forest fire?” he asked.

Mario shugged.

“With more fire!” said the Essex Boy triumphantly. “You gotta burn a ring around it to stop it spreading. And that’s what I’m doing here with this beer. Fighting fire with fire…”

He sipped contently at it and then poured himself some more.

In the evening, I met Nong Oom. She had changed her fingernails and painted them bright red.

“Pi Ben, Pi Ben! Can you guess what happened to me today? I met a Swedish man on the skytrain. NARUK mark mark! (Slang for “very cute). Blue eyes, tall. I was sitting next to him so I dropped my ticket on the floor and he picked it up for me. Do you believe in destiny?! Well, I said “Thank you” and he said “Mai pen rai krup”. He can speak Thai! Much better than you, Pi Ben! He’s been living in Bangkok for a year. And he doesn’t have a girlfriend or kik and he’s not jow chew.”

“Nong Oom,” I said patiently. “EVERY farang man who’s not gay and lives in Bangkok is jow chew. And the ones that can speak Thai are five times more jow chew than the rest of them! How do you think he learnt to speak Thai, huh?”

“It doesn’t matter!” said Nong Oom happily. “Because I think he very rich for sure. He was wearing Diesel trainers and Rayban sunglasses.”

6 March

Today, I got up early and went to teach Nong Luke at Thong Lor. I spent a pleasant hour playing educational games with him and then he wanted to play NitroStreet Racing on my mobile phone. While he was battling it out with other illegal racers on a virtual Tokyo highway, I went downstairs to use the toilet. When I came out, his mother handed me six hundred baht.

“Thank you very much but I only taught one hour today,” I said.

She looked surprised and glanced at her watch.

“Oh, more than one and an half hour, Mr Ben!” she protested.

“No, just one hour. But Luke wanted to play a game on my mobile phone afterwards so I let him.”

And I tried to hand back two hundred baht.

She laughed at my honesty. “Oh ok no problem! You keep it! Thank you very much.”

One of my students told me yesterday that her sister in law had managed to find a new maid after the last one had walked out on her. I asked how much the new maid got.

“Five thousand a month,” said my student. “She will get one day off per month.”

“Five thousand,” I said. “That’s eighty pounds in English money! And only one day off per month! What time does she start work?”

“6am.”

“And what time does she finish?”

“About 6pm. It is a big house so lots to do.”

So a Thai maid gets the equivalent of twenty pounds a week for working 12 hour days, seven days a week. It can’t be a very pleasant job either. In the Thai soaps, maids always seem to get treated very badly by their rich employers. In real life, this is often the case too.

I remember, ten years ago, standing in a social security office in England and overhearing two men in front of me saying that it wasn’t worth working for less than two hundred pounds a week. I wonder what they would have thought if they’d been here….

9 March

I met Nong Oom at Pi Baby’s Cafe. She has changed her fingernails again. They are now black. Her face was flushed with triumph and excitement.

“Pi Ben! Pi Ben! Do you remember that Swedish man I met on the skytrain? Well, I met him today for lunch at Fuji. Very hi-so. Nong Oom eat lots and lots of Japanese food and cost over two thousand baht. Daniel he pay for everything! I told you he very rich na! I ask him if he has car Benz and he said yes! I think I am going to ask him for a salary. I have already told him that I am virgin…”

The Essex Boy glanced up from his table. His face was amused. “You a virgin?” he asked in Thai. He stabbed a finger at his broad chest “Nee pen virgin doi.”

Nong Oom laughed delightedly. “Oooh! You speak Thai! Narak mark mark! Which country are you from, please?”

“England,” said the Essex Boy.

“England? Why do you sound different from Pi Ben then? Pi Ben is from England.”

“Well,” said the Essex Boy modestly. “I’m from Essex so my accent is different from Ben’s. It’s like I’m from Isan and he’s from Bangkok, see?”

“I prefer American to England,” said Nong Oom politely. “I think American more narak and clever than England.”

The Essex Boy put down his beer and looked at her.

“Ever been to America?” he asked.

“No,” said Nong Oom. “Just Taiwan.”

“Well, I have,” said the Essex Boy in Thai. “Been to Texas, Kansas, worked in North Carolina, been to New York – dirty place, that was! Stayed in Boston, went to California, Washington, Virginia…seen a fair bit of the place. And you know what? Course you get nice Americans - but most of em are ignorant, up-their-own-arses fuckers. They think that, you know, the United States of America is this wonderful thing and everyone wants to be one of them. Well, guess what? They don’t!”

“Oh,” said Nong Oom. She looked at him for a while, her face serious. Then she turned to me and lowered her voice.

“Is he rich, Pi Ben?” she asked.

“Yes, very!” I said. “He has two Mercedes and three pairs of Diesel trainers back in England.”

Nong Oom’s mouth dropped open and her eyes opened wide. “Wow! Naruk mark mark! You cute!” she added.

“The Americans like to go on about their sport,” said the Essex Boy, warming to his theme. “But, I ask you, who plays American football outside the States? Whereas we invented soccer…and, I mean…” He waved a hand at his beer. “Everyone plays it. Who else plays baseball, ice hockey?”

“Mr Essex Boy,” said Nong Oom, respectfully. “Do you like to shoot a gun?”

“Do I like to shoot a gun?” The Essex Boy sipped thoughtfully at his beer. “Do I like to shoot a gun? Depends who I’m talking to…”

“I like to shoot a gun!” said Nong Oom eagerly. “Very fun! Would you like to shoot a gun with me sometime? Can I have your telephone number please? Then I can phone you when I next go to shoot.”

Mario the Italian came in. His face was glum.

