The Green Ink Brigade, Part I

Dear Charity Show Directors,

Hello, my name is Brad, I play the part of Tree Number 1 and Guard Number 1 alongside the indomitable Geoff. We are usually drunk during practice. You may also remember me because it was I that suggested we take upwards of 500 dollars from the profit made on the Charity Show and use it to fund a booze-cruise cast party. I stand by my assertions that the two charities that we are donating to will not miss it: The UN Sack Lunch Program is already doubtless receiving millions in kickback from the Oil For Food scandal, and the World Guide Dog Foundation could at least take a 250 dollar hit since I remember reading some report somewhere that said all blind people are totally loaded. The choice, however, is up to you.

I am writing on behalf of myself as well as my co-star to ask of you, nay, plead with you, nay again, beg of you to please not assign us with any more responsibility. It has been made abundantly clear that the two of us are single-handedly running this entire charitable operation into the ground already. We clearly cannot be trusted at all. It took us five months to memorize a collective ten lines. When we attend practice we are running solely on coffee, peanuts, beer, and adrenaline. I’d like to call your attentions to a few cases of our ineptitude:

Exhibit A: We are always leaving on “bathroom breaks” to the nearest convenience store. I am not going to kid myself into thinking that we’ve fooled either of you. You are smart people. We are not. What could have tipped you off? Could it have been our girlish giggling? Perhaps it was that one time I loudly whispered to Geoff, “Hey, let’s get more beer,” before demurely asking for a fifteen minute toilet break.

Exhibit B: The fact that not once in five months have we ever been on time to practice. Not one time.

Exhibit C: The fact that, despite having practiced at the Kureha location four times now, we still cannot find the goddamn room.

Exhibit D: The fact that, up until last week, everyone in the entire production knew Geoff’s lines except Geoff.

I could go on and on, but no doubt you are aware of the complete spectacle we make of ourselves every Wednesday and Sunday. You have both shown yourselves to be paragons of patience. The real “charity” shown in this charity show is demonstrated weekly in the simple fact that you haven’t kicked both of us out on our asses.

In fact, far from being relegated to the waterboy and sweat-mopper positions, we seem to actually be acquiring more responsibility. Just last practice we learned that we would be memorizing an entire song, for instance. Now, we will do our very best here and we will succeed, no doubt, because doe-eyed orphans are counting on us and because that's the kind of men we are, but what we think you should rethink is assigning us to the rolls of Pixie #1 and Pixie #2 as well. Although there are no lines for the prancing pixies, there are a myriad of dance steps that are very hard for two goliaths like ourselves to memorize and perform.

Now, I don’t know many things for certain in this life, and my experience as a JET has taught me that I know even less than I once thought, but I do know this: If you make us try to memorize the pixie dance, it will be the death of the charity show. It might just also be the death of everyone involved as well. Even the orphans, somehow.

As time progresses and we get closer and closer to curtain call, you might be tempted to think we will change our foolish, fast-living ways; this would be a mistake. We are what we are: And what we are is one massive liability for this organization.

Thus far, damage has been minimized. Should you see it fit in your directorial ways to make us try this Pixie thing, or, heaven forbid, give us any more responsibility, well then, God help us all.

Respectfully yours,

Brad “Rosencrantz” Griffith
Geoff “Guildenstern” Davies

Ah. Ummmm...

Because I am not a 'real' teacher I don't have a lot of the responsibility, and therefore stress, that other teachers have. I'm also at more of a liberty to do mostly what I please when I'm not teaching. I might go for a stroll around the school, or take a very comfortable seat in the men's lounge and read for an hour or two. I might, if I were so inclined, spend a few minutes on the internet.

I'm a pretty laid back chap as it is so this freedom can sometimes be a distraction. Sometimes in class I don't have anything to do other than recite some of the highly original and totally believable 'English dialogue' from the textbook, so I'm often interrupted from staring out of the window by the teacher. Actually it's not unlike the last time I had to spend most of the day in classrooms...

Sometimes I get bored, so I like to liven it up a bit. I might have a little joke with the students, lead them in a rousing "Heeeeyyyyyyy!" halfway through a class, or I might doodle on the board (I was particularly admired for my rendition of Dracula during an "I am playing the lead role" dialogue the other day).

