The Abundant Flavours of that Summer

Day 1

6am. Heathrow Departures. We left to come here in the middle of the night so it doesn’t feel like six. Shall we get some pancakes?

Pancakes we do. Chain-restaurant pancakes – you know the type. Alright but in the end not quite satisfying. Too little syrup. Lukewarm. A light dusting of icing sugar. Small portion; I eat them without noticing.

Wash it down with the good stuff. I’ll have a Cosmopolitan. And another. That’ll take the edge off at this time in the morning.

We’ve still got 40 minutes. I’ll have another.

Day 2

6am (again?) A wall of thick spice-laden heat pummels me as I step through the automatic doors of the air-conditioned airport. Fuck. Don’t get heat like that in the morning where I’m from.

I said we should slum it and find somewhere on Khao San Road but ever-sensible Tim said nah we need to book before we fly, we’ll be jet-lagged. So the three of us rode in a pink taxi away from the hazy delirium of the city and into a world of duel carriageways and suburban business complexes. Then we arrived in the lobby of a sparse, corporate hotel.

“Sawadee-ka.”

Lovely hospitality. Tim went to sleep but we were far too excited.

It’s an authentic neighbourhood, it certainly has that going for it. We wander bemused past convenience and hardware shops – real ones for locals – food shops with unidentifiable meat strung up in the 90˚ heat; suckled at by passing flies. Nothing for tourists here.

We come across an old woman selling large slices of pineapple on sticks. She has a pile of them beside her and on top of the plastic table cloth in front of her a knife. Don’t think she speaks any English but we manage to buy a huge wedge – sweet and juicy and sticky - and by god that might just be my favourite breakfast of all, in that strange street; in that strange heat.

Dinner that day: multitudinous cocktails fronted by a group of Korean businessmen in the only bar for miles – a Country-and-Western style saloon on the obscure outskirts of Bangkok.

Day 6

We travel down to the hazy Southern islands by night bus. A twelve hour ride but we’re too excited to sleep.

The heat in the South is even more oppressive than in Bangkok. The air is thick.

A boat ride later and we’re in paradise. Palm trees and bamboo huts and beach bars consisting of Afghan rugs laid out on the sand, and candles.

Koh Samui. We’ve settled and slept and now need sustenance. We amble to the closest hub of activity and find ourselves ordering pizza and cocktails at a likeable-if-shabby restaurant called Mr Frog’s. We choose it for the name.

Everyone is so friendly – there’s a real sense that they want you to have the best time of your life, all the time.

The pizza is unmemorable but I suckle greedily on a bright red Strawberry Daiquiri served in a glass the shape of a lūʻau dancer.

Day 11

Banana pancakes for breakfast. Real banana pancakes, cooked fresh with a smile in a pan in a hut at the poolside. The batter inside is soft and the outer crust sweetly crisp. The best pancakes of my life.

Day 17

We’re up north now, in another corporate hotel.

Standard breakfast is pineapple and watermelon, available in abundance everywhere.

We check out and prepare for a two-day trek to visit the Karen tribe in the northern hills. Our head guide is 72. He climbs in flip-flops, chain-smoking the whole way.

On our first stopover one of the guides fries crickets in a small pan. I try one. Not horrible – crunchy and salty.

There are bottles of ice-cold Chang beer available to buy (thank God). I wonder who carried them up here as I take my first sip.

Day 18

We make it to the Karen tribe.

Fortuitously we happen to be there during Chinese New Year. An old woman with a kindly face and wrinkles as deep as craters ties string several times around my wrist. It is a blessing for the year.

Incidentally I won’t remove this until they disintegrate about a year later.

The festival involves sitting with the tribe in one of their homes. We are positioned in a circle and the skull of a goat is passed from one person to the next. Each one picks a little meat off the bone and eats it.

I find this to be a challenge but I do it. It doesn’t taste awful, but I’m relieved when it’s over.

Day 20

In Thailand you see vendors at the side of the road selling sandwiches and milkshakes cheaply to tourists from equipment pulled around in a cart on the back of a bicycle.

Maybe it’s all psychological but these things taste so good.

Cheap bread rolls with salad that by all logic, should be perished. Slices of economy cheese – the type I wouldn’t dream of buying back home. Possibly some mayo.

Logic doesn’t follow that this should be the best sandwich I had ever eaten, but it is.

