IF THIS IS BREAKFAST TIME, IT MUST BE BANGKOK!
It was our friend Tony, the house agent, who put the idea into
my head. We were all approaching retirement - though not fast enough for my
liking - and the conversation turned to plans for the future.
'What we should do,' mused Tony, 'is realise the value we've got locked up in
our houses, not by selling but by letting. Just think, if you let your house
for a year and went to live in a gîte in France, you could save a lot
of money.'
Well, that was it. I didn't particularly want to live in France for a year -
much as I like the country - but I did want to go much further afield. We had
missed out on the hippy trails of the sixties, too busy building careers and
raising a family, but we had always said - 'One day ...'
So there we were, sitting in Heathrow airport on a January morning with all
our worldly goods in a couple of bags and only the vaguest idea where we were
going to lay our heads that night, or any night for the next six months. We
held an airline ticket, purchased with the proceeds from the sale of my car,
which gave the bald outline of the journey ahead. London to Bangkok that day,
then six weeks later Singapore to Christchurch, New Zealand. After another five
weeks we would fly from Auckland to Brisbane and five weeks later still from
Sydney to Bali. From there we would make our way along the length of Java and
eventually, at the beginning of July, fly from Jakarta back to London. How we
were going to accomplish the overland sections of the journey we had no idea.
We had a couple of 'shoestring' guide books, our YHA cards and a budget that
allowed us £20 a day subsistence in the Asian countries and twice that
in Australia and New Zealand - that's for both of us, not each!
One of the few less than essential items in my rucksack was a large, stiff-covered
notebook in which I intended to keep a journal. What follows are extracts from
that account.
January 9th, 1995.
Cleaning my teeth, I look out over the symmetrical rows of suburban
rooftops. Between them and the steel grey cloud ceiling the dawn sky is streaked
with onyx and amber, but the colours soon fade. It is the kind of cheerless,
grudging dawn that reminds me how much I hate the English winter. I cram in
a hasty breakfast and we head for the airport.
Check-in takes less than thirty minutes, so we have hours to wait before boarding.
Already we have been 'on the road' for five days, as our tenants moved in on
the 4th. two days with our son and daughter-in-law, two more with my sister,
and the final night with friends who live conveniently close to the airport.
It crosses my mind that I've had enough of this nomadic existence and I should
like to go home! After the frenetic rush of the last weeks and several sleepless
nights my main sensation is one of terminal exhaustion.
Airport terminal exhaustion. Is this a clinically recognised condition?
We take off at 12.30 and are served lunch an hour later. At 3pm, somewhere over
Turkey, it gets dark! We have tea at 5pm and then the cabin lights go out until
9pm when the crew come round with breakfast. Breakfast? As we come into land
at Bangkok airport my watch says twenty minutes past midnight and the captain
says he hopes we have had a good night.
In the airport we head for the hotel reservations desk. The hotels we are offered
are way beyond our means. Tentatively I suggest a budget price place from the
guide book. The desk clerk's delicate eyebrows twitch slightly but she rings
the number and books us a room.
Seventeen hours after the first one, we watch another dawn as the taxi takes
us into the city. The skyscrapers of Bangkok rise out of an amethyst mist towards
an azure sky. The Hotel Miami is shabby but efficient and our room has an en-suite
bath and air-conditioning. We eat a third breakfast in the coffee shop and I
begin to realise why the desk clerk almost committed the social gaffe of looking
shocked. The other tables are occupied by middle-aged European men accompanied
by attentive, much younger Thai girls. I say nothing to my husband. We go up
to our room and fall into bed.
January 11th. Bangkok.
We take a tuk-tuk - a kind of rickshaw with two-stroke engine - to the Grand
Palace. Bangkok is the place where they invented the phrase 'hell on wheels'.
Most of the day the whole place is on the verge of gridlock. Everyone should
take a tuk-tuk through Bangkok once in their lives - it is the ultimate white
knuckle ride - but perhaps only once. Not only does the construction of the
vehicle place you at the perfect height to inhale the toxic fumes from the exhausts
of the city's ancient buses but all the drivers are in training for the Le Mans
Grand Prix. Added to this, he will tell you that the only way he can do the
journey at a reasonable price is by taking you to a shop en route. This way
he gets a kick-back towards his petrol but you have to spend an embarrassing
twenty minutes or so resisting the blandishments of assorted sales girls offering
silk or jewellery.
However, the Grand Palace is worth the hassle. After the heat and grime of the
city the first impression is of a kind of Buddhist Disneyland. Everything gleams
and sparkles. The colours and shapes are straight out of a child's picture book.
