What was the cause? Had the fellow been snoring solidly for eight hours and his sleeping partner just snapped? Had he fatefully mentioned the wrong girl’s name in his sleep? Or had he just decided to claim his conjugal rights from a drowsy partner and been rebuffed? Twenty-five solid minutes of female screaming suggests that either he could not get the message across, or that if he had won the argument, it wouldn’t have been worth the effort. And what about the famous loss of face that is supposedly so important to the oriental? If you have any suggestions, answers on a postcard; anonymity guaranteed if you are speaking from personal experience.

  After all these years in Asia, there are still things that amaze. For example, why is there only ever one loo roll in the room? Don’t they have ‘bogof’ here too?

  I was a few seconds too late to claim a prime site table in a restaurant when an Asian (but non-Lao) family of eight swept in to claim it. Fair enough, I thought: more income for the owner. Wrong. They felt no compunction about ordering a just a jug of water and proceeded to play cards (for money), taking no account of the wonderful river view, nor the owner’s livelihood. You can’t imagine Heston or the Roux Brothers taking a similar view if you turned with a scrabble board and a pack lunch.

  So, time to leave and head for the airport, but there’s a problem: no taxis, except for a moonlighting hearse that had just become free. I take a quick look in the mirror to see if I appear a bit peeky but, hell, you normally only get one chance to try one, so why not? To be fair it looks just like an elongated tuk-tuk with open sides and less than six feet long (the Lao are a short people). As we hurtled through town, I waved at the startled passers-by who were clearly more used to a more subdued send-off.

  ***

  There has been a step-change in tourism in Thailand over the last twenty years, speeding up over the last five, and for all I know the same is true elsewhere. It goes like this.

  This northeast part of Phuket, miles from the fleshpots of Patong further south, was once occupied by retired 50- and 60-year-old Swiss, Scandinavians, Germans and other assorted Europeans quietly whiling away their sunset years on sun loungers, followed by a modest cocktail and meal on the beach.

  One day, the management of the one major hotel realised his business model was unsustainable. The 60 year-olds of yore are now 80-year-olds, and declining in numbers each year as they fall off their perches, eating less, spending less, doing less, so he decided on a new model based on attracting the growth markets of Korea and Russia, stuffed with all those newly wealthy citizens taking over the world.

  And so it came to pass that all the beach restaurants have menus in Thai and Russian (English one on request) and they are now packed with groups, often eight or ten strong, ordering huge quantities of food for their families and friends, with only an odd European couple making do on two fried rice and a shared large beer. The Korean or Russian head honcho talks endlessly and at full pitch on his mobile phone securing some business deal back home which he will need to close in order to pay for the two litre-size bottles of Johnny Walker Black Label scotch he has brought with him to the table to wash down his lobster.

  So, what happened to the Europeans that haven’t died off and gone to heaven, I know not. No longer able to afford today’s prices on their dwindling assets? Certainly, native English speakers are now thin on the ground and many of those are probably expatriates from Singapore or Hong Kong; not many could contemplate bringing two or three kids over from the UK for a half-term week. Have they all moved upmarket to the Four Seasons and the like or down market to the atap-roofed huts beloved of hippies (and us) in ages past?

  Even the Chinese are beginning to make their mark, especially at Chinese New Year, and one thing for sure is that it is bringing the average age down because there are more family groups and younger couples rather than empty nesters so I am sure the shops and restaurants are benefiting.

  Any good news? Well, the sun loungers are still quite plentiful because Koreans seem uninterested in working up a tan. In fact, it is a mystery where they do go all day, keeping out of the sun. Probably inventing the next smartphone or tablet to hit the market and pay for next year’s holiday.

  P.S. for Valentines Night, just managed to set off a heart-shaped Chinese lantern heavenwards from our favourite beach restaurant not yet patronised by our new friends from the frozen North. Magic still.

  Just found the BBC World Service. Shouldn’t have bothered really. Riots, demonstrations and bloodshed in Baghdad, Tunis, Madrid, Colombo, Lisbon, on and on. Even militant Buddhist monks waging verbal war and ethnic strife a couple of hundred miles down the coast.

