Bangkok, Thailand

WITHOUT SARA
Travelling without Sara, the world seems a much bigger place. We spent the best part of eight months looking out for each other all day every day and now with Sara in Chicago and me back in South East Asia I have had to come to terms with having to be a lot more organised and more motivated. Sara is staying in Chicago while I have a few more months around Asia and more specifically India. So here I am back in Bangkok again sorting out the various visas I'll need over the next few weeks and trying to plan my exact route to India through Burma, Bangladesh and back. My travel companion for the Burmese portion is Johnny D'Arcy - a tall redhead from Cardiff, with an easy gait and an insatiable sense of humour. Sara and I first met Johnny in St Petersburg last June but it wasn't until we met again in Irkutsk and Ulaan Bataar that we got to know and love him. Sara will be relieved that I will have the company of someone like Darcy who never hurries through life, no matter how pressing the situation. In the past I have been guilty of rushing through many places but he is one who likes to stop and smell the roses. It's my intention take things slower over the next few months and from Darcy I hope to learn how to appreciate the simple things of travelling - a clear morning by still lake, a long walk through a mountain pass, friendly banter with a curious local.

Koh Sanh Road, Bangkok

BACK IN BANGKOK
I arrived in Bangkok a few days before Darcy and tried to busy myself with small errands and excursions but mostly I was unsure how to handle being on my own. Surely I had to put in more effort, talk to people, ask questions, mingle but instead I spent much time reading or listening to music in the privacy of my room. In many ways I felt like a first time traveler again, unsure how to make things happen and daunted by my surroundings. This is my eighth month on the road but it felt like starting over again. After four days in Bangkok Darcy arrived from Laos with his friend Dave. What a relief. He had tracked me down at my guesthouse, Chai's Guesthouse (150B a night ~US$4), and came by just as I was about to leave for breakfast. He looked just the same but for a large handle bar moustache which he had cultivated in Laos. "I'll have to shave it off before we go to Burma" he said "I like to assume a new identity each time I go to a new country". The three of us spent the day together before Dave had to catch his flight back to England that evening and since then Darcy and I have exchanged stories from our adventures over the past months and taking things nice and easy. By Friday I will have my Burmese and Indian visas and shortly after that we will be on our way to the golden land - Burma. I have been told that Internet access is in short supply in Burma but I will write about our adventures as often as I can.

A selfie from Chai's House

Chaopraya River

  Santichaiprakarn Park

 The Royal Palace

 Morning Tai Chi

Bangkok, Thailand to Georgetown, Malaysia

ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK
On our last night in Bangkok Sara was poorly. And this happened right after we had phoned our respective parents to say that all is well. In the two days since then everything has been fine, helped by various drugs including Cipro and Imodium and plenty of water. We both have suffered from upset stomachs at various times during the trip but Sara has been affected more recently, whereas I was ill in week two. My last serious incident in the Philippines could have been precipitated by 3 Pina Coladas and 15 assorted shots - it 'could' have been, I'm not convinced though.

ANOTHER OVERNIGHT TRAIN
At around noon today our train pulled into Butterworth in northern Malaysia, 22 hours after leaving Haulamphong Station in Bangkok. It sounds rough but the train ride was superb. Thai trains have loads of room, especially compared to the Chinese carriages, and we both slept very well after playing endless games of backgammon and playing hide and seek with a little Thai boy in a Spiderman outfit. The border crossing was very smooth and unlike the Eastern European system we had to leave the train with all of our luggage to pass through immigration and then return to our seats once the formalities were complete. Another new country for the both of us and for me an exciting one because my parents lived in Malaysia in the 1960s and both of my brothers have passed through in the last year or so.

Me by the Malaysian flag

 Sara looking poorly in Malaysia

PENANG
Georgetown, on the island of Penang, is just across the channel from Butterworth and that is where we are spending tonight but early tomorrow morning we catch a bus to the other side of the peninsular and a small town called Kota Bharu. It's not that we don't like Penang but we need to keep moving if we are to make our flight out of Bali in a few weeks time.