The 'Dracula' day was one of these days - I did pretty much nothing - all day - and was bored throughout the two lessons I had, both of which I'd given verbatim to different classes for the last three days. I didn't rush to my last lesson of the day, indeed I stopped in the gents on the way for a quick tinkle. I entered the class, "Heyyyyyyy guys! English time again!" I looked down for the textbook and - oh no! Sprinklage on the trousers! Those urinals can be pesky things, especially when you're over six foot in a land of midgets. Can I teach facing the board? Probably not. Hold the textbook down there until it dries? Might look a bit weird no? Then - ping! It came to me. I looked round quickly and VOOM, raced off to the sinks in the corridor. I washed my hands and shook them all over, much like a wet dog, and walked back into the classroom distractedly wiping at my trousers with an exaggerated disappointment - oh darn, water on my trousers again....

Long Walk, Short Bus

This hour commute. Wrenched out of Koshi. Is this my punishment for staying only one year?

Last Thursday I got up at 6.15am, was on the train by 7.30am, and at Komadori school by 8.15am. I read for an hour and a half, waiting for my lesson. I 'taught' for 30 minutes and then read for a further hour until I had to leave for my tram. I didn't just sit around; I did actually get up and wander around the school, trying to bump into some other students or teachers to shoot the breeze and spread the English love. But no, I found only empty draughty corridors.

For the first twenty minutes of my arrival I had to discuss the lesson plan for the day with one of the four or five other teachers (i.e.tell him what it would be). But, we hit a snag -- he looks concerned, then confused. "A minute..." he says, jumping up suddenly cheery. He goes over to a door and opens it up to a walk-in cupboard. He rummages around, slowly disappearing into the dark and dust. Out comes a big old brown box, and another. Finally he emerges with another big old brown box, bound with disintegrating tape. He roots around inside, finds what he is looking for and takes out a small white package. Out of this he slips two slim and stained volumes. "Again," he says, "please say once more..." and he flips open the school's English dictionary...

My planned activity was the "My name is/how are you?" game, as it was last week, and indeed will be next week. You'll see why - it goes like this:

Me: "Hello!"

JTE: "Hello!"

Student: "Nnnnng"

Me: "My name is Geoff, what is your name?"

Student: "Nnnnnng nnnng"

Me: "Ah. How are you...um......Kodo?"

Student: "...nnnnng..."

JTE [Japanese]: "How are you?"

Student ...dribble...

Me: "Iiiii'm..."

Student: "Nnnnnng......nnnnng.............nng"

JTE: "Fine! He is fine!"

JTE: "Now ask Geoff-sensei, 'how are you?'"

Student: "...."

JTE: "How...."

Student: "...nnnnnnnnnnnnnng"

Me: "Great! Well done, have a tiger sticker! you're a tiger!"

JTE: "Tiger!"

Student: "Nng!"

Me: "Right, next! Yuki, my name is....

"Alas, I have little more than vintage wine and memories..."

To prove that we're not all lushes; that we're not just overpaid clowns who turn up Monday mornings hungover to bluff and blunder our way through 'teaching' English; who stumble about town in non-school hours 'internationalising' Japan by allowing people to stare at us with our drunken pockets overflowing with fistfulls of cash; to show the community that we didn't come to Japan only for the free ride and the sweet paycheque - to show that none of these things are true the Toyama JETs are giving something back: a show for charity.

That age-old, inspiring, lyrical, captivating, and highly original stage-show 'Cinderella' will be performed for all! Come see what your kids see -- gigantic overpaid westerners prancing around a stage! See them sing! See them dance! See them in public not drunk!

Months ago when we were sober we were urged to sign up for what we were assured would be a roller-coaster of cutting-edge acting and thespian high-jinks; acting hard and playing hard. I imagined the rave reviews that would undoubtedly be written of my portrayal of the lead role -- an anguished genius tormented by demons who dies a tragic Shakespearean death. I'd make a great actor! I was born to walk the boards, to join the ranks of the great and good - Gielgud, Guinness, Hasselhoff. Yes, I thought, planning the coloured lights my name would be in, I was made for this!