“It’s no good,” he said. “I have to go out of this soi. The school holiday is driving me mad. There is nothing to do and my room is very hot. Nothing on TV, just four Thai channels. I don’t understand. And if I leave this soi then I know I must spend money… Trust me, you go out of this soi and puffff! Maybe one thousand baht just gone…”

He sat down heavily. “I mean, my room. It cost me three thousand baht a month. It’s cheap but small and just a bed. I want hot water so I say to them, “Can I have hot water?” And they say it will cost me two hundred a month. That is crazy! Too expensive. So I buy my own water heater for two thousand baht and pay them four hundred baht to install…I think it is better. Save money…”

Later this evening, Nong Oom called me.

“Mr Essex Boy is very naruk,” she said. “And he is 34 so he is old and must be very respectable. I don’t think he will try to have sex with me. He is my old uncle. I will take him to the disco and pub and he will take care of me. He thinks I am clever and smart girl because I am Korea style and I know about the people from different countries.”

“That Nong Oom is a bit of a nutcase, isn’t she?” said the Essex Boy to me when I went to eat dinner. “And she’s as thick as two short planks. But her ass is alright. Basically, the only thing you can do with a girl like that is bend her over and give her one…”

“My water heater is broken,” said Mario glumly. “And the people at my apartment will not fix it because they say it is my responsibility. They are just being childish because I buy it myself. So I have to take it to Bang Na. Very far. I have to spend two hundred baht on the taxi…it is terrible.”

10 March

Today is another day off. I woke up early and did my washing. It was a very hot morning and at about 10.30 it started to rain. I lunched at Pi Baby’s Café. Mario was there.

“I hate Thai TV,” he told me. “It is stupid, childish. Only four channels in my room. All Thai stations. It is too much.”

12 March

Today I taught Amy, my 8 year old student from Harrow. Her mother was delighted to see me.

“My husband has just come back from London,” she smiled and handed me a plate of biscuits. “From Marks and Spencers,” she said.

Amy waited until her mother had left the room and then beckoned me closer.

“I have something to tell you,” she said mysteriously.

“What?” I asked, rather predictably.

“Some of the pupils at Harrow in the sixth form are girlfriend and boyfriend!” she confided.

“Wow, really! That’s so naughty!” I said, feeling rather like Nong Oom. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Urgh! No way! Boys are so yucky. I like to have a girlfriend.”

After the class, I went to eat dinner at Pi Baby’s café. I met a Taiwanese-American from New York called Bruce.

“Do you live here?” I asked. “Or are you just on holiday?”

“No, I live here. We have a business here. We buy jeans and sell them on the internet to folks back home.”

“How is it?” I asked.

“Yeah, pretty good. Been here doing it for just over a year now. It’s pretty cool because you get to work from home but you gotta be self disciplined though. Where you from?”

“England.”

“Oh ok. Which part?”

“Cornwall. Do you know it?”

“Yeah, been there once. Pretty wild huh?”

He took a foil packet out of his pocket and tried to stuff it into his bag. He caught me looking and laughed a little guiltily.

“Chinese Viagra,” he explained and showed it to me. “It’s for a friend of mine!” he added quickly. “Just come back from a business trip to China and bought a load of the stuff.”

He thrust the packet at me. “Here, you want it?”

“Well,” I said. “I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to use Viagra. If I don’t feel like sex then I don’t have sex…”

He pushed it across the table to me.

“Here, still got a tablet left. It’s not magic. It won’t give you unlimited hard-ons but it, you know, really gets the job done. It’ll like give you one long helleva rocket that’ll impress her! It’s for, you know, when you wanna show a girl just how tough you are! Take it about an hour before cos it’s not instant.”

I put it in my pocket.

19 March

Today I taught at the school in Thong Lor. My “class” consisted of one girl. She was 23 years old, tall, white skinned and beautiful. Her spoken English was very good and her written English was very bad. Last time I’d taught her, she’d told me that she didn’t want to go to Australia because she was afraid of Europe. It was “too big”.

Today, we were learning simple past tense.

“What did you do yesterday?” I asked.

She fiddled with her pencil.

“What did I do yesterday?” she repeated.

“Yes,” I said pleasantly. “What did you do yesterday?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Erm, well. Because we are practicing the past tense.”

And I pointed to the examples in the open book in front of her.

“Oh. Yesterday I wake up and then I do something secret….”

Next was describing people.

“What does your mother look like?” I asked.

“What does my mother look like?” she repeated.

“Yes.” At least she was practicing repeating English. “What does your mother look like?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because…we are practicing describing people.”

And I pointed to the examples in the open book in front of her.

“Oh…I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

24 March

I have just come back from spending four days on Koh Samet with my family. It was a fantastic four days of sea, sun, sand and good food. Despite seven of us going, we didn’t argue once. We are all sunburnt and feel very good for it. No doubt my Thai students will be shocked though. “Mr Ben, you are so dark! Not nice na…like Isen boy na. You must to put on the whitening powder na…”

25 March

Today I got up early and went to teach at my student at Thong Lor. My class was at 10am and I arrived at 9.45. The weather was very hot so I got myself a cold drink and then sat and relaxed in the cool air-conditioned classroom.

10 o’clock came but still no student. There was no lesson to prepare as it was an English conversation class and there was already a book in front of me. This kind of work is probably the easiest in the world. I got out my mobile phone and tried out a new racing game that I had downloaded free off the internet.

10.15. Still no student. I went to reception to see if there was any news. There was nobody at the desk. I returned to my air conditioned classroom and continued with my game. I won two races and unlocked the next level which meant that I could now upgrade my Ford Mustang to a Lamborghini.

10.30. I returned to reception. Nong Sar was there. She smiled placidly at me as I approached.

“Any news of my student?” I asked.

“No, Mr Ben. I will ring her and find out where she is.”

She picked up the phone and dialed a number.

“Hello, Khun Sawataporn? This is Thong Lor Language School na. Are you coming to school today? No? Are you coming tomorrow? Ok, bye then.”

She put down the phone and smiled at me.

