Youth Not Wasted

Monday 22nd February 2010, 2.30am, Bamboo Island Beach - Koh Phi Phi

'In our dreams, we are always young.'
- 'Having Our Say', Sarah Louise "Sadie" Delany

I feel like a small child in a perfect Peter Pan Neverland today. Indulging in the kind of activities that are somewhat vestiges of the young, chance opportunities and wonders that, when time is on your side, can be easily exploited. Daniel and I have escaped the lure of Phi Phi's mainland and have come on an overnight camping trip to Bamboo Island. A tiny floating subsidiary sitting 50 minutes by longboat from our former home, strewn with palm trees and thick internal jungle, wide soft sands and tickling waves, you can walk the perimeter of the whole island in half an hour... and there are only 8 of us here. Just when you think you can't top paradise eh?

We arrived here this afternoon with Don and Mark, our island guides, and Victoria and Deborah, our fellow campers, and have met Alex and his Thai friend whose name I can't spell, here - they are the island's only current staff and temporary inhabitants. We've been swinging in hammocks, lighting campfires, jungle walking on the look out for spiders, gorging ourselves on rice and barbecued shrimp, and then this evening, we had a spontaneously competitive game of 4-a-side football, using flaming wooden torches as goal posts. Running around sweating in the dark and the humidity in our swimming costumes, adhering to the rule that 'player should always be holding a drink in at least one hand', we ducked and dived and defended, we cut our feet on coral and crabs and violent tackles, we celebrated our victories with braying abandon, we wrestled each other for possession, we invented team names, we fell about laughing in a heap on the sand, and, most noteworthy of all - I scored a goal (and made a couple of deal-breaking crosses that Beckham would be proud of, actually).

After our hour long spurt of energy the most magical thing happened. An experience, that along with the rest of this blessed evening I shall remember always. So bear with me here, they're called, 'bioluminescent dinoflagellates', in case you want to google. In English, this is plankton, single celled algae rarely found in the sea that emit a startling blueish glow, a more commonly used term is phosphorescence, the process by which a substance emits energy it has absorbed, through light. These rarities, they are here, away from people and buildings and nightlights and city pollution, you can see them incredibly clearly, in these shores that now lap at my feet.

We ran gleefully like excited 10 year olds in to the water, holding each others' hands over the rocks, and then crashed down in to the shallows, snorkel masks stuck to our faces to witness this miracle of nature. It's like fairy dust. As you touch the coral or move your hands about in front of your face under the water, hundreds of these tiny organisms light up like sea-fallen stars, ultra violet and blinking, living shielded from most human eyes in this oceanic Milky Way. We sat in the sea in a tight circle, whispering as though frightened to scare them away, and watched the water below us glisten brighter than the jealous black and starry sky above us. See, I told, you, Never Never Land. Tired from sunsets, fires, sport and happiness, we have thrown a few wicker mats on the beach, and neglecting the tents around us have chosen to sleep out here in a cosy mass.

The quotation at the head of this blog is from Sadie Delany, a civil rights pioneer in America in the 1920's, but more importantly for this reference, a woman who at 100 years of age wrote an autobiography detailing the lives of her and her sister from 1889 to 1989, a century of recorded history through the eyes of two women's lives. And I thought of these aged sisters and this beautifully haunting quote this evening. If they could be young again, if they had full health and able bodies with a generous share of adventure and excited, youthful recklessness, surely this is what they would dream of. This is where they might want to come, these are things they might want to do. Don't let me waste my youth, let me run round like a child in Neverland for as long as time will allow. Let me always be sleeping amongst wonderful people, in the night air and the sand, surrounded from head to toe with stars of planet and plankton.


P.S. To my Mum, who will always be young, brave and beautiful to me... Happy Birthday. x

Holiday Routines

Thursday 18th February 2010, 6.15pm, Princess Spa Poolside - Koh Phi Phi

This is a disaster. You know what I'm going to say I suspect, I've said it before, it's happened again, quelle surprise Grace you are quite the predictable layabout. I am blowing out the itinerary (schminery), I have been here a week, and I have no plans to leave for a good few days yet - I'm the epitome of "backpacking" traitor. Ella, as normal, is being superbly well behaved and is following standard travelling law procedure, she left for Sumatra yesterday morning with our impossibly cute and scrumptious Australian friend Kirk. (Sorry Kirk, I know 'scrumptious' wouldn't be on your top ten desirable adjectives to be described as, but you truly, truly are). Daniel and I, on the other hand, are exceedingly bad influences on each other, and have completely relinquished our fates to the hypnotic hold that Phi Phi has over us.

To make matters worse, we have met Patrick. A hedge-funder from Mayfair, practised holidaymaker and traditional English gent with cash to splash on enjoying oneself. Do you know what the three of us have done today, do you?! We have paid to use a hotel's infinity pool on the beach, we spent 3 hours sat at the bar in the pool and got pissed on Bacardi Breezers! Appalling isn't it. Even more appalling is our justification method for this behaviour. Every time Daniel or I feels encroaching guilt about nonsense such as budgets or timetables, one of us sings Madonna's 'Holiday' at the other, and we instantly feel that somehow this makes it all acceptable, because we're on holiday with our friend Patrick, after all.

I have little of substantial interest to divulge about our activities over the past few days. I will however give you an overview of A Day in The Life of Grace and Daniel....

9am - Wake up. Decide it's far too early to be conscious, go back to sleep.
11am - Wake up again, feeling like this is a more appropriate hour of the day for "activity".
11.10am to 12pm - Potter about our bungalow, watch TV, faff about getting ready, look for things we swear we've lost or had stolen only to find them under last night's dirty clothes.
12.10pm - Go to restaurant in town. Eat lunch for which no appetite has been worked up.
12.55pm - Go to beach. On way to beach I may try and indulge in some shopping at market stalls but Daniel has very little patience for me trying on clothes and then attempting to elicit an opinion from him, and so I have a very low success rate. I shall leave him behind one of these days.
1pm to 6pm - Stay on beach, drink fruit shakes, work on our tans, swim in the sea, write in our journals, read our books, sing to each other (because neither has an ipod). Alternatively, go to pool, meet Bad Patrick, float around whilst drunk on alcopops saying deep and meaningful things about the ocean, or the colour of the sky.
6pm to 8pm - Siesta. Watch old films back at the bungalow. Spruce up, try on each other's t-shirts, take photos of each other in said ill-fitting t-shirts.
8.10pm - Dinner at different restaurant. Normally restaurant has been picked by Patrick, one which we as travellers probably can't afford but consentingly go to anyway. We know we can't afford it because it has a complimentary salad bar and proper wine glasses. I had beef fillet and a Mai Tai last night. Steak and cocktails I tell you!
9pm to 10.30pm - Head to Banana Bar or Tiger Bar for early evening cocktail buckets, drinking games, warm-up dancing, and Connect 4 Championship League.
10.35pm to 1am - Go to beach party at Apache or Ibiza Bars. Dance like no one's watching, drink vodka with Red Bull for crazy shapes ammunition and stamina.
1.05am to 5am - Head to cushions on beach outside Stones Bar. Once there, drink some more, eat Thai street food, watch fire shows, attempt fire limbo then think better of it when flames are licking your chin, talk about destiny, and the stars, and the problem with politicians today, and Buddhism.
5.05am to 5.30am - Remember where we live. Find where we live. Try to fight effects of Red Bull and go to sleep.
5.30am to 9am - Dream about doing much of the same tomorrow.

Isn't it disgusting. Gloriously, decadently, fantastically and thrillingly disgusting. Holidayeeeeee.....