"No, no, no!" the director screamed last week in rehearsal, grabbing my shoulders, "tree number two should be over here!"

---

"How's rehearsal going?" our producer asks me in a coffee shop the other day.
"Great!" I reply "Really, it's going well. Seriously. Whu-why are you looking at me like that?"
"Have you ever done theatre before?" he sighs.

You see, this is how it goes. Brad (Tree #1, Guard #1, Pixie #1) meets Geoff (Tree #2, Guard #2, Pixie #2) before rehearsal and complain about how no one told them this would be twice a week for the rest of JET; how this would actually be work. They buy beer. They drink, they whinge some more, they buy more beer. They walk into rehearsal a little late and resume drinking beer, they prance around, and they give each other dead legs. While the leads are up front emoting the huge number of lines they have in every scene, Brad and Geoff are sat to the side, vandalising each other's scripts with obscenities -- or they're actually on stage, acting out the the three lines of dialogue they each they have:

Prince [in Japanese]: line line line emote emote line line emote
Cinderella [in Japanese]: emote emote line line line emote line emote line line
Prince: emote emote line line emote line line line.....
Guard #2: Koko wa Nippon itchy scratchy... oh, hang on, ummm, koko o Nippon cheesy ban..
Guard #1: What are you doing? That's not your line...
Guard #2: Hang on, I've got it. Wait a minute, oh yes, ichiban cheezy toray...cheesai toyra... Bugger (hic).
Guard #1: Dude! You are outta control!... (hic)... Is this my beer or yours?
Guard #2: Um, mine, that's yours.
Guard #1: Oh yes, where were we?
Director: Okay okay...sigh...Cinderella, could you take it from...line line line

This is what happens to your acting ambitions when you realise that you'll never play The Dane.

Me English Fun!

As part of the April shuffle the Toyama General Board of Education have 'wisely' decided that for the last three months of my once-weekly special needs teaching career I am to teach elsewhere in Toyama. I was told this a few days before I was due to go to my 'old' special school.
"So I'm not actually going back to Koshiyogo?" I asked? No. A day later I got a fax from Koshiyogo:

"How are you doing? We were very surprised to know at the beginning of april that we cant study with you this coming term, we are very disappointed and I asked Toyama Prefectural Board of Education for your stay at Koshi in this term, But it answered "no you can't." We were looking forward to seeing you soon We enjoyed English with you and students like English very much thanks to you. Of course we all like you very much. We wish your good luck in the future. Thank you for everything can I pass Richard your sneakers?"

Which just goes to show what a super chap I am and that even Japanese people can't stand my trainers.

My new school is called Koshiyogo Komadori - a branch school of Koshi but in Takaoka, a city three stops on the train from Toyama.

So to my new school I went. With a train and tram timetable printed out for me entirely in Japanese by my 'supervisor', and some actually helpful directions from JETs in Takaoka, it took an hour to get there. Having been told merely where to get off the tram by those in authority, and not actually where the school was, I got off the tram and looked around.
"Hmmm. I know, I'll walk a little down the road. Oh, there's a huge complex of buildings. Ah, it's Takaoka City Hospital. Stands to reason its in there eh? I should go in there and ask. Now what is "where is Komadri school" in Japanese, ah yes..."

So, I ask at the hospital where their special school is and get absolutely blank faces in return.
"I am an English teacher. An ALT" I try in Japanese. Still nothing. Often Japanese people will look at you when you speak Japanese to them as if you are a magically talking bear whose voice causes actual physical pain. Obviously in this case the nurses must have been in shock at seeing such a tall and handsome talking bear. Out I wander to phone my base school,and to leave the nurses to jabber in astonishment to each other. I get a telephone number, and after a quick conversation with the special school I finally find it - 50 feet to the left of the main entrance of the hospital.


"What will you teach?" I am asked as I'm still taking off my coat.
"Um, English? What have you got planned?" I reply, hopefully.
"..." he stares at me.
"What kind of lessons do you do?"
"..." he stares, this time at the ground.
"What level are the students?" He looks at me, looks back at the floor and finally replies,
"...low."

After half an hour I discover that for the piddling three months they've wrenched me out of Koshiyogo (with whose students I had built an excellent rapport) and thrust me into a different school that:

- I'm teaching four students

- most of it is in Japanese

- by the FIVE other teachers there.