“She says that she got up late. She will be here tomorrow. Strange that she didn’t bother to let us know that she wasn’t coming. Thai people are lazy, no? Nevermind, Mr Ben. You will be paid for the full two hours anyway…”

I left the school smiling to myself. I had been paid 700 baht for spending 30 minutes playing a game on my mobile phone. Thailand can be a wonderfully relaxing place to work.

In the evening, Leila started talking about the good old days when we would argue all the time about everything.

“It’s all your fault!” she told me. “Before, you were jowchew…there was lots to argue about. I remember how when I went back to Pattani and you were with that girl…”

As the memories came flooding back, she became more and more angry. She started to shout, accuse me of all sorts of things. Finally, she threw her mobile phone across the room in a rage, punched the wardrobe door a few times (I have no idea what it had done to annoy her, being pretty sure that it had never gone off with another girl!) and then settled down.

“I’m tired now,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower and then I want to sleep. I’m going to get up at five tomorrow.”

26 March

Today I woke up at 7.30 to find Leila in a good mood, refreshed after the invigorating argument of last night.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked.

“Very,” I said. “Did you wake up at five o’clock?”

“Yes, of course. I always wake up at five.”

“Well, why didn’t you get up then?”

“Because I didn’t feel to get up. I felt lazy.”

With that, she jumped up and proceeded to wipe the floor. She then set up the ironing board and ironed all my clothes while I ate breakfast.

I watched her suspiciously as I sipped my tea. Such good behaviour was usually a prelude to one of her arguments.

She finished the last shirt, unplugged the iron and then turned to me with a satisfied air.

“You haven’t always been truthful to me,” she began and I held up a hand.

“Later,” I said. “I’m late for work and I have a full day ahead. Save it for tomorrow or the weekend.”

Her small dark face reddened with rage. “There!” she burst out. “There you go again! Always telling me that you have to go and work hard to support me while I stay here at home and do nothing! How do you think I feel, huh? You’re always trying to make me feel bad! Well, listen…”

“I have to go,” I said and drained the last of the tea from my cup. “I have to go and work hard so I will have enough money to feed you. It’s not easy, you know…”

“Have a good day,” she told me and kissed me goodbye. “Enjoy your class and don’t have sex with your students na.”

29 March

Today I went to teach at Thong Lor again. It was a fearfully hot day – over 40 degrees so I was glad when I reached my air conditioned classroom. I taught for an hour and then returned to Huay Kwang for lunch.

I went to Pi Baby’s café. Mario the Italian was there chatting to the Essex Boy, Mango and Pi Baby.

Mario was looking glum.

“I put the money in the washing machine,” he said. “And the washing machine, she don’t work but she take my money…”

“He kisses like a cow,” Mango was telling Pi Baby. “I don’t think he’ll make a good boyfriend…”

“Work,” the Essex Boy said. “I’ve always thought it was over rated…”

“Could I have Gang Kew Wan?” I said and sat down.

In the afternoon, I went to the motor show at Bang Na with my brother, my Harrow student and her family.

3 April

Today I taught my 8-year-old student at Thong Lor. He is obsessed with soldiers, guns and night vision binoculars. Today I brought him a present of two big maps, one of Thailand and the other of the world. He was delighted.

“For me?” he asked as he spread out the world on his table.

“Yes, for you,” I said.

His eyes lit up. “I know!” he said and rummaged in his box of toys. He dug out two plastic counters, one red and one yellow and a dice.

“Me red, you yellow,” he said and put the counters on the map. “Where is Canada?”

I showed him where Canada was. He put his red counter there.

“Me in Canada. Now you go to Melbourne,” he ordered. “Where is Melbourne?”

I showed him where it was and placed my yellow counter there. He nodded happily.

“Wait!” he said and went off to his bedroom. He came back carrying a large arsenal of plastic toy guns of various types and sizes. He dumped them on the floor and started sorting them out.

“Me this,” he said and started putting pistols into the pockets of his cargo pants. “You this.”

And he gave me a plastic M-16 rifle.

He threw the dice and then turned it so that it was showing six. He smiled happily.

“Six!” he exclaimed and moved his plastic counter rapidly north. “Now I in North Pole. You cannot see me. You come to Canada looking for me but cannot see me, ok?”

“Ok,” I agreed and picked up my rifle. He moved away from the table and surveyed the room.

“This Canada,” he said and pointed to the sofa. “Here North Pole, (a corner to the right of the sofa), cannot see me here. You here (he pointed to the table) here Melbourne.”

“Me,” (he crouched behind a chair in the North Pole) “Me here and you come to Canada looking for me but cannot see me. Then me ambush you,ok?”

“Ok,” I agreed and wandered over to Canada, my M-16 held loosely in my left hand. I looked closely at the sofa but could see no sign of its population.

“Hmmm,” I mused aloud. “Nobody home, eh? Seems like a nice kinda empty country for somebody with colonial aspirations like myself! I think I’ll take it…”

There was a sudden loud “Hey!” and I looked up to see a small ferocious looking boy bearing down on me from the North Pole. He held a gun in each hand and more weapons were protruding from his pockets.

I lifted my M-16 and sent a short burst his way but he gestured to his small chest and smiled triumphantly.

“Seur ying curn mai dai,” he said.

“Oh, you mean a bullet proof vest?” I said.

“Yes, bullet proof vest,” he repeated, frowning slightly with concentration as he practiced saying the unfamiliar word. “Bullet proof vest!”

It was obvious that I was outgunned and had inferior armour here. My student took swift command.

“Put your hands up!” he barked. “Put your weapon on the floor!”

I did as he requested.

“Now stand against the wall! Feet up against the wall too!”

His accent was perfect. I smiled contentedly to myself. Even the most hardened cynic would have had to admit that I had taught him well.

9 March.

I woke up late, feeling exhausted. Maybe it was the 15 lengths of the British Club swimming pool I had done last night, maybe it was my failed military conquest for Canada. War can be a tiring thing, whether it’s with your 8-year-old student or your 25 year old Thai girlfriend.