The Beach

Monday 15th February 2010, 4.30pm, Maya Bay Beach - Koh Phi Phi

I'm laying on the sand, in the sand, am the sand - that's the only way to lie on a beach properly, you have to give in to temporary grainy intrusion and let the sand become one with you, to fight it is futile. There are mossy cliffs framing the beach on either side that jut out in to the water in a semi-circle, horse-shoeing the cove symmetrically so that I rather feel like I'm laying on the stage of a proscenium arch theatre; the sea my undulating and attentive audience, the sharp coral beds in the shallows my first-night critics. I'm considering myself somewhat of an expert on beach vistas nowadays, having frequented as many as I could manage through South East Asia. Let me tell you this fact fans - Maya Bay is Mother Nature's Mona Lisa. Her Sistine Chapel, her Water Lilies, her Sunflowers, her unduplicated finest hour and supreme work of art. 'I don't care how you get here, just get here if you can.'

Ella and Daniel have gone off to do boisterous, lively things like playing frisbee and exploring the forest and climbing rocks. None of these activities are of any even remote interest to me. As per, I am happy to be left in peace, sunshine and stillness with my imagination. And oh, what a thing of beauty it is that I imagine today.

Despite my Valentine's tirade yesterday, as I lie here today, I'm thinking about a boy. A boy in an ironically chosen pale blue Hawaiian shirt, and khaki cut-off shorts. A boy with fair yet afternoons outside sun-kissed skin. A boy who lets a cigarette droop confidently from his rose pink and blossoming cupid bow lips. A boy with eyes like marbles, and corn coloured straight hair that falls reverently across his smooth forehead. A boy who runs through jungles, who fights off sharks. A boy who has lain in this spot where I now dream about him from.

Oh Leonardo, I'm on your beach. Won't you come join me?

Valentine's Day Massacre

Valentine's Day, Sunday 14th February 2010, 11.55pm, Hillside Guest House - Koh Phi Phi

'No time to marry, no time to settle down, I'm a young woman, and I ain't done runnin' round.'

- 'Young Woman's Blues', Bessie Smith

Singledom has worked very well for me on the whole. Dare I say it (oh, go on then, get this...) these past 3 years (yes, 3!?!) of boyfriendless existence have been the happiest and most fulfilling years of my life. I could not have asked or wished in my wildest dreams for better friends, a more doting family. These people have had the full focus of my love, affection and attention, and these relationships have thereby strengthened, prospered and deepened beyond breakability due to my lack of distraction in any singular male form. I've had more fun than should be legal, I've had the licence of selfishness, I've had time on my hands, and with this time I've begun to realise what it is that I want and do not want from any lucky future partner of mine.

Three years ago you know, I wouldn't have been able to write the word 'lucky' there. I wouldn't have even considered it in jest. But other people have spoken this word for me now through my pen, people who for 3 years have loved and cherished me, just for being me, without the complications of romance and sex and game playing, they love me because I deserve to be loved, because they want to without having to. And really, besides the obvious character flaws I would not want and would avoid in a man, this is the only thing I would genuinely ask for.

On Valentine's Day last year I received no flowers, no card, no jewellery, no professions of love; but that was OK, because I didn't have any of these things to offer anyone myself. What I did receive was a text message from a man I'd been on one date with recently, reading, 'Happy Valentine's Day gorgeous Gracie, thinking of you x.' This was unexpected, but welcomed, and I texted the sender back politely proffering similar good wishes on this (dubious) Saint's Day. That evening I went out on Brick Lane dressed as Lady Gaga with my friend Vikki (Gwen Stefani), my stalwart singleton friend from school and all round good time gal. Needless to say, we had an absolute ball. The next day I sent an inconspicuous text to ask my Valentine's Day messager if he had had a nice evening. I never heard from him again. Not once, and I certainly didn't attempt to contact him any more.

At the time my friends and I were baffled by this behaviour. Why contact someone on Valentine's Day if you had no intention of ever even speaking to them again? We were also baffled as to why someone else I completely clicked with would take me out on a fantastic date, only to realise later he didn't want to see me again because he was still hurting from his break up with his ex-girlfriend. We were baffled again when someone else whom I dated frequently for a month, someone who seemed head over heels for me and promised me the world, introduced me to his best friends, sang my praises from the rooftops, would then go AWOL, completely ignoring any phone calls. We are baffled time and time again when my friends themselves experience promises and declarations and whispered sweet nothings, only to always be let down. If I had the time or the energy I could tell you upwards of 50 doomed relationship stories. Last summer when a friend's little sister was unceremoniously and horribly ditched by an ungrateful boyfriend, we summoned her to London and three of us older, wiser and more jaded young women spent all afternoon and 3 bottles of wine relaying story after story of concrete proof that men are useless. I know so many of them, folklore tales passed from female to single London female, testimonies of what they've been put through and reasons to remain unsexed, or turn lesbian.

I hate to say it, because I know it makes me sound like a bitter, twisted old spinster, but men are failing us. I firmly believe this. I constantly meet women who deserve better than the scoundrel they're stuck with or the waster they're left to date. Smart, funny, interesting, charismatic, good looking women, and all that's on offer is a sea of sex-hungry, commitment-phobic, scruffy men with too high opinions of themselves and no consideration of any mere female's feelings. Ask around fellas, you won't just hear it from me.* For example, I've come home early from the Valentine's Party festivities tonight. Having already had to place my arm firmly in front of my body to prevent 3 would be "suitors" from forcibly attaching themselves to my face, I got sick of the meat market and needed to escape, come home, and write mean things about men, because clearly I'm in one of those 'hand me the castration knife' kind of moods.

Gloria Steinem once famously said, 'Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry', and I think this is what I've unconsciously been doing these past 3 years. To recompense for the deficit in suitable bachelors with good intentions, I have been becoming more than I ever could be as part of a couple. Being single for this amount of time, you have to make yourself be more, woman and man, both sides of the same coin, a whole person plus extra, not a half looking for another half. You have no one else's name on Christmas card sign-offs to reiterate your sentiments, no one to back you up or fight your corner, you have to stand resolutely alone, 'Merry Christmas, Love Just Grace - and Just Grace is enough.'

Today we went to a beach party booze cruise affair in honour of Valentine. On arriving we were told to pick up either a red or green armband - red if you're attached, green if you're single, so that, hideously, members of the opposite sex know whether you're viable meat, fair game. This kind of felt like rubbing salt in the wound. 'Yes, thank you very much you smart arse party organiser, yes I have been single for 3 years because I'm completely unattractive to men the world over, go ahead and slap a fucking green one on me and let's tell everyone about it shall we?!' Don't worry, I didn't say it, I may have thought it though. I'm not as angry as I sound, quite the opposite in fact. More... disenchanted. I'm a young woman, with no time to settle down, and absolutely no intention of doing so at the moment whilst my life is fleeting from one place and one priceless experience to the next. But I won't always be young, and I won't always be moving, and surely St. Valentine, there will be a day when this big mess starts to feel easy? When someone loves me effortlessly as my friends and I do for each other, because they want to but don't have to. It doesn't feel like a lot to ask.


*To the men reading... Damage Control. I would like to stress that I am aware of the sweeping generalisations in this blog and I would like to account for this due to my own personal shoddy treatment by men over the past 3 years, and indeed, this evening. I feel some Crazy Female Ranting licence should be provided me in this instance. I have many dear, wonderful male friends who would make any woman a very lucky girlfriend and I am not, in contrary to the tone of this blog, an ardent feminist or militant man-hater. I know many men who are model boyfriends and husbands and who are implicitly respectful and considerate of women. It's just, you see, none of these ones ever chat me up.

Warm Welcomes and Jelly Brains

Saturday 13th February 2010, 10am, Golden View Guest House - Koh Phi Phi

I'm on Koh Phi Phi. Internationally recognised paradise and King of Kings of beach utopias in Thailand, and well, the world over. Additionally, I'm writing this from a hammock, swinging in tree-strung greenery - it's proving difficult and my handwriting is barely legible, but hey, we all have our cross to bear.