- Two of the students can't actually talk. English or Japanese. They. Cant. Talk.

The other two students cant keep themselves upright, and they are not given any other support by the teachers, so, they sit there - in their own laps. This makes the speaking of English dificult. And strangely enough also the teaching of it. Also, they only really know "my name is..." and can only say it after a ten-minute build up, several boxes of tissues, and the Japanese teacher finally saying it for them.

It is not in fact a school for the physically impaired as advertised (and like my old school) but for kids with severe learning difficulties.

What, you might ask, am I doing there? It seems I'm there to fill that function that the Japanese education and skills ministry define as 'internationalising' - I am the funny foreign man. I just 'be' there.

Capitally Flowing

In Japan the job is all. Employment is, or should be, for life. Your job is more important than your family. At least it should be. In the novel Jennifer government the world is run by corporations, and employees take their surnames from their employers; John Nike and the like. This is what Japan is like, but without the actual names. To this end teachers are treated as assets, that is they are moved around as needed, even at random On a whim you might say. At my school for example one third grade teacher, the vice-principal, and the principal have all been moved and new people installed from other schools. The teachers find out in in April who is going to be given the requisite week's notice. When the list went up in my school the teachers all crowded round. An hour later my kyoto-sensei was packing up a box and being bowed to by most of the staff. When I got back from Thailand he'd been replaced. Which is a shame because he was the nicest guy here and he seemed to like me; we'd talk about the weather, we'd point at things and laugh; we'd pick flowers. Plus he handled my time-off requests. His replacement is his deputy, who does not like me. The replacement for the deputy is a chap from some other school. Right now he is sat in his chair swinging from side to side and staring at the ceiling.

Cogito Ergo Sum Gaijin

In Japan we, gaijin (Japanese for foreigner) have peculiar powers. Gaijin Powers. Due to our existing outside of Japanese reality we are able to move about within Japanese society with almost no effect, and no response. There are many manifestations of this power, some of which are listed below (with thanks to Gaijin Boards posters):

Gaijin Perimeter - The ability to project an invisible barrier around yourself that only the Japanese can sense and thus be repelled by it. Its range and effectiveness grows exponentially with the addition of other gaijin - particularly tall males.

Gaijin Telepathy - This is the ability that gaijin use not only to communicate with each other, but also to gather necessary information from their Japanese co-workers when such information is otherwise being withheld.

Gaijin Locator - The ability to instantly locate other gaijin amongst large crowds of Japanese people.

Gaijin Invisibility - Confusing Japanese people by speaking to them while being an invisible non-socializable entity, and forcing them to turn immediately to the nearest Japanese person and ask for confirmation of what the wind just said.


These are merely some of the powers that we Gaijin possess. Below is a picture of a Gaijin displaying not one but two of these super-secret powers. Can you guess which ones?

Dark Sarcasm In The Classroom

These kids, seriously.

When I first came to Kureha High School I was mildly alarmed by the number of injured students I saw everyday. After a while though I came to accept it - these kids play hard and they work hard. They play so hard it looks like work.

What makes me a tad uneasy now is how many students I see collapsing about me. At the beginning and end of terms we have ceremonies. Lots of them. We have so many ceremonies that before long the teachers and students will be lining the corridors to mark my journey to the western toilet each afternoon.

These ceremonies usually last between one and two hours and you have to stand for most of them - the rest is bowing. These ceremonies are punctuated every 20 minutes by a 'thunk' of somebody somewhere in the student body hitting the deck. Several teachers will rush into said mass of students and emerge a minute later dragging a body - usually a girl - head hung sickeningly on her chest and feet trailing behind her. The longer the ceremony, the higher the body count.

This, I thought during the summer, is what happens when you make kids stand in the heat for two hours.

In winter it is mostly the same, except the kids sit on the floor. During an hour long speech by the Principal this winter on the perils of the 'flu season three kids were dragged out after listing far enough to the side to be lying down.

This, I thought during the winter, is what happens when you heat only classrooms and not corridors, and then make kids sit on a cold floor for two hours.