I went to have lunch at Pi Baby’s café and met Mario coming the other way. He looked bothered.

“It is much too hot,” he said gesturing at the sky. “And there is nowhere to go. Even my room is like an oven because I have no air conditioning. So I am going to the internet shop where it is nice and cool. But I cannot stay long because they charge you twenty baht an hour to use the computers…”

Mango was in Pi Baby’s. “I met a girl at the airport,” she said. “Only 19 years old. But can you believe? She’s saved up 27 million baht because she’s been working in Saudi Arabia as a prostitute. You can earn so much money out there. And she told me that she is still a virgin because Arabic men always like to do it up the bottom. Now it is very easy for her to kee – no need to wait or strain. It just comes out easily…”

11 April

Today was very hot again. This is the first time I have been in Thailand during the peak of the hot season. I met Mario at Pi Baby’s.

“This heat is driving me crazy! My room is like an oven because there is no air conditioning and I cannot leave the soi to go to a shopping centre because I know if I leave the soi then puff! One thousand baht is gone!”

15 March

Today is the third day of the Songkran Festival. Songkran is the Thai New Year. It is also the time when the whole country engages in free for all water fights. Originally, it was a gentle pouring of welcomingly cool water onto the hands of one’s elders as a blessing. It has now evolved in a big orgy of high powered water canons, drivebys from pickups loaded up with icy water and, for some strange reason, powder.

It is still very hot here in Bangkok. One cannot set a foot outside without getting soaked and powdered. I have to keep my mobile phone wrapped up in several plasic bags. The street urchins in the soi have been happily squirting water at each other and passerbys for three days. Silom Road has been closed and is a watery battleground. I met the Essex Boy in the soi. He was bedraggled and looked fed up.

“Fuck it,” he said. “A couple of hours of this is fun – but three whole fucking days and nights of water fights! I tell you, I’m getting pissed off of being covered in this powder shit. Trouble with the Thais is that they never know when to stop – and they don’t know when to start.”

16 March

My first day back at work today. I took along a change of clothes with me but, thankfully, the Songkran celebrations seem to be over.

I taught at Thong Lor. During the class, thunder crashed dramatically overhead and torrential rain started to fall.

“Thank god,” I thought. “Now the air ought to be a little cooler.”

I finished the class and then stepped out to the relatively cool and clean air on the street after the rain. But I knew it wouldn’t last long. Heat and dirt are never far away in Bangkok. I took a taxi to my next destination – my Harrow student Nong Amy.

I arrived at her house to find her mother watching Desperate Housewives on the huge screen television in the front room.

“Mr Ben, this program I like soooo very much!” she smiled. “Would you like hot coffee? I have new espresso machine. I will borrow this dvd to you after I have to finish watching. Or maybe I copy it for you. Something like that. I like the character Bree so much. She is perfect wife, perfect mother, always dress so nice and everything – I feel that she is just like me…”

19 April

Today I received a call from an unknown number. When I answered it, it was Nong Oom.

“Pi Ben, this my new number na,” she said. “I change it again. Pi Ben! I go to Pattaya for Songkran. Yes! Full of big farang with tattoo. Very hi-so mark mark! Now I have a tattoo on my shoulder. It is animal – just like Angelina Jolie. Hi-so na. Eminem…”

22 April

Today my brother Mark left for England. He seemed sad to leave.

“Is the weather nice in England?” he asked rather rhetorically. “No it isn’t! Are there lots of girls with fantastic bottoms coming at you all the time? No there aren’t! Is it cheap to eat out at nice restaurants? Noooo! Is it cold there now? Yesssss! Is it raining? Probably.”

We took him to the airport, had a Starbucks together and then left him there.

Today I received a call from an unknown number. When I answered it, it was Nong Oom.

“Pi Ben, this my new number na,” she said. “I change it again…Pi Ben, I have a little problem na. Do you think it ok to have two boyfriends same time? Because I want more money na. If I take new boyfriend and still keep old boyfriend then I have double salary na. Nong Oom have to buy make-up na. I don’t want buy cheap whitening cream. Buy hi-so better than na but very expensive. I very busy na because I not work and so always go see friends and kik. I think work waste of time because money sooooo bad! Crazy! Seven thousand baht one month! Have two boyfriends better na? I think so.”

23 April

This morning, I did my washing and then sorted out my mobile phone contract on the internet.

In the afternoon, I taught my Harrow student. During the lesson the sky grew dark and threatening. In fact, it was more than threatening – it looked rather violent. It was the kind of I’m-gonna-soak-you-to-the-skin-then-kill-you-with-lightning sky that you only get in the tropics. Thunder crashed, lightning flashed and then rain started to pour down. We sat by the window and laughed at it. Amy’s dog was terrified though. After the lesson, Amy’s mum came in.

“Mr Ben, do you hurry to return home?” she asked.

“Not really,” I said. It was too late to do anything now and, although the sky had vented most of its rage, it was still raining.

Amy’s mum looked pleased and produced a sheaf of papers.

“I want to buy a flat in London,” she said. “But I don’t understand which is better, Freehold or Leasehold. And there are so many other taxes, Band F? What is Band F? Council Tax – do you know Council Tax? And Ground Rent and Service Charge…”

She put the papers down on the table in front of me. “See here,” she pointed to the photo of a rather nice looking flat. “St. John’s Wood. Two bedrooms. Six hundred and ninety-five thousand pounds. Ground Rent – four hundred pounds per annum. Service Charge – three thousand, nine hundred and forty seven pounds per annum. Council Tax – one thousand, nine hundred and fifty three pounds per annum…”

“Well,” I said. “Ground Rent and Service Charge – I believe you have the same here in Thailand. I think you pay that to the landlord. As for Band F, that refers to the Council Tax band. You pay that to the local government.”