Earlier on in the week whilst still surrounded by the mayhem of Bangkok, I discovered that this would be my wonderful Ella's next stop. If this wasn't reason enough to visit, my very charming and ridiculously handsome Swedish friend Daniel, whom I met in Sihanoukville at Christmas, messaged me to say he would be here, and why didn't I sort my life out and come to this idyllic island to see them both as soon as possible? Well. I'm easily persuaded, and on the scale of hard decisions I've had to make throughout my lifetime, this one featured at a pretty low deliberation level.

I arrived on the boat from Phuket yesterday afternoon to be greeted by these two much missed, unfairly photogenic faces. (Incidentally - Phuket: spent one day milling about waiting for my boat and concluded that yes, one day was quite enough. On the plus side, you'll love it if you're an ageing sex tourist with money to burn on women with gonorrhea). I'd instructed Daniel that I expected some sort of banner and fanfare welcome when I made my grand entrance on the pier, and I did get a banner of sorts. A piece of A5 paper, the back of an old receipt I think, scrawled lovingly by Ella on the back with the words 'Gracie Poo Face', stuck to Daniel's forehead with heat induced sweat. They had also bought me an ice lolly, which I promptly stuffed down my cleavage in an effort to stave off the 35 degrees heat. Well, I'm a sucker for a heartfelt gesture, and I fell in to Ella's arms like we'd been separated for 2 years, rather than 2 or so weeks.

They've been sussing out the lay of the land for the past few days while I've been city living with Mod, and yesterday afternoon they took me to the beach for sunset, fed me barbecued corn on the cob, and then instructed me to scrub up for a night on the tiles. The two angel faces are still sleeping off said night on said tiles whilst I write this. I'd like to say it's because I'm made of stronger stuff that I'm now awake and they're still deep in the land of nod, but I know that really it's because they've been practising for my arrival for the past couple of evenings by conducting a dedicated and comprehensive study of Phi Phi's bars. It's also probably because they're both at the grand old age of 25 whilst I am a sprightly 23, and that quarter of a century milestone will limit one's ability to hack the pace somewhat.

I'm writing this now as a premonitionary forewarning blog readers, knowing myself and my island living habits too well these days, I can tell you that being on the beach will do three things to me. These are as follows:

1. I will get lazier, quickly, and will imagine that simple tasks such as collecting my sarong because I left it in the bungalow/finding my camera in my bag/going all the way to the bar to order my next drink, are heinously difficult, near on impossible challenges which the universe burdens me with because of it's loathing of my efforts to relax.
2. I will get brown. Very, very, very brown. Thanks go to Ray Gillman, Father and benefactor of impossibly and inexplicably olive skin tone for one so thoroughly East London bred.
3. The one that may affect your reading pleasure over the next week... I get stupider. That's right, "stupider". There's no better word for it, real or invented.

There's something about white sand, aquamarine sea and Shepherd's Delight pink candy sunsets that completely addles my brain. I go numb, I lose clarity, forming cohesive sentences becomes a struggle. Last night I nearly had a row with a street vendor who had the audacity to try and sell me four 40Baht beers for 160Baht. I was convinced it should have totalled 120Baht! Ella had to step in. So accept my apologies now, next blog from this absolutely incredible island heaven may very well read: beach nice, (grunt), well hot, errr...cocktail?

The Giving Of Gifts

Thursday 11th February 2010, 3.30pm, Couch - Lounge - Apartment - Bangkok

The last time I was here in Bangkok I stayed for a night at a friend's condo in the city. Bear with me while I explain the link... my darling friend Hannah has an older brother, Daniel. Daniel is married to a gorgeous, funny, intelligent Thai woman named Mod, and it is Dan and Mod's apartment (well, specifically, their sofa), from where I now pen this blog. Friends with siblings with luxury Bangok apartments really are the best sort of friends I think. Much to Hannah's surprise it was I, not Dan or Mod, who answered the house phone when she rang earlier today, this was the first time in ages that we've been able to talk and it was such a wonderful treat to hear such a close friend's voice. Probably less of a treat for her given that I casually mentioned how I had taken her sweetheart of an innocent sister-in-law to an infamous Ping Pong show last night, I considered it a cultural flaw that Mod had never witnessed one, and I was curious. Corrupting her family in her absence - that's what friends are for. If you want details of said Ping Pong show you shall have to e-mail me I'm afraid, I have my limits about what I can comfortably vocalise in public.

I rang Mod on Wednesday morning to let her know I was in town. The last time I was here, after, ooh, a week of travelling, I managed to leave my ever so fabulous and frighteningly garish neon Nike hi-tops in the guest room, so Mod has been faithfully guarding them for me from the teeth of Benji - her aesthetically challenged, rat-resembling Chihuahua. It's alright, I'm allowed to talk about him this way, Mod says that he is 'too ugly to be alive'. This morning we spent about an hour dressing him up in the various costumes she has bought for him, taking photos and laughing about how equally grotesque and lovable he is - my particular favourite was the bumblebee costume, it has wings and antennae, just the right amount of ridiculous. He got his own back though; whilst I was reclaiming my trainers Benji was searching through my bag for a new object of desire. He is now the proud owner of my pink bikini top, which I surrendered to his clutches after walking in on him making love to it.

When she knew I was here wanting a night out with her as well as the recuperation of my 80's dream shoes, Mod, in a typically gracious and welcoming Thai fashion, demanded that I leave my hotel immediately and come and stay with her for the rest of the time that I'm here. Oh OK Mod, I think I can drag myself away from my windowless, expensive cell and come and live with you for free in 19th floor, rooftop garden, indoor swimming pool, leather sofa luxury. If I must. Dan is away on business in Malaysia and Mod has been in and out running errands for friends and family (so Thai), so I've been given my own key, instructed to come and go as I please, and have been swanning about like I own the place.

This was particularly in evidence yesterday when I had some friends round. Yes, that's right, I entertained guests at the condo. I'm a cheeky cow aren't I, but Mod, on learning I had 3 friends from Chiang Mai in Bangkok, insisted that I invite them over for early evening drinks. Monty, Cheryl and Claire joined me yesterday morning in town, and after some obligatory oohing and aahing tourist appreciation noises made at the Grand Palace, I told them I knew of a view they couldn't afford to miss, gave them the condo address, and ordered them in to a cab. The view from the rooftop garden on the 22nd floor of the condo was, back in early December on the King's birthday, one which reduced me to drunk, grateful tears. The real pleasures in life though, as I was intensely aware of last night, are the chances to share these experiences with others.

The first time I stepped out there and saw the metropolis of Bangkok; the river, the long boats, the palace, the fireworks, the skyscrapers, the temples, the markets and the parties, all spread out beneath me, I honestly believed that nothing would ever be able to top this view. I was wrong, being able to give it to someone else made it so much better. Watching my own remembered amazement in their eyes on stepping out in to that garden reinvigorated my awe for it, and gave me in turn an overwhelmingly warm feeling that I'd gone some way in contributing to the enjoyment of this, the last night of their 3 week Thailand holiday. It's true what they say you know, there's so much more joy in giving than receiving. Unless of course this is the giving of a perfectly nice bikini, to a randy little dog.

Save Yourself

Tuesday 9th February 2010, 2.15am, D&D Inn - Bangkok

'And all the roads we have to walk are winding,
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding.'

- 'Wonderwall', Oasis

'That's why God needs us. He loves to feel things through our hands.'
- 'Eat Pray Love', Elizabeth Gilbert

For the first time since being away I have returned to somewhere I've already been before. At 5am on Monday morning, after no sleep on a cramped 9 hour bus journey with a French guy lolling and snoring on my shoulder, a sore tattoo, a heavy bag (why is it heavier every time I pick it up?! I've not even been shopping... much), dripping with sweat from the sudden slap in the face of Southern humidity, I strolled down the Koh Saon Road to begin the arduous and too familiar early morning hunt for accommodation. I'm back in Bangkok.