Yesterday was the opening ceremony for the new school year, which in Japan is in the spring. The ceremony lost two girls that day. And this gave me pause. It's spring - it's positively balmy outside: what was wrong with these girls?
"Maybe they are sick, or they did not have breakfast this morning," a JTE explained to me.
Breakfast? These are not delicate little flowers - I've seen them play football. Missing a slice of toast in the morning will not floor you by 10am! On my way into school this morning a black SUV drove up to the front doors, two teachers met it, the car door opened and a second grade girl was dragged out and into the school. What is going on? Is this not a cause for concern for parents? The mother might as well as flung the car-door open and pushed her daughter out onto the tarmac before screeching away.

There is something more fundamental here than the odd cold, or skipping a bowl of rice in the morning. These kids need a break.

The Shoe Event Horizon

In Japan the job is all. Your job is more important than your family. At least it should be. In the novel ‘Jennifer Government’ the world is run by corporations, and employees take their surnames from their employers - John Nike and the like. This is what Japan and so on, but without the actual names. To this end in schools teachers are treated as ‘assets’ who are moved around schools, to keep things fresh. The teachers find out every year in April who is to leave and are given a week's notice when the names are released. At my school for example one third-grade teacher, the vice-principal, and the principal, have all been moved and new people installed from other schools. Last week ‘the list’ went up in my school, and the teachers all crowded round. An hour later the kyoto-sensei (vice-principal) was packing up a box and being bowed to by most of the staff. When I got back from Thailand yesterday he'd gone. Which is a shame because he was the nicest guy here and he seemed to like me; we'd talk about the weather, we'd point at things and laugh; we'd pick flowers. Plus he handled my time-off requests. His replacement is his deputy, who does not like me. The replacement for the deputy is a chap from some other place. Right now he is sat in his chair swinging from side to side and staring at the ceiling. Anecdotal evidence suggests these moves are mostly at random, regardless of ability. In some schools there are teachers who are so incompetent that other teachers don’t give them anything to do – but it’s impossible, or improbable, that anything will be done about them. They’ll be shuffled on to the next school because – well that’s just how it is.
As all the teachers were gathered around 'the list' I asked one of my JTEs about it:

"Gosh, the teachers must have been very nervous this week"
"Ah yes, many teachers do not know, so they are knowing now"
"It must get frustrating, being moved around every three years"
"No, the teachers must move"
"Yes, but isn't it annoying to have to move?"
"All teachers must move at some time"
"Hmm. Where is the principal going?"
"He is going to ****** school"
"Ah, so, is that a promotion for him?"
"Ummm, it is not important. It is a different school"
"So it's a sideways move? Is it a better school?"
"...."
"Hmm. I see. Won't it affect the school though? Wouldn't it be better to have continuity? Isn't it difficult to have these upheavals?”

To which she looked at her feet and did the head-side-to-side thing that Japanese people do when there's a possibility of expressing their own opinion on an official matter - they might want to disagree but they actually really cannot do it. You can almost see the words DOES NOT COMPUTE scrolling across their eyes. The Japanese, my teachers at least, can’t disagree with anything official. Many times I have suggested something or tried to correct something, for example the textbook which is always using incorrect words out of context - it's either written by Japanese speakers of English or merely morons - and the teacher will look at me like I've just defecated on the desk. Many of my conversations end with me trailing off – after realising the futility of trying – and them going obliviously back to their work. Sometimes when I’m discussing something with them I feel like they have put their hands over their ears going “lah lah lah I cant hear you lah lah…”

The Total Perspective Vortex

When you're a JET there's a certain degree of emasculation you must put up with. You're no longer as independent as you were. Much of the frustration of this job comes from the fact that you have very little independence to do what you want. In school most things you want to do have to be cleared first, and often those things are judged to be "too difficult" to do. To go to the bank at lunch you have to get permission from the vice-principal. A few weeks ago we had a rare warm afternoon and the sun was shining. It put me in a rather good mood,

"Sensei" I said "I'm just going out to the quad to mark my papers there; it's such a nice day, and I have no actual classes, so I'll be outside. Marking"
"Ah but Geoff-san, the students will ssee you"
"Well, that's okay, we can chat, they won't be a nusiance I'm sure. be nice to get some fresh air, heh heh"
"No, you can mark in here ne? Too distracting for students"
"But, fresh air. Sun. I have no classes. Students have no classes"
"Ne, distracting..."
"...sniff..."