She looked bewildered. “But why? Why should we pay money to the local government? I thought they already paid high taxes in England. Why should we pay Council Tax as well?”

“Yes,” I said. “A good question. I guess the simple answer is if we don’t pay our Council Tax then they will put us in jail.”

“Oh,” said Amy’s mum. “Look here, West Hampstead. Three hundred thousand. Very cheap! And it is near the Underground and Sainsburys.”

“Yes, but West Hampstead is not as good as St. John’s Wood.”

She sighed.

“A few years ago, my partner in my Spanish restaurant wanted to sell his flat in Soho to me for 300,000. At the time I didn’t want to buy a place in London and I thought it was expensive. But now…! It is the same price as a Ferrari here in Thailand! A flat in Soho for the price of a Ferrari!”

25 April

Today I got up early to start teaching at 9am in Thong Lor. It was an English conversation class and my student decided to discuss her love life.

“I have a new kik,” she said.

If this had been England, I might have been shocked by a respectable professional telling me calmly that she had a new fuck buddy. But this was Thailand.

“That’s nice,” I said. “Have you known him long?”

“About two months,” she said. “My boyfriend has been acting a little strange recently. He doesn’t always answer the phone when I call him at night. So I got a new kik just in case. Then I won’t be too unhappy if my boyfriend leaves me. Insurance na.”

After the class, I went to have lunch at an Indian restaurant with Leila in Silom. When we walked in, we found my parents already dining there. After a fantastic meal which only cost 240 baht, we all went to the British Club. I played Dad at snooker and lost.

Leila and I went for a swim then we joined the parents for a cup of tea. It’s a pretty relaxed lifestyle being a freelance teacher in Thailand. After my tea, I went to teach my next class near Ramkhamhaeng for 5pm. As soon as I reached my student’s house, the heavens opened and rain started pelting down.

I spent a pleasant couple of hours drinking hot coffee and teaching while thunder crashed outside and the rain continued to bucket down. At 7 o’clock it was time to leave. I called a taxi.

I peered out of the window while I waited. It was dark now and the intensity of the downpour had actually increased rather than diminished. After ten minutes or so, my cab turned up. It was an old and rather decrepit Toyota with cracked black vinyl seats. I got in and we set off slowly. The roads were at least a foot underwater. I could hardly see out of the windscreen as the windscreen wipers were pretty hopeless in such heavy rain. The engine didn’t sound too happy either and kept spluttering and gasping. The air con worked alright though. I sat in the back and shivered.

After a while, the engine cut out. The taxi driver got out and waded through the flood in his flip-flops. He opened the bonnet and banged the engine a couple of times with a piece of wood. He got back into the car and turned the key. The engine started again and we drove off.

The water on the roads became deeper. It was plunking against the underneath of the car and sounded just like we were on a boat rather than in a Bangkok taxi. The engine started spluttering again. It was worse than before. It gave a final breathless gulp and then stopped. I’m no expert but it sounded like water had been sucked into the air intake and flooded the engine.

The taxi driver evidently thought so. He turned around to me with an apologetic shrug.

“Sorry, engine finished,” he said. “You have to get another taxi.”

I started rolling up my trousers. The water was at least a foot and a half deep outside.

“What will you do?” I asked.

“Wait for the flood water to go down,” he said. Up in the northeast of Thailand, people sit and watch the rice grow.

I gave him forty baht and put my phone into my plastic bag.

“Good luck,” I said helpfully and climbed out into the black swirling flood.

3 May

Yesterday I awoke to find that I couldn’t get up. My upper back, neck and right shoulder were stiff and hurt awfully. I guess I must have torn a muscle or put my back out.

After a while, I discovered that I could get out of bed by rolling slowly over to my left side and then painfully coming to my feet. I phoned a few friends for advice about my problem and was told to go to see an old blind Thai masseur who worked in Silom.

“It is one of your sen that is twisted,” they assured me. “He will fix it for you.”

Still in pain, I made my way slowly to Silom Road and went to see the blind man. He was totally blind, having had an accident with a gun at the age of 15 when a bullet went into the side of his head. He beckoned me to the bed and then ran his hands over my naked back.

“It is one of your sen that is twisted,” he told me. “I will fix it for you.”

For the next hour, he probed and pressed my back. At first, it seemed that he was simply testing my pain threshold but after a while I grew more and more relaxed as the pain melted away. At last I dropped off into a pleasant doze. I woke up to find that he had finished.

“It’s better now,” he told me. “But it cannot be 100% with just one session.”

I thanked him and left feeling much better. But my relief did not last long. After a while the pain came back and by evening I was hurting again. I tried to think positive.

“Nevermind,” I told myself. “Tomorrow I have a class with my student who is a physiotherapist. I can use this opportunity to make it a good lesson. She will put it right for me.”

Just then, my phone rang. It was my physiotherapist student.

“Pi Ben, I’m sorry but cannot make tomorrow,” she said. “Very busy at the hospital.”

At her words, the pain in my back seemed to increase one hundred fold. “Wait!” I wailed. “I have a problem with my back! I cannot sleep! You must help me!”

“Where does it hurt?” she asked. “Lower back or upper back?”

“Upper back. On my right side. It’s affecting my neck and right shoulder as well. I think I must have put something out. I went to the massage and it was better at first but now it’s worse than before.”

“Oh, you mustn’t go to the massage,” said my student as if I was obviously very silly. “You should put ice on it for the first 24 hours and then heat. Tonight sleep on your tummy for the first hour and then turn onto your left side and support your right arm with a pillow.”

“Thank you so much,” I said gratefully. I told Leila what my student had advised. She stamped her foot.

“See!” she exclaimed impatiently. “I TOLD you that you mustn’t go to the massage – but you wouldn’t listen to me! Now you must do as I say!”