The milkshakes are another level of great entirely. Whole bananas mushed into a blender with crushed ice and condensed milk. Sucking one of those through a straw - midday in a heat you couldn’t previously have imagined – divinity in a cup, for pennies.

Day 26

A traditional floating market.

Vendors pack their rich and plentiful produce into long, narrow rowing boats along the river and pitch up in rows for land-bound buyers to peruse at their leisure. On sale the whole spectrum of colours in spices, linens, fruit, vegetables, pulses. One is selling a variety of straw hats – hundreds of them stacked up in neat rows on the thin vessel.

Another sells grubs and insects on sticks and packed in boxes, like pick ‘n’ mix – a young Thai boy eyes them greedily, making his selection.

The atmosphere is fat with the odour of anything you could think of. Garlic, piles of slimy prawns hustled together in a plastic crate, flaming red chili pepper and spices of every flavour and colour you could imagine, ginger, fennel – permeated with the sweetness of piles and piles of tropical fruits. It is beautiful and faintly nauseating.

Day 28

We attend a ceremonial dinner in which we are served several courses.

Pad Thai – comforting fried noodles served with ground peanuts. The national dish – warm, welcoming and rich with the flavour of tamarind and roasted, oily nuts.

Red Curry – flaming orange in colour and potent with garlic and ginger but sloppy sweet with the base of coconut milk.

My favourite discovery of all – sticky rice. Who knew a food could be so improved by collating it into a solid mass from which you can pull off lumps for dipping or just popping straight in and chomping up? Bloody lovely.

In amongst it all, a group of smiling dancers in traditional attire meander gracefully around the tables to old-style music – the sound of the Chakhe, Krachappi, So Dung, So Sam Sai, Ranat Ek, Ching, Thon Rammana, Pi.

Day 29

Our Tourists visas have almost expired, so we must travel north into Laos to renew them.

On the border we have a curry. An Indian curry not dissimilar to the ones back home. It is nice to taste something familiar.

Day 34

I have not reacted well to the Malaria tablets I started to take on entering Laos. I won’t consume anything for a few days except water and the Hydralyte Electrolytes Tablets Poppy picked up for me at the pharmacy.

It is a harrowing experience to be this unwell so far away from home and comfort.

Day 36

I manage some soup and bread (and a beer). I hope I don’t contract malaria because I’m not taking anymore of those bloody tablets.

Day 49

By now my circumstances have changed somewhat. I have traded my nomadic existence for a semi-nomadic one and settled a while in paradise itself – Koh Phi Phi (back in the south).

The inhabited part of this beautiful island makes up an extremely small area. There are no roads - it is wholly pedestrianised and the only way to get anywhere is on foot, by boat or on a bicycle.

I have parted ways with both Tim and Poppy and reside alone in a corrugated iron hut I rent dirt-cheap. The toilet is a hole and the shower is a pipe from which you may get a few dribbles of water unless there is a shortage on the island.

It is monsoon season and when it rains the locals come out into it with bottles of shampoo and bars of soap to wash their hair. I’ll do the same next time.

My funds ran out some time ago so now I work cash-in-hand for the local Irish pub. They pay 500THB each night. I get free booze and the money is just about enough to pay for my rent, a packet of fags and a single meal.

Today I treat myself to one of my favourites for breakfast – fried potato rostis with poached egg. When you’ve been here a while, you start to learn where to go from a family selling this kind of food out of their own kitchen. Gone are the days of eating pizzas and Pad Thais at the restaurants where the tourists go.

I find such pleasure in this simple, delicious breakfast. I appreciate the effort that must go in to grating all that potato.

Days 54, 62, 68, 72, 80, 95, 99, 103, 115, etc, etc.

Cold Chang and a whole packet of Marlboros.

Day 55

I do get hungry sometimes and today the older guy I have been seeing takes me out. Buys me a cocktail. He says, “choose a pizza, my rasta baby, pick any from the menu”.

It arrives and he grimaces.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Blue cheese. I hate blue cheese.”

I smile and devour the entire thing.

Day 72

Warm sweet buns and instant noodles again at the 7/11. An excellent meal when I overspend too early in the day.

Day 180

England. The family congregate. A spread of finger sandwiches and the like laid out in the dining room. Feels odd to be home.