When we got back from Thailand (oh Thailand, you seem so far away now. Thailand, Thailand....) the Gas Company (that's their name: 'Gas Company') had cut us off. No cooking, no washing, no shower. Bit of a pickle. So, off I raced to pay the bill and have the gas restored. We waited all night, but no gas. Next morning - no gas. So today I asked my supervisor to give them a ring, to see what was going on exactly:

"Sensei, would you mind awfully giving the Gas Company a ring to ask when they’re switching our gas back on? We got cut off while we were away. But we paid the bill last night. Look, here’s the receipt with our details on it. Could you give them a ring?"
"Geoff-san, You have not paid your bills geoff-san?"
"No no, we hadn’t, but we have now."
"Maybe there is a way, you pay at a conbini"
"Yes, we paid it last night, this is the receipt. Could you phone this number. On the receipt?"
"Normal Japanese teacher have bill out of bank account, it is, they take it out for me, uh, uh…"
"…automatically?"
"...ne, they take it automaticarry. You can do this.."
"Yes, but paying it at the conbini is more convenient for us"
"But not this time ne?"
"Well no, but that’s because we were away. But we have paid it, no problem see. So if you could just phone…"
"Ehhh. They have sent many bills? They send you a bill to pay with?"
"Yes, yes, we got two bills, but we were going to pay it after we got back since we were up to date. We thought it was too soon to be cut off. But we paid it last night and the lady said it would be turned back on,“tonight” she said."
"Tonight? Maybe you should wait…"
"No no, last night, she said last night that they would turn it on, but they didn’t. So if you phoned…"
"Somebody, you Robin, has to be there to turn it on. The gas. Ehhhhhh. Hmmmmm. Maybe we can phone. There is a number here….…….they said they did not switch off gas. Is safety system. They will come tonight. They said they were not going to cut you off , it is too soon…"


Why do so many conversations go like this?

Thailand Ffotos

Koh Samui



Robin on the Beach


The Daily Grind


Sand Bar. geddit? Sand Bar? Never mind...


Ssiiiigh




Bungalow


I'm Drinkin', I'm Readin'


Ah!


Hmmm?


Hmmm. Drinks?


A Totally Believable Action Shot


Bankok


Geoff and Buddha Hanging Out


Khoa San Road


Robin and Buddha's Toes


Really?


Beer Leer

The Good Times Are Killing Me

It’s always 12 o’clock somewhere. That’s what Robin told me as I sipped my first cold one of the day at 9.45am last Tuesday. I justified my brewski using the following evidence: We had been up since 3.30am, almost six hours before, getting from Bangkok to Koh Samui – our tropical island getaway off the eastern coast of Thailand. We had spent the previous two days in a state of semi-conscious head-lolling, travelling from Toyama to Tokyo, Tokyo to Narita airport, to Bangkok, through crazy Bangkok to hostel, a quick evening in Bangkok, a cab, a plane, a long wait, a bus and eventually to our hotel on Koh Samui. Who had never heard of us. A couple of phone calls to our agent cleared everything up, but we could not check for another four hours, it being 8am. But please, we were told, have full use of our facilities. So, I rationalised, why not beer? And why not, I’m on holiday.

But, consider you’re not on holiday; what time can you have that first sup and not have a problem? UK pubs don’t open until 11am, but if it’s not a weekend and you’re ordering the pub’s first pint of the day then you have a problem somewhere. On holiday the rules go out the window. Christmas Eve: morning Irish coffee. Spain or Greece: a nice cold white wine with breakfast. France: cheese, croissants, red wine. Bank holidays, on tour, week off work and the sun is out? Why not start the day with a game of snooker and a pint of bitter? And there’s nothing quite like a cold pint of Guinness as the Dublin sun is rising above Temple bar.
Many times I have woken up in the middle-morning, washed, dressed, and headed straight to the pub – normally to meet Alex, or Gagsy, or some other reprobate friend of mine. How many times have you Brits had two pints too many with lunch on a workday? How many times have you popped out to the shops for lunch and had to convince yourself it would be a BAD idea to get that refreshing looking tall-boy in the fridge next to the bottles of water? In Japan it’s a constant struggle.