She put some anti-pain cream on my back and I lay down on my stomach. After an hour, I turned over to my left side and supported my right arm with a pillow. When I woke up in the morning, I was perfectly fine again.

5 May

Today I went to lunch at Pi Baby’s café. It was very quiet there. I reflected suddenly that I hadn’t seen Brian, my lawyer student recently. I wondered if he was ok.

“Have you seen Brian recently?” I asked Pi Baby.

“Not today, I think he is working in his room. He and his friend Paul advertise themselves on the internet. It is good business. Yesterday, a government minister came to see them. He gave five thousand baht for two of them.”

I pondered this. Brian was a bright young man and worked for a prestigious international law firm in Silom. Why should he need to prostitute himself on the internet? A sudden thought struck me.

It wasn’t just Thai girls that I didn’t get….I didn’t get Thais full stop!

6 May

Today Leila and I flew to Chiang Rai, which is in the very north of Thailand, to stay with some friends. Their home was a heavenly place set on top a range of rolling hills. At night, we all sat outside and watched the fireflies flashing above the lake in the valley below. We sipped hot black coffee while listening to Madam Butterfly. There was no light pollution so the stars were like jewels in the darkened sky above. It was magical. Every now and then, one of them would streak earthwards and the girls would make a wish. What they wished for, they wouldn’t say.

9 May

The past few days have passed in a dreamlike blur. We went to bathe at hot mineral springs. We rode quadbikes over the hills. We went trekking in the valleys and met an old wandering hill tribe woman who seemed to have stepped straight out of a Tolkienish fairy tale.

The girls and Leila went to pick mushrooms. A poisonous bright green snake was spotted at the top of a tree outside the house. The cook brought it down with a long bamboo pole but it made off into the undergrowth before it could be captured.

There were parties where all the ladies dressed up in Northern Thai costume and we ate delicious Mediterranean food while haunting African music played in the background.

We met Neng, a 24-year-old Chiang Rai girl who, single handedly, ran a riding school. She was slim, white skinned and beautiful in a fragile kind of way. Her arms were covered in bruises.

I asked her if she had got the bruises from the horses.

“No,” she said. “I fell off the motorbike the other night after returning from a party.”

“Were you drunk?”

“No, not really. I never get drunk. It’s just that sometimes I can’t see the road…”

10 May.

This afternoon I returned to Bangkok. It was hot, dirty, noisy and crowded after the north. It made me smile.

I went to eat at Pi Baby’s café. I met Toru, the Japanese gigolo from Tokyo. He was with a smaller, younger, dyed blond youth who, I assumed, worked in the same stable.

“How’s business?” I enquired.

His face grew long. “They shut us down,” he said sadly. “The police shut us down.”

I was puzzled. This didn’t seem fair. After all, there were thousands of massage girls still working all over Bangkok. Why pick on the honest gigolos?

“It’s because we have to stay open so late. Many of our customers don’t arrive until 4.30.”

The small dyed blond youth nodded vigorously. “Four thirty!” he agreed.

“This is my friend, Takeo. He can’t speak English or Thai so he is learning Thai now.”

“Mai pen rai,” agreed Takeo and took a sip of water.

“The massage places for men close at 3am,” continued Toru. “So we have to stay open until much later so that the girls can come to us after work.”

I pondered this. It had never occurred to me that women prostitutes might go to spend their hard earned cash on male prostitutes after work. Surely, they should be tired of sex? I turned to Pi Baby for an explanation.

“It’s not the same,” she said wisely. “They’ve had a hard day pleasing others so afterwards they want to go and pay someone to have a hard time with them...”

“Life’s a funny thing,” said Toru with a sigh. “Sometimes it’s up and sometimes it’s down…”

His friend Takeo nodded in agreement. “Up and down!” he said and lit a cigarette.

30 May.

Today is my last day here in Bangkok. Tonight I am flying back to England to work and repair my bank balance. I am going to be responsible for running language courses for foreign students in various parts of England. It is a good job but life will be very different from here in Thailand.

I spent the day packing my suitcase and sorting out my stuff in my apartment. Some of the stuff I threw it away. I left what I could with a friend who lived nearby. My guitar was lent to one of my students.

At last there was nothing left in my apartment but the big bed, which belonged to the apartment and my sheets. Leila and I stood in the middle of the empty room and looked around.

“Let’s have sex on the bed for one last time and then we can throw away your sheets,” suggested Leila. “They’re really old and worn now. All this packing has made me horny.”

I reflected that it didn’t take much to make her horny. In fact, I found myself wondering if she ever was not horny. Arguing and sex seem to be the main preoccupations of southern Thai girls. But I was not in the mood to argue. Perhaps I was getting a bit southern myself.

“Ok,” I said.

Afterwards, we took a taxi to Silom and had lunch at the British Club with my parents.

My parents and Leila came to see me of at the airport. We took a taxi from Silom. The driver was obviously on some kind of amphetamines and drove like a maniac. He refused to listen to our pleas to slow down but muttered darkly to himself and he weaved in and out of the late night traffic.

Despite his driving, we arrived safely at the airport. We had a Starbucks together and then we said our goodbyes and they left.

I went through the boarding gates alone. It had been an eventful eight months in Thailand. As I took a seat, I thought back to the girls, the places, the students but what stuck most in my mind at the time was my meeting with my French friend Marc the day before.

“I have met a nice girl yesterday,” he told me with a sigh. “I asked to her: “What’s your name?” And she said, “Two thousand baht.” It is very strange. And then another girl…I know her for quite a long time. She seems very nice. She say to me that she want to see my apartment because she interested to search for a new one. I say no problem but when we open the door of my apartment, she say to me “Three thousand baht.”

He sighed again and poured himself another glass of red wine. “I think I will to go to Vietnam. Perhaps it is cheaper there…”

“Will all passengers, seat numbers 31 to 61, please board…”

I got up and made my way to the connecting tunnel to my plane. My troubles with Thai girls were over, at least until next time.