It was hard being back here today, I think I expected it to feel like some long-awaited homecoming, a reunion with my first Asian citadel, the prodigal daughter makes triumphant and brave solo voyage back to the motherland. What I really felt though, was vulnerable, and lonely. The last time I was here I had friends around me to share the experience with, today, without the reflection of my joy mirrored in their faces, my one pair of tired eyes put everything into blunter focus. Bangkok is an incredible city, one I would urge everyone to visit in their lifetime, I say wholeheartedly and with complete conviction that I could quite happily live and work here for a while. What I was blinkered to before, or maybe what I was just too excited to spend any time noticing, is that underneath the raucous glitzy surface, this is a city of many vices, of underground ugliness.

It's probably easier to see this when at 6am, having still found no place to sleep after an hour of being told that there's no room at the inn, you wander into an overpriced, sub-standard hotel to find the pinched face, pouty little receptionist caterwauling at an American couple checking out that she doesn't care if they think they've been conned into extra charges because they're not at home now, they're in Thailand, and what are they 'gonna fucking do about it?'. Clearly she hasn't graduated from charm school just yet, or indeed any form of customer service training. The angry receptionist, her of too much lip liner and not enough manners, seemed thankfully to like me more than the unfortunately harassed Americans, and so I was spared a verbal bashing, but by this stage I already felt bashed around enough.

Lager louts, mascara-smeared drunk girls, con artists, taxi drivers with dodgy meters, drug pushers, pimps, ladyboys, prostitutes, rent boys, thieves, addicts, tramps, beggars, gangsters, fat, white men over the age of 50 looking for cheap thrills and sex, by the hour, with a price tag. I wish I could tell you that I'm exaggerating, that in the space of one hour in the early morning you can't see every one of these things unashamedly on display on the streets here, that one of my favourite cities in the world isn't so miserably failing to hide the colossal pile of smut and sin that pollutes it. There it is though, that's the truth of it, nightfall in Bangkok brings darkness that permeates deeper than that left by the mere setting of the sun.

Feeling in need of sanctuary, yearning for some comfort and solitude, I retreated this evening to a courtyard restaurant garden mercifully shielded from the monstrosities of the main streets, and a place I have been to before, with my friends. I also retreated to the safety of a good book, my lifelong foolproof method of escapism. For 4 hours I sat reading Elizabeth Gilbert's incredibly beautiful 'Eat Pray Love', devouring it from cover to cover and so thankful for the abundance of human goodness it breathed back in to my life when I so desperately wanted some restorative thoughts. The first third of the book is entirely dedicated to stories of how she began the healing process after a messy divorce by moving to Rome and gorging herself on pasta and pizza for 4 months solid - what a woman.

Just as I was about to pick up my pen to start writing a blog dedicated to Ms Gilbert and her moving literary testament of humanity and redemption, a fellow lone traveller sat at the next table asked if she could join me for a drink. I'm going to change her name, just because I'm about to tell you something which she told me which deserves protection of confidence. In May of last year, Julia was at a housewarming party for her best friend Rachel (who is also not really 'Rachel'). Rachel had just moved out of her family home, bought this flat, and was celebrating this new beginning in her life with her nearest and dearest. Julia told me that lots of the people at the party were frequent cocaine users, and this occasion was no exception. Rachel in particular had a practiced coke habit and set about enjoying herself. Everyone stayed over at the flat that night, probably too drunk or high to make it home.

In the morning, Rachel's pregnant sister rolled over in the bed they were sharing to find her younger sibling stiff and cold. Rachel had choked on her own vomit and died in the night, in a room full of her friends in their early twenties, who had to wake that morning and realise no amount of screaming or shoving was going to rouse this 21 year old girl with the new flat, with her whole life ahead of her. The family blamed the friends; of course their darling baby daughter wasn't a drug addict, it must be these girls who brought it to the party, who didn't hear her dieing while they were sleeping next to her. Julia herself was subjected to numerous abusive and threatening phone calls, had blame firmly placed on her already guilt-laden shoulders, and was banned from attending her best friend's funeral. Rachel's family hired police to keep all her friends away from the church and the cemetery.

Julia obviously wanted someone to talk to about this. Within 10 minutes of sitting at my table I innocently asked her why she had come travelling. Only 15 minutes later , after a mojito, an emotional book, a hard day, and her story about Rachel's tragic death, we were both sat weeping. She is here because she needed to leave her sorrow and her guilt behind her, because she wouldn't allow it to destroy her, and because a week after Rachel's death when all her other friends who had been there that hellish morning went on a big night out with the white powder and snorted through their grief, Julia looked at them, and realised she couldn't go back to that, she owed Rachel more.

So now she's doing something she never dreamt of before, removing herself by half a world's distance from this catastrophic event, determined to use it as a lesson and positive force in her own life rather than trap herself in the memory of the aftermath of that party, leaving herself in that brand new flat, abandoning herself to a dangerous and disgusting drug. Just as she had finished talking, Oasis' 'Wonderwall' began to drift out of the speakers. 'Now if anything can cheer us up', I said, 'it's a song written by a genius, performed by masters of their craft, sung with conviction.' (Oasis 'til I die). 'Yeah', she answered, 'this is kind of apt. I never got this song before and I couldn't understand it because of his weird English accent.' Julia is Canadian so we will forgive her for this blasphemous travesty against a Gallagher brother. She went on, 'He's talking about how the path to happiness is hard though isn't he? Like, the roads are windy or something. Damn windy road that brought me here sister.'

I was sadly reminded today of what an awful world this can be sometimes. How there is so much wrong with us, so much wrong with the planet, more tragedy and destruction, corruption and grief than we should be able to cope with as mere mammals. But we do cope. Sure, there's plenty of reasons to be depressed, many excuses to wave the white flag, curl up under the duvet and refuse to ever again leave the mattress or the foetal position. What the world does give us though, is ways of surviving it, tools of defence, means of slowly but surely saving ourselves. Eating plate after plate of Italian food with no thought as to the calorie contents, prayer, even when you're not sure anyone is listening, a book that touches your heart, a garden courtyard. A trip abroad to places you never needed a year ago, a new friend, someone who has to talk and someone who wants to listen, hearing another person say 'this was not your fault', and forgiving yourself. Strangers consoling strangers, feeling things through each other's hands, because sometimes, God just seems so far away.

Sticking Chicken

Sunday 7th February 2010, 6pm, Panda Tours Travel Agency - Chiang Mai

It's funny how when you talk to other people who've been travelling for a little while you find commonalities in new vocabulary terms that in any other context would require further explanation. There are a few select phrases out here which fellow backpackers instantly recognise, 'same same, but different', 'Koh Samui rash', 'best price for you', 'you want boom boom?', 'M150 shakes', and the one that has been relevant to my situation for the past few days, 'I've got stuck'.

You arrive at a new destination, make a list of all the things you hope to do there, figure that it will take you 3 days, you are already mindful of where you will be going next, and then, oh, would you look at that, it's 6 days later, I'm still here, and there's 4 things on the list I haven't done. How did this happen? I got stuck. So if I were to write the Oxford English Dictionary's Volume on Travelling, my definition of 'getting stuck' would go something like this:

The process by which a traveller becomes tired of the constant packing and unpacking of their backpack and on arriving in a new destination where they feel comfortable and relaxed, starts to behave as though they live permanently in this place and forgets that they have things to do and other places to go. Common symptoms and ways to identify one who has got stuck: spends more than a normal amount of time reading in cafes, local people know their name, has astounding knowledge of street names, tuk tuk drivers don't succeed in ripping them off, can recommend where in town serves best pancakes.