But back to that tropical island.

“Ah” I said to Robin as we made the 10-yard stroll from the bar to our sun loungers on the beach, “the sun is shining, the sea is shimmering. I have a good book, excellent company and an enormous girly cocktail. Does life get any better than this?” Imagine this: lunchtime, under a thatched canopy a wicker table, laden with Thai curries and fruits. From there a short green lawn dotted with exotic looking flowers stretching to a low terracotta wall, beyond which the shade of a row of palm trees, a strip of white warm sand, and the soft lapping waves of a clear blue sea. Further out: a sand bar, some kayakers and tree-covered island in the distance. Blue skies, intermittent fluffy white clouds, a very slight refreshing breeze. A gin and tonic. Do you hate me?

Thailand is a truly wonderful country - the people are nice and friendly and speak excellent English. In every asian country there are those that try to cheat you or drag you off on a special trip where they try to fleece you of your money. Thailand is no different in this, but the people generally are nicer, more polite, friendly.

This is our first grown up holiday – our first holiday on which we have spent more then 10 pounds on a room per night; where there is room service, and the staff call you “sir”. I’ve never stayed anywhere with a mini-bar that I am paying for. It made me strangely restrained. With this slightly higher bracket though comes the Germans: fat middle-aged Germans and Russians. The hotel library is entirely in Dutch. The hotel we’re staying in is called the The Coral Bay Resort, an eco-friendly place where they recycle their water through a system of streams, rocks, and charcoal, spread around the ten hectares of natural gardens. They urge us to re-use our towels (but insist on replacing them every day); they remind us to conserve our use of the water they store for each bungalow in a rain tank on the roof (but use 10 litre flushes in the urinals).
It is a very environmental resort – in that we are surrounded in it. The environment that is. One morning I chased a frog out of the shower. For our entire stay a rather large lizard kept watch, attached to the wall above our front door; birds demanded toast and coffee in the mornings; enormous colourful butterflies escorted us up and down paths and alighted on my cocktails; local dogs took shelter beneath our loungers. As we were waiting for a lift to the airport a frog very calmly made the ten-minute commute from his home lily-pad on one side of reception to his other lily pad on the opposite side. I regard my Thai chicken curries with suspicion.

Just down the road from our resort was the lovely town of Chaweng. Lonely Planet describes the island of Samui as an already beautiful woman who goes and spoils it by using too much make-up. This certainly applies to Chaweng, which resembles the Costa del Sol more than it does a tropical island town. We ambled in now and then, to get some dinner and a drink and then escape back to our peaceful and clean resort. What is it about hot climates that attract the shirtless, tattooed, skinhead, lobster-red, drunken Englishman? You want a pint of Heineken? Full English breakfast? Fish and chips? Chaweng. The restaurants advertise ‘western food’ and make much of the use of bottled water used to wash the vegetables. Shops sell Palmolive soap, Heinz Ketchup, The bloody Sun newspaper. There are of course lovely small Thai restaurants and out of the way cafes and bars, but soon enough I’m sure they’ll be overtaken by ‘development.’ When Robin worked at Traveler magazine she says that the editorial team would decide whether to do an article on a place depending on if it would attract the wrong kind of tourism; whether it would be spoiled by too many people going there. I think maybe Lonely Planet should leave Thailand alone for a while.

Robin and I have discovered ourselves (okay, just me) to be the uncouthest of the uncouth. In Japan you don’t tip, you just don’t. For me this has not been a hard habit to adopt, being from a skinflint country as I am. For Robin however it took a while of servers chasing after us with our ‘forgotten’ change. It didn’t occur to us until too late in our stay in Thailand that we should probably have been tipping the staff at our very nice hotel. At the end of our stay we made envelopes of generous tips for housekeeping, the restaurant, and the very pleasant chap at the bar who had been making my G&Ts for the past week. Smiles all round. However, while sat in reception we saw a couple of fat Germans tipping their cab driver as he dropped them off. Oh dear, hadn’t thought of that; another demographic alienated.

