January 1985

Wednesday 2nd January 1985

Feel more human this morning. Amuse team with my incompetence at volleyball. Checkout of chalet as Tom and Mikhail leave this evening. Check into small one man A-frame next to kitchen @ 20B. My bill for sharing Number One is 732B. [Room 190, food 70 a day, jeep hire, bus rides to market].
Become alarmed when I hear some people have had 2 weeks stamped over their one month visa. Can’t check as mine is in Bangkok, two weeks is about today.
Walk down to ‘Wonderful Rock’ which is a coy Asian name for 15ft penis shaped rock, and find a large crowd taking mushrooms. Take some good pieces and frighten myself climbing around the large boulders, despite my mountaineering skill I fail to find Wonderful’s opposite number, which is near the waterline and always full of crabs.

Wonderful Rock

Thursday 3rd January
Feel better this morning. Spend entire morning doing washing. Feels like time I moved on. As I have no passport have had to cash £50 of scarce cash into Baht. Skin on burnt thumb cracks after swim and is sore. Raked beach with large rake y’day but found nothing. However someone has found key and torch, but no penknife or flip-flops. Beginning to feel more mentally alert, no dope for 2 days now.

Lamai Beach in 1985

Friday 4th January
Into town with Dean. Not possible to book train ride from Surat Thani - Hua Hin. Dean books extra flight to Burma for Yvonne on 10th, the telex to confirm the booking costs 140B. Buy brown cheap Thai style plastic sandals 28B and pipe like Brian’s 70B. ( I still have this - ed2012)
Feel quite lively and take healthy interest in all that’s on display down on the beach. Largely new crowd in today. Moma went into town to meet the ferry and is in a very good mood.
SeeFoo keeps calling my name in a mournful voice! Plan to leave tomorrow morning and write up diary.

Saturday 5th January 1985

Up in a panic at 9am. Truck for town leaves at 10, shit shower shave in double quick time. Pack rucksack and order breakfast. SeeFoo brings coffee over to shack. Pay remainder of bill, 3 nights @ 20B a night + food and truck rides = 312B. Say fond farewells. Leave Brian my address. Arrange to see Dean and Yvonne with John and Linda (Aus) later in Bangkok.
Surat Thani station (actually 15km out of town and called Phun Phin) by 3.30pm.

Hua Hin Railway station

Monday 7th January 1985

Write postcards and watch them franked at 6.50 a go in the post office. Get directed to telephone office. Polite lady connects me to Air Burma office in Bangkok and I confirm my reservation, 8B.
Explore town, watch the catch brought in by rough looking Thai fishermen in jocular mood at the quay side fish market. Women do all the buying. Lunch on BBQ chicken rice and bananas and milk for about 20B. Dine on squid and broccoli as bowels have survived the clams.

Drying squid

Tuesday 8th January 1985

Emerald Palace Bangkok

Wednesday 9th January 1985

Buy two “Lacoste” chemise for 100B and pens and lipsticks for Burma. Change £170 to Baht for air ticket (4,300B) and other expenses.

Have a smoke in Dean and Yvonne’s guesthouse and troop off to PatPong, visit several bars in ebullient mood, girls very professional and they make sure the mood is happy and relaxed. Watch show, they lay eggs, write love letters, pull out yards of silk scarves, also razor blades, and even blow darts, with their fannies. One even smoked a cigarette, down to the butt. Hope she has regular cervical smears. Find the whole business very sad. Get home at 3.30am.

Thursday 10th January 1985

Up early for 10.30 flight, check in nearly last, at 9.30am. Start sneezing on plane and arrive in Rangoon one hour later with streaming cold. It is 90° in the shade. Escorted through customs by helpful local in a sarong, he wants my whiskey and cigarettes. Complete money declaration form and smuggle in a cassette player. I am first through as I have no baggage.
Exchange duty free booze in the taxi for 430C with free ride worth 15C. Share taxi with mad middle aged German called Zotte.
Straight to Tourist Burma to book hard seat overnight train to Thazi. Then reconfirm return flight. Spend afternoon sweating and drinking in Rangoon. Buy 10 dispirin. Everyone wants to do ‘business’.

The train leaves Rangoon station with a delightful quaint but perfect english announcement “Good Evening and welcome to the Mandalay Express...” express is relative to the usual trains, we surge through the night at a stately 35mph. My neighbour opts for the floor so I try to fit on the seat horizontally, but its too short.

Friday 11th January 1985

Floating village

Inle lake

Inle lake

Saturday 12th January 1985

Trip around the lake today for 30C with 7 others, takes 5 hours. Get sun burnt and leave my only pair of shoes behind at a floating pagoda. See the leg rowing fisherman and lungi weaving etc. in the floating villages.