I've got stuck in Chiang Mai. I've always felt at home in cities, I guess this is an inevitable consequence of having grown up in and around London. People and traffic and noise and pavement smother me and envelop me in their activity, I become lost in the crowd and then walk with the crowd. I read a passage in a book recently which was describing the process of adding a new chicken to an established coop. If you place the chicken in the hen house during the day then the other birds will feel threatened and territorial, putting the new bird in danger. The solution is to slip the sleeping hen in to the roost at night, when they all wake up in the morning the other chickens presume the new bird has always been there, and the new recruit also has no memory of ever having been anywhere else. I feel like this is what has happened to me in Chiang Mai. As though I snuck in under the cover of darkness and come sunrise neither I nor anyone else realised that I haven't always been a member of the flock. Since my clandestine invasion I have been pecking and clucking and flapping away like the silly little chicken that I am, carried along with the easy motion of this city.

I've stepped in and put a stop to this behaviour though. I reminded myself; Grace, you are not actually a chicken, continuing to compare yourself to one is neither helpful nor conducive to the prospect of moving on, you're travelling, so travel. With the autonomous thought and proactive decisive powers that only the smartest of hens possess I have finally booked an overnight bus to Bangkok, which I shall be catching in half an hour. December was the acclimatisation period, steady, measured - just enough places and journeys for practice. January was a sprint, hectic, jam-packed, a time to get in to the swing of the travelling lifestyle. February I think is shaping up to be a month of easy meandering, a holiday within this holiday, few places, long stays, soaking up the last few weeks of this stage of the trip in the best spots for mindless chicken living.

There's no rush anymore, no urgency, no need to see and do everything, no fear of missing out. Why? Simple. I will be coming back. This is nowhere near the end for me and South East Asia, I have the rest of my life to explore it. I'm at peace here, at ease, pleased to be alive; I've found a coop where I woke up feeling at home, and I'm stuck.

Ink Stained, Perspective Changed

Sunday 7th February 2010, 11am, Wawee Coffee - Chiang Mai

Let me take you back to tigers. Picture in your mind's eye, if you would, a painting of a tiger. An adult female, black, amber and white striped, a serene and agile figure, still, graceful and poised, standing on a rock, peering thoughtfully in to dark and swirling waters of a river over which she is perched. She is majestically captured in, as William Blake would attest, fearful symmetry, vividly bright next to the misty pool beneath her. It sounds like a bewitching portrait doesn't it? Now - if you would - imagine this image, maybe 6 by 4 inches, on the right hand side of my lower back. For this is where it now resides in permanency, tattooed on the canvas of my skin.

I realise that opinions are widely divided on the subject of tattoos, and this is why I asked you initially to consider my new one for what it is first and foremost - a piece of art. I spent 3 hours in the parlour opposite my guest house yesterday afternoon, laying stretched out on the folding bed, flicking through the TV programmes as a means of distraction from the burning and biting digs of the needles. The first hour was little trouble to me, especially seeing as Annie Hall was on the film channel. The second hour was tiresome, I was growing testy at the aching, bored with television, and harder to distract. The third hour was endured by deep breathing, running though Spanish verb patterns in my head as a way of occupying my mind, and mainly due to my relatively high resistance and tolerance for pain. Because yes, after 2 and a bit hours, even a stoic old soldier such as myself really wanted it to be over.

I've wanted another tattoo from the day I got my first one, it's true I guess that it could become an addictive pastime. From the moment my swallow was engraved on my left hip, I loved him. I instantly felt like he was part of me, I still love him now and cannot imagine a time when he was not there, I'd feel less of myself without him. Despite my hankering for another, I'm not one of those people who strolls into a studio on a whim, picks a generic, aesthetically pleasing butterfly from the catalogue and has it branded on my arm for all eternity. My swallow was hand-drawn by the tattoo artist after strict instructions from me and numerous draft attempts, and the same goes for my tigress and her riverside environment. I knew specifically what it should look like, I have been thinking about it for a few months, and I sat with the tattoo artist, Phatty (this is clearly a pseudonym on account of his beer fuelled paunch), for an hour the day before, talking through everything I wanted the tattoo to be. It is also carefully and strategically positioned in a place where if I never want it to be seen, it never has to be.

Now, the day after and a few coats of Bepanthen later, it is beginning the healing process and so doesn't yet look like the final form it will take in a week's time. Regardless of the aching, the redness, the slight swelling, I already, as with my swallow before her, am completely attached to my tiger. With little or no contest from the rest of me that I dissect and criticise and abhor with the zeal of a self-conscious 15 year old girl, this corner of my back is now the unrivalled favourite part of my body. Not to say I didn't have doubts though. I was an hour late for my appointment with Phatty, because for 90 minutes after waking I lay sprawled on my bed running it over and over in my head. When I finally took myself across the street I still didn't know what I was going to do, but then, on taking a look at the finished design in his sketchbook, I immediately hoisted up my t-shirt and asked him to ink me up please.

What I wanted to tell you about though, the reason my new body paint has become it's own blog subject, is the reasons for my hour and a half of doubting. Every time I almost talked myself out of it, it was through fear of what other people would think of me, and nothing to do with what I actually wanted for myself! People, some people, see tattoos as a mark of the lower classes, a branding of the uneducated and unsightly scars divulging tastelessness, cheapness, tacky commonality. What will these people think of me? My Mum and Dad share these opinions, they were unhappy but mercifully accepting and non-communicative about the arrival of Mr Swallow, but Ms Tiger is bigger, and marks a commitment to body art that one small, inconspicuous tattoo experiment did not translate. I hate to disappoint them, and of course care very much what they think of me, I want them to be able to love the body they created with it's new additions as much as they did the day it was born ink-free. The mind they encouraged and cultivated has chosen to express itself on the skin they made and shaped, I hope they appreciate this.

My friends, will of course, on the whole, tell me they like it. But what if when my ears are elsewhere they confidingly share their mutual loathing of it, each too considerate in their keeping it from me? What if people I now meet cast unfair judgements about me on catching a glimpse of it, before even speaking a word to me? Now the most honest and pathetically embarrassing confession of doubt which overwhelmingly featured in those 90 minutes, (because I always promised I would be honest here, even when it traps me in unflattering and vulnerable headlights). What if I begin a relationship somewhere down the line, and fall in love with this person, and what if they decide that they can't see me as a continuing fixture in their life because of their disgust at this picture on my skin? What if there is a time of my life in the future where I lose a shot at something good because some stupid, near-sighted man decides that he doesn't like tattoos, and so doesn't like me? Tragic, Grace, real tragic.

When I was in there, needle working away on my back, and when I looked at myself in the mirror on it's completion, all of these doubts were assuaged. I am not tacky, I am not common, I am not uneducated, it doesn't change who I am, I am entitled to make my own decisions about my body, and I hope I have qualities someone could be drawn to, if they had to be, in spite of my tattoos. Plus, I realised, pulling myself together, I wouldn't date anyone so narrow-minded and pompous to dump me because of a tattoo anyway; thankfully I have higher aspirations for myself and any prospective love interests than this pettiness. It has occurred to me that I waste an awful lot of time worrying about what other people think of me, and I know, with simultaneous comfort and dejection, that I'm not alone in this. For a good part of my 23 years I have said and done things in efforts to please others. It is a telling illustration of my desire for approval, that even now, in defence of my choices, I feel the need to justify my own body to whoever you are that may read this.

But you know what? This tiger pleases ME. I think she is beautiful, and I will be forever glad to have her with me. Because of those fretful 90 minutes of uncertainty when I was still without her, she now represents for me even more than she could have before. She will be a reminder, and a lesson, that sometimes, despite our regard and consideration of others, we have to do things that make us happy, grab it where you can and stand firmly rooted in your own volition. In the end, truth outs, and no one will thank you for being anything less than yourself. This is me, this is my prerogative, this is my tiger... and you can take us or leave us.