Is it only Asian countries that have currencies where the 100th denominations are worth so little that they’re never used? Thai Green Curry – 45 Baht. Korean Beer – 250 Won. Japanese house – 47,000,000 yen. Brad insists he can get drunk every night because “we’re meeelleeeeonaires!” I was extremely excited when I first heard I was going to get paid 3.6 million yen a year. But Geoff – a friend of mine e-mailed me – that wouldn’t buy you a car. Oh.

If you have to be delayed in an airport it might as well be at an airport where Terminal One is only called terminal ‘One’ because it is nearest the bar and Terminal Two is a palm tree covered lean-to and security wears shorts and flowery shirts. Unfortunately the delay meant we wouldn’t get to Bangkok until 2am and our tenuous hostel bookings might be gone. We were leaving our idyllic paradise to sleep on the streets of Bangkok. Thankfully though, it turned out our hostel reservations were still there. Unfortunately, however, it turned out our hostel reservations were still there. Lonely Planet lists ‘Prakorp’s Hostel’ as “a nice break” and as having “the best guesthouse coffee.” He might have added, had he not been so high, that “it is the ideal place to collapse after a hard night of drugs and drinking. Because you will be oblivious to the grubby mattress, the grimy hole-filled plywood walls and the deafening screeching of the bars upstairs and immediately to your left.”

Being wary of a booking not being kept we had reservations at two hostels. ‘Rannee’s Guesthouse’ deserves it’s own chapter in Dante’s ‘Inferno.’ If I were a washed-out, end-of-the-road junkie, down to my last pennies, skin hanging off my ravaged body, who had lost all faith in man, god, and liquor, and only sought a way out of the hell that is humanity, Rannee’s Guesthouse is where I’d come to overdose. Even the cockroaches looked desperate.

We credit-carded our way to an upgrade at the local branch of the Sawasdee Hotel chain.

Bangkok is the kind of place that you come to get wasted; to overload on the hedonistic voyeurism that is the Khoa San Road. The beer is cheap, the spirits cheaper, the vendors raucous, and the traffic rudely oblivious. Do not go to Bangkok for a getaway; it’s loud, smelly, and full of foreigners. Drunken foreigners. I liked it, but it was not what I was looking for. We were surrounded on all sides by gap-yearers, hippies, students, and old time hippies who never made it home.

We strolled down the Khoa San Road on our last night before the next morning of solid sightseeing. The night was banging on, and the road was heaving with people in dreadlocks, goatees, Birkenstocks and at least one item of native clothing – mooching from stall to stall. We stop in the 7 Eleven (seriously, they are the world over) for an ice-cold beer. Strange – the beer fridge is locked, with a rope. The shop fills up suddenly. People try the fridge. There is a murmuring; a very quiet desperation is creeping in. “What’s going on with the beer?” someone worriedly asks. Outside in thee street people are sat at tables in the bars with cokes and juices in front of them; they fidget and twist, they don’t know what to do with these strange drinks. “What’s going on?” a Londoner cries as he races down the road.
“No beer in the pubs. No beer anywhere” gasps somebody else. We hurry back to our hostel before all hell breaks loose.

Elections, a wise old hand tells me later. We came to Thailand in the middle of a constitutional crisis. The Prime Minister of the last ten years is being increasingly harangued for corruption and has called elections for the Sunday before we leave. Opposition parties have boycotted, there are daily demonstrations in Bangkok. People are appealing to the King to intervene. It appears that Thais cannot be trusted to drink AND vote; with every election alcohol is prohibited from the night before to the night after the election – emotions run high perhaps? At home you would have to force-feed the public with hallucinogens to make them that excited about voting. Hell, you almost have to drug them to vote at all. Back safe at our hostel a few streets over from Khoa San we discover the manager doesn’t care for these rules “are you selling?” we ask, looking furtively over our shoulders. How many? he replies. All his guests sip quietly, not wanting to attract attention from the masses. We sit down, quietly rejoicing that the night has been saved. Not so for the Londoner on the Khoa San Road “it’s my last night in Thailand,” he told me, grabbing my shoulders “I wanted...wanted, to go out…” looking quickly around him, “The clubs! The clubs must be selling…!” he yelled as he ran off into the crowd.