Travel Stories

Four hours of travel and customs queues to spend five hours in another country... it made sense at the time.

Four young working-class Englishmen arrive in Thailand or a holiday. Forced to confront the assault on the senses that is Bangkok and the tensions and rivalries that exist within their own group, a series of misunderstandings and comical mishaps inevitably occur. The first day of the holiday is narrated by Dean. This is the first of twelve chapters, with the different characters in the book taking it in turns to narrate.

Thank God It's Friday the 13th because Thursday almost killed me!

I am up before the sun this morning and watch the crew hoist anchor. We have spent the night in the leeward bay of a small, pristine island. At sunset yesterday two sea eagles called and played.

Mai phen rai! Mai phen rai! Mai phen rai! This is an idea, a philosophy if you will, that one must fix firmly in one's mind when embarking on bus travel in Thailand. You are going to need it.

It is the end of my long trip to Thailand. It seems like this time I saw more bugs than last time. And over the three months I have been here it seems like I have seen more and more each week. At first the vendors had two or three models to choose from, now the carts are piled high with six of seven. When I pass by the carts I walk quickly by without looking. This must be high bug season in Issan.

Lately, after spending the better part of a year here, I find myself looking back nostalgically on my first days in Thailand. That was the time before I discovered Nanaplaza.com, when LOS meant only Land of Smiles

Today showed how many interesting things can happen in Thailand, even when you aren't doing anything. The days had ticked off to 30 and it was time for me "fix my visa." Months ago I had booked six flights through the Thai Air "Amazing Thailand" package. One of them was to Narathiwat because I had wanted to see the extreme south of LOS. I would!

It all began with the idea of a one or two day escape from busy Bangkok. So, together with a friend of mine and our girlfriends, we left on a Sunday early in the morning. We already knew that the day we left was not the best day as it was two days before the Songkran holiday, but who cares; “Mai pen rai” as any Thai would say.

As I'm living here as a guest of this wonderful land, I still have to leave my beloved Thailand every ninety days even if it's only for five minutes. While living in Bangkok before, I took the night train to Padang Pasar to enter Malaysia for five minutes and then made my way back via Hat Yai. Now living in Naklua (Eastern Seaboard) I did, until now, what most people do here.

7.40 p.m. already! I quickly need a ticket for the underground train to reach my 8 p.m. date with Miss Puy on Silom. I don't want to be late one minute. And I'm sure she will be reliable too.

You know, Pook has that kind of old style Thai charme you don't see in many youngsters today: Polite, cheerful, caring, a certain rural elegance. And Pook is a dedicated look thung singer who can do wonderful Thai dancing as well. But then again, we also had a discussion about adverbs and adjectives in Thai versus English language, so she isn't all about rice field, som tam and Siriporn only.

Throughout Thailand Kanchanaburi is known for its strategic position between Thailand and Burma. And during the many wars between Thailand and Burma the Burmese used the valley of Kanchanaburi to enter Thailand and in the end they even destroyed Ayutthaya, the second old capital of Thailand.

One week later, something new is on her mind: "Maybe you think funny... :-) But i never have boyfriend... maybe now i like boyfriend... :-) I 27 now! :-) What your advice?"

Well actually three nights, but do you remember the song, "One night in Bangkok" from Murray Head? Well I do, it was in 1985 that I walked out of a Boeing 747 from Singapore Airlines and walked over the platform of Don Muang airport in Bangkok.