Monk Chat

Thursday 4th February 2010, 10pm, Rathwiki Street Bar - Chiang Mai

Apparently after my redeeming morning at Wat Xieng Thong in Luang Prabang, I'm a bit of a temple nut-job these days. Chiang Mai boasts a population of nearly 300 of these structures and today I have made a dip in the ocean dent in this number by visiting 4 of them. Even a newly appreciative Lanna architecture fan such as myself has to draw the line somewhere, and this line, this battle line actually, was drawn at Wat Chedi Luang, temple numero cuatro.

Chedi Luang was always on my hit list. Reading up on the town when I first arrived I was thrilled to learn that this temple hosts daily 'Monk Chat'; a portion of each day where visitors can sit in the garden and talk to the monks who live there about their lives and about Buddhism. Well, I thought, I like chatting, I like monks (they have so far been amiable and full of surprises - one I met at Angkor Wat asked if he could add me on facebook), and I know next to nothing about Buddhism, why this is the ideal afternoon activity for me! So I took myself along. I sat with Champa, a monk who has been living in the temple for 14 of his 23 years, and who is due to graduate from his degree, and from monkhood, this July. The conversation was vast and varied and in avoidance of being dull I couldn't possibly go into everything we discussed here. I will tell you what he told me about Buddhism.

The principle, ignoring the intricate and peculiar eccentricities of it, is very simple. Live the best life you can, be good to others, be generous and forgiving and peaceful, never think about tomorrow for it is only today that matters, rid yourself of greed, hatred and desire. Essentially - make love not war. All of this I can happily get to grips with, but then I asked him about the afterlife, about the prospects of heaven and hell. There is no hell, Champa told me, there is re-birth, and there is no heaven, there is enlightenment. During one lifetime we can accumulate positive or negative karma, karma being the reaction to our actions. If you lead a wholesome existence then you earn merits and in your next life will be reborn in to a more fortuitous future. If you are unwholesome then your soul, after death, will find itself lamentably in a lesser being, such as a mosquito, or a tree (and don't even ask me how a tree is meant to lead a wholesome life, we never got to the bottom of this. Be a welcoming home for nesting birds perhaps, don't drop fruit on people's heads?). You will only ever reach enlightenment, the emptiness of Nirvana and the freedom of the soul, when you have lived the perfect, blameless life.

At a fundamental level I acknowledge the ethical equation of this, it's fairer than the world we live in because it decrees that eventually, bad deeds will get their comeuppance. Where did this battle line spring up then? Inquisitively, and expecting a slightly more convoluted answer than the one I received, I asked Champa then if this meant he believed that poor people, or say, the disabled, did something in a previous life they can't remember which would warrant this punishment? "Yes" he said, "they have built up bad karma". And this is the point where my burgeoning love affair with Buddhism abruptly ended. Yes, the morals are admirable, but not exclusive to Buddha and his disciples - Christianity, Hinduism, Islam at it's grassroots - all centre around the concept of Goodness, of loving thy neighbour. But I'm afraid I am light years away from being converted to a religion that believes people living in poverty, the sick, the destitute, the depressed and even the disabled, did something to deserve it.

Sensing my growing distrust and indignation, my monk changed the course of our chat. Unfortunately for him, he didn't do himself or the widening gaps in his religious argument any favours. He began to talk about his excitement at leaving the monastery this summer, of becoming a tour operator in Vang Vieng - overseeing the sin-pit that is the tubing industry, of his wish to have a girlfriend, his hope to taste beer for the first time and to know how it feels to be drunk. Oh hypocrisy, how I love to argue with thee. I nonchalantly pointed out that all these things he mentioned were laden with greed, desire, of looking forward to tomorrow when he'd previously said we should only live in today (although I guess not thinking about the next day is how you end up living in a temple for over a decade, he just never made plans to leave).

Yes, I yielded, all these things he wants to try are part of my life, joys and sins of the flesh which I embrace. But I'm not a monk, nor do I preach to being anything other than fun-loving and flawed. I also added that I didn't think it was healthy for him to not allow himself these pleasures - he is after all, just a human being like the rest of us, and in my mind, entitled to desire and fulfilment if it is at no one else's expense. He shrugged guiltily, and could only acquiesce that he guessed he had many more lives to live before he emulates his Buddha and achieves enlightenment. Well then, I retorted, he best ensure he's not too ill-behaved when he's released on Vang Vieng, he wouldn't want to end up in a disabled body next time he returns after all. My irony didnt quite leap the culture divide I think.

I suggested to Champa just before leaving him that Christianity and Buddhism have many similarities - the focus is on leading a moral existence, Jesus was a perfect man, Buddha was a man who in his 500th life as an Indian Prince achieved perfection, both have firm ideas about punishment and reward. He looked at me like I'd said something offensively sacrilegious and his only contribution to this argument was "No. We are not the same." Indeed we are not, my confused, naive little monk, and thank my God for that.

Tiger Tiger, Burning Sight

Thursday 4th February 2010, 9.10am, Bunny Cafe - Chiang Mai

I made a startling discovery yesterday morning, one that if I had not been here in Chiang Mai, and if I had not indulged in some typical tourist behaviour, I never would have unearthed. If you are allergic to cats, you will also be allergic to tigers. This seems like a stupid thing to say doesn't it, both being of the feline family, a sensible person might expect it. It's just that I wonder if anyone has conclusively proved this before? Tigers do not sit on any day to day frame of reference, they do not feature in conjunction with our health concerns, no one ever said 'Well I'm afraid I can't go to Northern Thailand, they have tigers there and those things bring me out in a terrible rash'. I'm confident enough in my own curious assumptions to say that no, nothing has previously been written on tiger related allergies.

My historical experience of cat induced discomfort has been varied, chequered and frustratingly hit-and-miss. A lot of cats have no affect on me whatsoever - I spent a period of time in my teens undertaking work experience at a Veterinary clinic (this was before I realised that I didn't understand science and so abdicated from my dreams of James Herriot country veterinary practice and stuck to subjects I was good at - namely ones requiring erudite vocabulary rather than any actual knowledge) and none of the cats there, many long-haired and matted, bothered my sinuses at all. On the other end of the scale there was the horrendous evening when round a friend's house, happily cosied up on the sofa with her feline companion, Maisy I think her name was - the cat, not the friend - I began to suffer intense irritation and swelling in my eyes. It is no exaggeration to say that on examining myself in the bathroom mirror I found that I bore uncanny resemblance to Quasimodo, as though someone had carelessly placed a tennis ball under my right eyelid; it was so bad I thought that my eyeball was going to give up and fall out under the strain of it. Terrifying. I spent two days dosed up on antihistamines, hidden in the self-imposed darkness and solitude of my bedroom, much like the sheltered Notre Dame hunchback, and sat cursing that damned animal, waiting for my face to realign itself to normal proportions.

Thankfully most of my cat encounters sit somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, closer to the former story. Generally, if I spend time in their company I sneeze a few times, if they scratch me it itches, and occasionally my eyes sting a bit (probably in alarmed remembrance of the day when I nearly lost one of them). Tigers, it seem, have exactly the same affect on me. How do I know this? Well, because I spent a pretty wonderful morning yesterday at Tiger Kingdom sanctuary just outside of town, where for a small fee you can lie cuddled up with them, draped on their backs, wrapped in their paws, kissing their noses, and revelling in the magical nature of the experience. All the tigers there have been bred in captivity and exposed to human contact from birth, making them largely as tame as pussy cats and utterly nonplussed about the people fawning all over them.