It takes a few minutes to realise that this is not pastiche, this is the genuine
article, the centre of an ancient tradition. Between the pavilions and the pagodas,
glinting with gold leaf and encrusted with coloured glass, the crowds of tourists
surge and chatter, but inside the temple that houses the emerald Buddha the
worshippers sit or kneel in devout silence, and enclave of tranquillity in the
hubbub.
January 12th
A day of disasters! I can't believe this has happened, but it
has.
We began well enough. In order to get round the problem of carrying large sums
of money or travellers cheques we had decided to rely on using our bank cards
to draw money from the ATM. So this morning we inserted David's card, typed
in our PIN and, somewhat to my amazement, the machine duly disgorged the required
amount of baht. So far, so good.
Our plan for the day was to take a bus to the Oriental Palace Hotel and then
catch the River Express, which the guide book recommended as a good way to escape
the traffic jams. We had almost reached the bus stop when we were accosted by
a very charming man who asked if we needed any help. When we explained our plan
he assured us that a bus was not a good idea and we should take a tuk-tuk instead
- at which point one duly materialised beside us. How could we have been so
gullible? Before we had time to think, we were in the tuk-tuk and heading in
what seemed to me to be quite the wrong direction. We were set down at yet another
jeweller's shop and when we came out the tuk-tuk was nowhere to be seen. A second
driver offered to take us to our destination, but only on condition that we
visit a silk shop en route. When we failed to buy anything here he maintained
that he was out of petrol and we found ourselves stranded in a part of the city
we did not recognise with no alternative but to walk. Fortunately a kindly woman
who spoke English put us on the right route but by the time we reached the Oriental
Palace half the day had gone.
That, however, is nothing to what followed. I had been tempted in the jeweller's
shop into buying a small amethyst pendant, which had used up most of our cash,
so on the way back to the hotel after dinner we stopped at the bank to draw
some more. David felt in the wallet he carried round his neck, under his shirt.
No bank card! The whole lot, -credit cards, bank card, phone card - had disappeared.
In the sticky heat of the Bangkok night we stared at each other.
'You can't have lost them!'
'Well, they're not here.'
A frantic search of pockets, bags and the hotel room fails to discover the missing
cards. Panic is kept at bay by two sources of comfort. 1) We had insured the
cards against loss before we left home. 2) My cards are locked in the hotel
safe. However, the safe is locked for the night and anyway most of mine are
on the same account as David's and so will have to be cancelled along with his.
At least my bank debit card has a different number, so should be OK.
We talk the hotel into opening the safe so we can check the card numbers. Then
we put through a reverse charge call to the insurance company in England. A
wonderfully reassuring voice tells us not to worry about a thing. The cards
will be cancelled immediately. 'What about replacements?' we ask. 'They will
be sent to your home address in a week or so.' We point out that that is not
much use since we are not going home for six months. They don't seem to have
met this problem before but give us the number of Visa in the USA.
By now it is well after midnight. We call Visa, who promise to get us a replacement
somehow. We collapse into bed and doze fitfully. At 4am the insurance company
calls back with further advice.
January 13th - Friday.
This should have been yesterday's date, surely!
At 10am we get a call from VISA in the USA. There will be a new credit card
for us at the Thai Farmers' Bank by midday. An hour later the bank phones to
say the card is ready. We catch a bus across town to collect it but we don't
have the PIN so can't use it to draw cash. With trepidation I try my debit card
in the ATM. Thank God, it works. Then we have to find our way to the police
station to report the loss. We spend an hour there, writing a report which is
then painfully translated into Thai and finally typed up for us to sign. While
we wait David is summoned to the desk of a senior official. I wait nervously.
Have we done something wrong? It turns out the official is anxious to practice
his English. They have a long discussion, which centres mainly on the marital
problems of our Royal Family.
Bonus for the day is the discovery of a Budddhist shrine on the corner of a
busy street, thronged with ordinary people on their way home from work. They
are praying and making offerings of fruit and flowers. It's like coming across
people taking communion in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. Some pay a troupe
of dancing girls to perform, as an act of worship. The poor girls look bored
out of their minds. Nearby a woman has a cage full of tiny birds. Apparently,
a Buddhist can 'make merit' by paying to have one set free. What about the merit
of the person who put them there in the first place? I have a wild impulse to
buy the lot, but restrain it. We have already spent way over budget. Tomorrow
we leave Bangkok and head north to Chang Mai.