1 June

We touched down at seven o’clock on a sunny summer’s morning at Heathrow. Now I am back in England. It is warm, clean and green. The buses and lorries don’t belch out clouds of black smoke. It all seems very quiet and orderly after Bangkok.

I will have a couple of weeks off and then I shall start work. My job description is Course Director of an English language course. I shall be responsible for eighty odd French teenagers, seven French adult leaders and eight English tefl teachers.

There will be three organizations involved – my company, the French organization responsible for bringing the French teenagers over here and the school where all the fun and games are going to be held. I am supposed to make sure that all three get on well together, that English is being taught to an acceptable standard and that there are no unnecessary problems.

I just hope the French boys bring condoms with them.

15 June

My first course is based at a public school in Plymouth. It is a lovely campus, not far from the seafront with its historic harbour and the shops of the city center. The buildings are Victorian and built in the gothic style. My bedroom has high ceilings, big sash windows and a magnificent marble fireplace.

The French were supposed to arrive at 18.30 so one of the first things I did when I got to the school was to go to the canteen and make sure that there would a hot meal waiting for them.

The chef was a cheerful, plump man called Graham. He had spiky, dyed blond hair, a tattoo on his leg that said that he was made in Plymouth and a large diamond in his left ear.

“Alright, muh buddy? Arriving at six thirty, did you say? No problem, mate. No problem at all. Do you know if they’ve got any vegetarians or nut allergies among them?”

“I’ve haven’t been told of any,” I said. “But I’m vegetarian and I think some of them might be Algerian. If they’re Muslim then they won’t eat pork etc.”

“That’s no problem, mate. No problem at all. Ok, well today we’re doing gammon steak with Neapolitan potatoes. So I’ll cook you up some lovely Hawaiian rice and a couple of vegetarian scallops. Is that alright? And I’ll put out a couple extra just in case any of the rest are fussy.”

“Great,” I said. “Sounds lovely. Thanks a lot.”

I headed back to the boarding house to make sure that everything was in order. The caretaker, John, explained to me about fire alarms, cooper bolts, where the French were not allowed to go and where they were allowed to smoke.

Actually, the school had a strict no smoking policy on its campus but an exception had been made for the French. The school bursar didn’t want to lose any customers to other schools, apparently. Finally, John handed me a big bunch of keys and went off back to his office, which was where the canes used to be kept.

It was now 18.20. I went outside and waited for the coaches for thirty minutes or so. None appeared. It started to rain. I rang the transfer company. There was no answer and I couldn’t leave a message because the answering machine was full. I got my raincoat and stood under a large oak tree near the school entrance. Rain drummed steadily down. The wind picked up and began to blow rain under the tree. I shivered. It was hard to believe that it was the middle of June.

I thought of Thailand. It was the rainy season there now but that didn’t necessarily mean that it would be raining everyday like in England. It might go for weeks without rain. It would be hot, the seas would be turquoise…slim Thai girls would be strolling about looking for a likely male victim…Leila would be furious with me for looking at them…

The sound of a big diesel engine brought me out of my pleasant daydream and back to under my English oak tree. I looked up. A big coach was pulling into the school gates and trying not to scrape the stone gateposts. A big cheer went up as the occupants saw the school sign. People started shouting excitedly in French. My group had arrived.

The coach came slowly down the narrow, tree-lined drive. Eighty odd French teenagers stared down curiously at me as I directed the driver to stop outside the boarding house. The coach sank down on its air suspension with a loud hissing noise. The door swung open and I went around to greet the French as they came off the coach.

A large, plump man of about thirty came down the steps carrying a big bag. He was disheveled and unshaven and wore long shorts. I guessed he must be the Group Leader.

“Ben?” he asked and slung his bag onto his shoulder so that he could shake my hand. “I am Marc. How are you? It is a long journey.”

Next off was a buxom girl in her mid twenties. She had waist long, straggly blond hair and a slightly pinched though pretty face. She was dressed in baggy clothes and there was a generally unkempt look about her.

“Hello, I am Margot. How are you?”

She air kissed me on both cheeks and then glanced at the sky. “Is the weather always bad here in Plymouth?”

“No,” I lied. “The weather here in England is usually lovely. Just today it is bad. Tomorrow will be hot sunshine!”

She did not smile but shook her head.

“I do not think the teenagers will enjoy their stay here.”

The group unloaded their suitcases and took them into the boarding house. Then I led them to the canteen for their meal. Graham the chef was waiting for them with two other kitchen staff.

“Alright mate? Ben, you’re veggie, aren’t you? I’ve got you some Hawaiian rice with a couple of vegetarian scallops, alright?”

And he handed me a plate of plain rice with a few bits of tinned pineapple on top and a bit of fried cardboard on the side.

“Tomato ketchup is over there, mate,” he added helpfully.

I took my pineapple and fried cardboard and went to sit with Marc the Group Leader, Margot and another French leader called Pierre. The whole group was chattering nosily as they ate. Marc tucked into his steak.

“It is very well,” he told me approvingly. “The cooker is good and sympathetic, I think. I love this English food!”

Margot had managed to get a double portion and was chewing on it glumly.

“The English food is not nice,” she said. “There is not enough meat and there are no vegetables. The teenagers will not like it. I think there will be a problem…”

“Don’t worry, the food is always bad on the first day,” I said truthfully. “Tomorrow, it will get better,” I added untruthfully.

The next day, Graham greeted me beamingly.

“You alright mate? Right, what I’ve got you today is I’ve done you some lovely Cornish potatoes, cut into strips and then deep-fried in hot oil. Here you are, muh buddy... ”

He put down a plate of pale, unappetizing looking, frozen chips.

“There’s tomato ketchup over there if you want it,” he said.

26 July

At breakfast, Margot the French leader came over to my table and sat down. She leaned towards me.