Whilst sat hugging a 200lb daddy tiger, the beast, named 'Spicy Sausage', rolled himself over on to his back so that his middle section was positioned heavily across my lap.
"He wants you to rub his belly", the keeper informed me.
"Are you sure?" I asked hesitantly. "Shouldn't I just stay still and pretend I'm not here?"
"No, that's why he's moved like that, he loves it."
"But it's a tiger. I thought belly-rubbing was exclusively a preserve of dogs. And dogs are smaller, much smaller."
"He's bothered to move himself now, he'll get anxious if you don't do it."
Anxious? Making the tiger anything other than blissfully content was the last thing I wanted, and so going against my better judgement, I obediently stretched myself across his huge, soft stomach and tickled away. Sure enough, the keeper was right, and I made another tiger-centred discovery: they can purr. Spicy Sausage was demonstrably grateful for the attention, for when I laid down next to him a moment later he placed a weighty and ominous paw across my shoulder and growled his thanks. "Oh, he likes you" the keeper offered. Yes, I thought, either that or he's had his cake and is about to eat it. Me being the cake.

Evidently though, from my ability to type, I was not savagely attacked or mauled. It was an amazing morning, and laying around dozily snuggled up with tiger cubs will be a memory I hold dear for many, many years to come. My involuntarily and aggravating sneezing fit 10 minutes after I left the sanctuary was a fair price to pay I think, being more surprised at my tiger allergy revelation than I could be annoyed. Who knew?!

Here Come The Girls

Tuesday 2nd February 2010, 2.40pm, Art Cafe - Chiang Mai

You may or may not recall from my last entry that I mentioned the presence of a Tesco Metro here in Chiang Mai. I understand that this may not have inspired quite the same level of excitement in you as it did in me - you no doubt get to see Tesco Metros all the time you lucky devil, but for moi, it was a huge novelty. It's blue and white sign welcomingly out of place so far from home. Just now though, about 35 minutes ago to be precise, I saw a different and equally incongruous blue and white sign that sent me completely balmy with delight (I'm not entirely sure about this but I think I may also have done a mini jig in the street). I have found... a Boots. A BOOTS!!!!

In an attempt to dislodge the hangover monster I awoke this morning to discover jumping up and down on my stomach and smacking me round the face, I've taken myself on a walking tour of the city today, map in hand and following my newly acquired but already fully fledged Trusty Sense Of Direction. I've been exploring the streets and alleyways of the town beyond the city walls, stopping off at various temples and bookshops and caffeine establishments on my way. Innocently rounding the corner on a busy road I was halted in my tracks by the presence of this Boots here, this cosmetics and toiletries wonder emporium that has generously unveiled itself to me at a time when I was beginning to get really fed up of sub-standard lotions and potions.

The last shampoo I bought for example (and I only know it's possibly shampoo because there is a picture of a girl with glossy hair on the front) smells like honeydew melon, and this smell makes me feel queasy - why didn't they put a picture of that nausea causing fruit on the front?! I'd run out of a few unnecessary but indulgent little goodies I brought with me and so have been living on the breadline of bathroom existence, washing as men do - perfunctorily, for hygiene and habit, and not as women do - languorously, for pleasure of products and pampering.

Needless to say I skipped around that Boots for half an hour, looking I imagine not dissimilar to a child sucking a lollipop, holding a puppy, at the beginning of the 6 week summer break, on holiday at Disneyland. If you had been an unsuspecting midday browser in Boots of Chiang Mai for these 30 minutes, as many other customers were, you would have heard my Essex twang squeakily echoing over the aisles, unable as I was to keep from chattering away to myself in the elation of it all. Such exclamations I believe I voiced out loud were 'What is a Jojoba anyway?', and 'Oh my days, I'll die if they've got dry shampoo... THEY'VE GOT DRY SHAMPOO!', and 'I'd forgotten Soap and Glory even existed, it's like I've been living under a rock', and '(Loud sniff) Mmmm, the coconut and banana one is so much better than the coconut or the banana on it's own', and to some poor German people, 'Can you believe they have like 50 different types of Conditioner here and they all do different things? It's like Christmas!'. They smiled and nodded politely, and then all glanced nervously at each other with looks that said, 'let's just back out of here slowly and get away before her tablets wear off and she hurts us.'

Basically I went mad. I can't tell you how much I spent because it's embarrassing, the girl serving at the till looked like she wanted to reassure me that Boots isn't going into liquidation and that she's not aware of any current national toiletries shortage crisis. What I will say though is that I'm bound to look positively glowing and smell like a fruit bowl from my fringe to my toenails when I go out tonight. For the first time in ages, getting ready will be a real joy, and that's definitely worth the silly price tag and a few terrified Germans.

Reasons I Like It Here Already

Tuesday 2nd February 2010, 2.35am, Happy Guest House, Chiang Mai - Thailand

- Communicating with French boys in bars via the means of Connect 4 and Jenga - universal world languages.
- Having successfully located my own position and navigated myself around a new city by map (the most satisfying feeling in the world).
- Major franchise coffee shops on every corner.
- My bathroom is on my balcony. So I can look out over the rooftops of Chiang Mai whilst brushing my teeth.
- Being the only under 40 year old and the only female in Pinte Blues Bar, which plays exclusively, you guessed it, hardcore traditional Blues, and is decorated with portraits and names - that thanks to my wonderful harmonica playing Dad - I grew up with: Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Bessie Smith, John Mayall. A great education for a parent to give a child.
- The shiny bright tattoo parlour opposite where I live. Oh no... it's calling meeeee.
- There is a Tesco Metro here. A TESCO METRO.
- Thai currency again! The easiest monetary conversion rate in South East Asia, 50 Baht = 1 quid = lemon squeezy.
- The clothes shops which sell exclusively cotton sack type things that make me look like I've been travelling for 20 years, which is incidentally the style I'm plumping for these days.
- Cafe Del Sol street bar where the staff let me pick the music and then sing along in to beer bottle microphones with me.
- The best stocked bookshop I have seen on my travels, and one with impeccable taste. They have all my favourites - Carol Shields, Will Self, Lionel Shriver, Irvine Welsh, Elizabeth Kostova, Sebastian Faulks, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Paulo Coelho; and the chick-lit shelves are where they belong - in a dark corner.
- The sign on a garage door at the corner of my street which reads 'Please do not piss here.'
- Unexpected sunshine. Everyone said Northern Thailand would be cold. It's 30 degrees. Everyone was wrong.
- Hippies, with long hair, and oversized pupils, and Bob Marley t-shirts, everywhere.
- The buxom and matronly owner of my guest house coming to my room at 1.40am with a plate of steamed rice and garlic chicken because I'd casually mentioned when stumbling through the front door 10 minutes before that I'd forgotten to eat tonight.
- The Writer's Bar where local journalists, authors and poets get together to drink beer and discuss their work. As yet undecided if I'm pretentious enough to go along and sit in the corner (but I probably am).
- The fact that Northern Thais pronounce my name 'Great'.
- That I was brave enough to set off on a pub crawl on my own tonight and that I ended it drunk, having spent 4 quid, and with the names and phone numbers of 6 new drinking buddies in my pocket.
- A distinct lack of Australians.

Things are looking good for me and Chiang Mai. Blow of leaving Luang Prabang: successfully softened.

A New Personal Hero

Monday 1st February 2010, 1.40pm, Somewhere over Northern Laos.

The last time I was on a plane - leaving London in November - I managed to disgrace myself by laughing too loudly and animatedly at Bruno, the film I watched on the journey. I'm on a plane again now, flying back in to Thailand to secure a 30 day Visa. If I'd crossed the border by land as I had hoped then for some unknown administration bureaucracy bullshit reason I would only have been granted 15 days, and I'm not sure how many I'll need yet.

This time my choice of in-flight entertainment and tool for disgracing myself once more is the book that I'm reading: Down Under, by Bill Bryson. Bryson, if you've not already been acquainted with his work, is a travel writer. He visits various destinations around the globe (obviously Australia in this case), potters about a bit, takes in some tourist attractions and sight-seeing opportunities, walks around until he gets lost, spends more than a civilised amount of time in bars testing the beer, and then writes it all down. It sounds like pretty bog-standard reporting doesn't it, but it's anything but. He is unfailingly, in every situation no matter how mundane, the most witty, observant and downright hilarious writer I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Cackling away at 20,000 ft again I have had two fellow passengers ask what I'm reading due to my inability to stifle laughter. I have urged them, as I urge you now, to read something by this fantastic man - because that is what travel writing should be.