Inle lake

Burma road trip

Sunday 13th January 1985

The Road to Pagan

Breakfast on cake and chinese tea, catch pick up truck after betel nut pick-me-up to Mechela, ride on the tail gate with 3 others and a sack of flour. Lamut gets off at Thazi. No transport to Pagan at Michela, but get one going some of the way for 10Chat. Meet with a tour jeep and initially they are off hand, but some people don’t turn up so we get a lift for 10C a piece. Get covered in dust. Crazy journey, takes until late at night to reach Pagan.

Monday 14th January

Pagan temples

The Burmese are great fun, always greet you with a smile and a wave, even strangers in the street. They smear sandal wood paste on their cheeks and the men wear lungis rather than trousers. The pattern, like a tartan, reveals family origins.

Snout around some of the several thousand temples that dot this landscape. One still active temple resplendent in its golden coat, has a little peekaboo puddle of water in a certain spot, get down on your knees and peer at the surface, lo and behold the shimmering Schwezegon. Get around on bicycles. Enjoy exploring the ruins and finding the little staircases that lead to the top, usually these are within the larger walls.

The mighty Irrawaddy at Pagan

Heard a couple of horror stories the other day. One girls air-con Chang Mai bus was shot at. Two passengers were wounded, but the driver sped on so at least they weren’t robbed. Nigel from the UK was on a bus to Surat Thani, a couple of Thais fill up the bus next to him, they are eating biscuits, Custard Creams, and offer him one. He doesn’t remember much else, until he got back to Weekender bungalow, via the police, he was robbed of his camera.

Tuesday 15th January 1985

Lacquer craft village near Pagan

Set off for small village south of Pagan. Delightful, dust, pigs, bamboo, buffalo, kids, paper kites, women at wells. Spend too long sussing out the laquerware, this is where a lot of it is made. Eventually buy a hexagonal folding table for 2 fake Lacoste shirts. 1 packet cigarettes, 2 lipstick and my small plastic shoulder bag. Only just get back to Pagan in time to throw everything into my rucksack and jump on the jeep to Thazi.
Have a jovial ride with Nobby some Germans and Burmese.

lacquer village

We all spread out along the platform in the hope of getting a seat each. Most of us find one. I opt to go under the seat and spread my foam mat out. Two hours later I am honking my guts up over a hole in a cupboard floor, the train toilet. Take two temazepam and although queasy manage to sleep erratically for the rest of the journey, also remain continent, just. Feel awful, damn that sweet and sour pork.

The table in 2012

Wednesday 16th January 1985

Struggle through Rangoon to the YMCA feeling very feeble, collapse into bed on the top floor with the ceiling fan lurching around above me. Nobby and Tee catch the afternoon flight so we exchange addresses.

Lunch stop

Get up during the day for shit shower shave, drink a few lime juices and eat some fresh yoghurt. Feel useless and nauseated all day. In the evening make an attempt to sell Walkman for dollars, but I must look like death as everyone keeps away. One of the Germans exchanges his for a large traditional puppet. A Dutch guy moves into my room and tells some horrible tale about an air ticket disaster and being arrested in the Punjab for being there. Sell my Burma guide for 10HK$, what a bargain!
Sorry to miss exploring Rangoon.

Thursday 17th January

Schwedagon stupa Rangoon

Up at 5.30am to catch the free bus that traverses Rangoon and eventually ends up at the airport. Some creep carries my rucksack 10yds and wants some Chat. I give him an earful of chat he didn’t want. Spend last few chat instead on breakfast and tea. Pass through check in, immigration, customs & currency control without any hassle. I just had to show the camera I declared on entry. My official currency form, which had to be marked every time I changed money, was remarkable for its lack of entries. Smuggle the walkman out of the country having smuggled it in. Check-in refused to let me take my little rucksack as hand luggage, but this was not a big issue has I helped myself to it moments later at customs. The whole departure lounge is basically one large room and you proceed from desk to desk. Getting my luggage back saved a lot of time at Bangkok which was heaving with two recently arrived jumbos.

Meet two drunk Iranians in the airport and share a few pistachios and jokes about crazy Khomeni.

Stop off at Huallampong rail station by stunning use of bus map and buy ticket to Sungai Kolok for Sunday. Second class seat 390B. Guess there must be a cheaper way but these ‘International Express’ trains don’t do 3rd class. Still not hungry but drink plenty and enjoy an ice-cream. Bangkok’s dairy is a Danish concern and very reliable, pasteurised milk is readily available everywhere.