“Romane, one of the students, has just been telling me about her nightmare last night,” she said and pushed back her long blonde hair. “It was really quite horrific. She said that she dreamt she woke up in her bedroom and she was all alone. So she ran through all the corridors searching for the other students but there was nobody.

“And then she came outside to the garden…and she saw all the students were hanging by their necks off the big oak tree in front of the house. They were all dead. And then she got a phone call from France telling her that she cannot return to France because they have started World War 3. Then she discovered that she had big white wings growing from her back. She flew up and, below her, all the earth was red with blood. She tell me that she doesn’t like to touch the ground. She is always happy when she is swimming or in a tree.”

Margot sipped at her coffee. “I think it’s really quite a disturbing dream. The images are very vivid. This coffee is not the same as French coffee, I think.”

Three of the English teachers were staying on site. Darren was the oldest. He was 35 and had driven across to the UK from Germany in an old Mercedes camper van. He usually lived with his German girlfriend and liked singing Johnny Cash on his guitar.

“I used to be a strict vegan,” he told me gravely. “But then I started to worry that my health was not good. So now I buy free range, organic chicken from Waitrose. It costs me over £20 so my conscience is clear. I think it must have had a happy and long life if it costs that much. I mean, I’m not rich and I don’t much money to spend but I think it’s for a good cause.”

Michelle was the senior tutor and was 29. She rarely worked except in the summer, took twenty minutes to do a five minute job and became stressed very easily. When she stressed, she faffed. When she faffed, she stressed. Then her hives on her face would break out and she would start scratching them.

“My god, I’m so busy!” she would exclaim in her soft Scottish accent. “Can you believe I have to write out twenty reports by the end of next week! And I have so much stuff to do…”

Martin was the youngest. He was 22 and still at university. He had red spiky hair, was painfully middle class and specialized in singing boy band songs on his guitar. He was very good and always really got into it when he sang.

“Love it, just love it,” he would say. “Westlife, Backstreet Boys…that’s my kinda thing! That’s my kinda thing? What do you like, Ben? What do you like? Same kinda stuff? Good man, good man…”

That evening, we had a bit of a get together in the staff kitchen. Darren and Martin got out their guitars and started strumming. Michelle produced a bottle of wine. She poured out a glass for everyone. There were not enough proper glasses to go around so she had to use plastic beakers as well.

Martin broke off from singing “My Love” sniffed appreciatively at his beaker of wine.

“This is French, isn’t it?” he said. “Tre bien, tre bien. Love it, just love it.”

“I can’t really drink red wine,” said Michelle. “Because I’m supposed to be doing this diet thing where I cut out all wheat and diary… I really shouldn’t be drinking this…”

“I like beetles,” said Darren dreamily as he strummed gently on his guitar. “Beetles are our friends…”

Margot the French leader came in. She glanced at the wine. Her thin pinched face brightened when she saw the label on the bottle.

“Ah! It is French wine…” she said. “It would be nice to have the nice glass after the terrible English food…”

And she sat down at the kitchen table.

“Have some!” said Michelle generously. “It’s very good. Although I really shouldn’t be drinking it but I mean I’ve been so stressed recently. And it can’t be bad to just relax for a bit sometimes?”

She poured out a beaker full and pushed it towards Margot.

Margot’s face fell at the sight of the beaker.

“I cannot take wine from a plastic cup….”

She reached over and swiftly swapped her beaker for Michelle’s glass. She took a sip and grimaced. “Hmmm. It is not French wine, I think. I think perhaps that the English supermarket has cheated you…”

1 September

And so the English summer continued. It rained and it rained. It turned out to be the worst summer on record. Perhaps Margot the French leader had put a curse on our weather in revenge for our English food. Who knows. One thing was for sure – there was very little in the way of global warming in our part of the world.

After Margot’s group had left, I had another couple of groups to look after. Then I worked in Somerset for a fortnight then east Devon and finally finished off at a public school in Hampshire.

The school had started off as a Georgian mansion belonging a famous beer family. It had been turned into a school in the early years of the last century. It was set in hundreds of acres of beautiful grounds. It cost over £25,000 to board there. The food was excellent. Margot would have been very disappointed.

4 September

I spoke to Leila today. She seemed very full of herself. “See, Ben. Now I am doubly positive and doubly beautiful! Do you know what, Ben? Unbelievable! Today a farang guy at the skytrain, he look at me and he say: “Wow! You so beautiful, girl!” And then he just fall down the stairs…”

5 September

Today I received a SMS from Leila.

“You had sex with a girl from your school,” she accused. “You are the man from Hell…”

I was surprised. As far as I knew, I hadn’t done anything of the sort. Did she somehow know something that I didn’t? I had obviously missed out on something. Should I have had sex with one of my work colleagues? I started mentally to go over the possible candidates. None of the women I had worked with over the summer had really been my type.

I guess, after a whole year of trying, I still just didn’t get Thai girls…

10 September

Today was a quiet day at my parents’ house. The weather was very cold for early September. When I was working in Hampshire, I had had pleasant fantasies of lazing about on a Cornish beach for a month, soaking up the sun and surfing the big waves off the green Atlantic. But the reality of English weather was quite different. I needed jumpers, not sun cream.

It seemed very strange after the last four months to have nothing to do. It was time to return to Bangkok, I decided. I went on the internet and booked my flight then searched for possible hotels to stay in when I got there. One place caught my eye.

Silom Village Inn is an oasis of tranquility and elegance in the heart of Bangkok, solely designed for our guest's comfort and safety in mind. Along with your serene nestling, you can be sure of warm and Thai traditional hospitality from our friendly staffs standing by at your disposal 24 hours a day to attend to your needs.

The idea of their friendly staff standing by my rubbish while I nestled serenely, appealed to me. I decided to book a room there.

It was time for Trouble with Thai Girls part two.