He has that enviable and not often found quality that all great writers possess - when you reluctantly put the book down you are left wishing you knew the author. What I would like more than anything is for Bill Bryson to be my friend, for us to go travelling together and write about our adventures, to spend time in his magnanimous and unassuming company and have him continue making me laugh. Throughout the course of reading this book I have found a new and very deserving personal hero. As I offer my amateur snippets of writing from the road for your perusal, Bryson and his books are truly something for me to aspire to. Big dreams, small means, I know... but we all need someone that makes us want to be better than we are.

Child's Play

Sunday 31st January 2010, 9pm, Baravin Bar - Luang Prabang

I'm finishing in Luang Prabang how I started. Outside a bar with a glass of Merlot, able to eat again (I sat on the wooden canteen benches of the food night market and shared barbecued fresh fish and stir fried vegetables with some Scandinavian backpackers), and utterly lost in adoration of this incredible place. I'm going to be very gushy now, but I listen to a lot of this when friends and family fall in love with accepted objects of affection - boyfriends, girlfriends, babies. I have none of these right now, I have places, and in the two months since I've been away I have not fallen more deeply for anywhere than I have Luang Prabang. Everything that appeals to me about Asia is here, everything I wanted from travelling it has given me, everything I fear has been vanquished, everything I knew I have forgotten - all that is left is my desire to walk these streets for days and days to come. Suspecting that I would fall hard for this town I exacted some damage control on Friday and booked my travel out of here for tomorrow morning. If I hadn't preempted my reluctance to move on I would, without doubt, not have the willpower to leave tomorrow.

Yesterday morning and this afternoon have been particularly special, and both due to the children of Luang Prabang. I roused myself at 8am on Saturday, still drowsy and weak through lack of sustenance other than carbonated drinks, but determined to make my 9 o' clock appointment with Big Brother Mouse (http://www.bigbrothermouse.com/). A charity and publishing project that develops books and distributes them to children in rural villages, Big Brother Mouse is slowly but steadily changing the way local families and children feel about education and reading. Last year alone 30,000 children received the first book they'd ever been given as a result of this scheme and the centre in town holds daily morning classes to improve the literacy skills of it's younger generation. I'd read about the project on a poster in town and decided to offer my services as a volunteer for the morning, they're always keen to get English speakers in to help, and hey, I did a Theatre degree, I love an audience.

So for a couple of hours I sat with local children, going through their school exercise books with them, correcting spellings and punctuation, and demonstrating handwriting and reading. I read everything passed to me by the teaching instructor - charity pamphlets, restaurant menus, the story of Buddha's upbringing, television instruction manuals - they just wanted to hear me read aloud to aid their understanding and pronunciation of the English language. This disconcerted me slightly as the whole time I was reading I kept imagining a future generation of Laos people who speak with Essex accents, pronouncing 'whale' as 'wow', 'thumb' as 'fumm', 'out' as 'aaht'; but I persisted gallantly, mustering the closest thing to the Queen's English as my sloppy Southerner's tongue would allow. If in 10 years time Luang Prabang sounds like the set of Eastenders, I swear it ain't me faul' guv, I proper did me bestest innit.

Children are a huge weakness of mine, if not one of my greatest loves. In fact, not just small children, but anyone visibly younger than me (which helped considerably in my previous job where my life consisted of zoo-keeping angry teenagers). A friend very well versed in astrology and matters of star-crossed destiny tells me that this is because under the star sign I was born, on the precise year and day I was born, and even owing to the actual time of my birth, the planets were aligned to produce someone more maternal than the cosmos had yet to create. She even outlined a historical star chart which I didn't understand to prove this to me. I have no idea if the galaxy has had any bearing on this aspect of my character, but I can say with absolute certainty that yes, despite my complete lack of broodiness and hankering to bear offspring of my own, I do melt at small faces and the opportunity to mother them. And oh, what faces these were! Laos people have shown themselves to be open, kind, affectionate and accommodating, Laos children are all of this plus heart-wrenchingly gorgeous.

This enriching experience at Big Brother Mouse led me to this afternoon's activity, desperate as I was to spend more time with Luang Prabang's younger inhabitants. When I walked along the Nam Khan River a couple of days ago I spied with glee a group of children playing and swimming in the water. The game involved throwing themselves in to the mercy of the current, splashing downstream back to the town at one end of the river, paddling to the bank, and then running back upstream to throw themselves in once more and begin the whole marvellous process again. I was very jealous of their fun, but no other foreigners or indeed anyone over the age of 12 seemed to be partaking, so I stayed a reserved and envious onlooker. I had a change of heart today though. Before I came away I suffered a series of uncomfortable and expensive injections, so to hell with it I thought! I'll get my money's worth from all this probably unnecessary immunisation and weeks of dead arms, and take on the possible toxicity of the river, that's what I paid good dollar for dammit - to risk my health in unknown water! The cold dip was also tempting due to the fact that I'd just climbed up and down the 400 steps to Phu Si temple, a view well worth the exertion but nevertheless, perspiration inducing.

So I clambered down yet more steps to the bank, crossed the bamboo bridge, and tentatively approached my small subjects of amusement who were running about in their underwear throwing mud at each other and chasing frogs. If you can imagine for a moment the surprise and bewilderment on the faces of the Aborigines when Captain James Cook moored up on the coast of Australia in 1770 with his pale-skinned crew, then I think you will more or less have in mind the expression on the faces of these Laos children as I approached their waterside territory. Unlike the 18th century English fleet however, I meant these natives no harm. To show them this I plonked down my bag, skirt and flip flops, ran in to the river waving my arms about my head in the best carefree 7 year old style I could imitate, submerged myself under the clear, clean water, and then beckoned them to come in. Kids aren't silly, they know who they can trust, and before you could say 'I'm too old for this', 20 children were yelping with excitement, waving their arms about their heads and sprinting in to the water to join me. What a relief, I would have looked pretty insane doing it on my own.

The next 3 hours were absolute bliss. For that's how long I have spent with them there today; floating along in the current, catching tadpoles, skimming stones, hand-building sandcastles, playing hopscotch, drying off in the sun and sharing Oreo cookies (I'm not silly either - I took bribes in case things didn't go my way). I don't mind telling you that when I said goodbye I was quite tearful, knowing what a rare and precious experience this was and that I, or anyone else, is unlikely ever to duplicate it. When I left the river there was a small crowd of tourists who had gathered on the road where I had been an onlooker the other day, it seems my playtime with the local children attracted quite the congregation. Some smiled warmly at me as I squelched past, others looked at me like I was a carrier of the Crazy Disease. No skin off my nose though. I have been left feeling happy and mellow from the pit of my stomach to the tips of my pruney fingers. Children have this effect, and not just on me I think.

They're the best versions of humanity we're ever going to see. They think everything is funny, they don't care what they look like when they're dancing, they are honest because they haven't learnt to lie yet, they believe in fairies, the worst thing that ever happened to them was when they fell over and grazed their knee which they can't clearly remember anyway because someone picked them up and gave them a cookie. If you spend long enough in their company without the presence of other adults they make you feel like a child again yourself - they teach you how to play and take enjoyment from simple pleasures that age steals from us. They are Goodness personified - they love you even when you don't deserve it, cry when they think they've upset you, forgive and forget quickly, and hug you every time like it's the last time. I do not understand people who say they don't like children, in my mind you may as well be saying that you don't like light or oxygen or happiness; because what a dark, choking, sad world it would be without them.

It's been a remarkable 4 days. I am very regretful to be leaving Luang Prabang tomorrow, but so indescribably grateful all the same for the youthfulness and untouchable joy it's places, it's treasures, it's children, have placed in my heart.