  So, what’s on the agenda here at 18:27 as the blood-red sun gives up its heat for the day and sinks into the Andaman Sea? Well, in exactly fifteen minutes all hell will break loose as it does every evening up in the casuarina trees that fringe the coast here, as, right on cue, the local cricket conductor rouses his choir into an ear-splitting chorus with full surround-sound. It’s the evening call to song, as regular as the competition’s call to prayer, also a feature of this part Muslim area of Thailand. But back to the choir: a solitary cicada, right on cue, strikes the first clear note and within a pico-second, the troops respond from their secret hiding places, carrying their collective chant in waves up and down the beach. As with the Chinese and Koreans, where do all these creatures get to all day? Perhaps they have heard of the Koreans’ and Chinese’ voracious appetite for unusual meals.

  It’s such a shame that so many visitors here deprive themselves of such free entertainment by refusing to remove their iPod earphones all day. Even taking time out for a restful massage does not discourage the young from continuing to fiddle with their smartphone, and for all I know, the same applies down at the tattoo parlour which, judging by the ubiquitous examples of their handiwork, must be extremely busy. Some clients are running out of space on the body to add new artwork, so perhaps it’s becoming a saturated market. The Tokyo gangster fraternity would feel quite at home here when the Aussie young hit town.

  I am sure I am repeating myself (at least I still know I am doing it) but we are once again going from 35 ˚C here to 35 ˚C at home, but sadly on different scales of course. We seem to have survived this time without an emergency visit to a hospital or dentist which makes a change, and the only inconvenience has been a plague of frogs in our room in Koh Lanta, which is at least an improvement on finding one in the bottom of my shoe two years ago. I don’t suppose it was much fun for the frog to see the sudden appearance of a large foot thrust into your temporary home.

  Bangkok remains much the same, lots of middle-aged dodgy-looking male European and Middle-Eastern diamond geezers hanging on the arms of their tottering totty, although to be fair, I did mishear when my wife said there was a new place full of hookers near our hotel, which turned out to be a coffee bar where the local Egyptian community go for a quiet hookah session.

  The only other excitement today, as I sat in the hotel lobby, was the sudden appearance from heaven above of what I took to be a suicidal terrorist wearing what appeared at first glance to be a dynamite belt around his waist plus other assorted paraphernalia including a sort of skateboard contraption. It turned out to be a window cleaner lowering himself on ropes from the upper stories, but you have to be cautious these days; better than assuming a terrorist is just a window cleaner surely?

  It really is easier to become five-a-day person (fruit/veg, not large Singha beers) in Asia, the only place in the world I seem to be able to manage it with such a wonderful choice of fruits: papaya, pineapple, jackfruit, mangosteen, coconut, rambutan and the king of tropical fruit the mango.

  Chapter 19

  Croatia

  The boatman on the island of Krk (not a spelling mistake –see below) asks us if we would like to come and sink on his boat. This does not seem like a very promising sales technique, until we realise he means come and think on his boat, obviously a man who recognises a fellow intellectual.

  But beware a Croatian carrying a Scrabble set under his arm offering you a game, especially on the island of Krk; you will lose. Seemingly, every word in Croat includes at least one, sometimes two Zs and few if any vowels. Consequently, a Z tile is only worth one point, but any vowel 10 points. I wonder if Scrabble sets are country-specific.

  The northern part of Croatia is less visited than Dubrovnik in the south, but no less interesting for that, and, at least in June, not yet overrun by northern European visitors in the tradition of the Romans, Venetians, Austria-Hungarians etc.

  A brief stop on the island of Illovik, population 200 and away from it all, but can you be too far away from it all? Yes, probably, when the winds sometimes reach 150 mph in the winter months.

  Peaceful lunch on the quay, despite the threat of a party of 200 photographers, according to our host. It turned out to be one photographer taking about 200 photographs. Lost in translation – again.

  Too much of a good thing? The Croatian Riviera at 39 C, too much even for me who loves all things Vindaloo but there is a limit. Bring back 17 C, all is forgiven.

  Chapter 20

  Black Sea

  Not big on cruises myself, but to see a sea, you need something seaworthy, so here we go.

  Already familiar with lots of Georgias (the American state, granddaughter, etc.), here’s one more: the republic of Georgia to add to the list. The trip is scheduled to include stops in Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine as well as Georgia and a trip to Yalta, long associated with Churchill’s visit in 1945, so it seems fitting that Churchill College my (alma mater) should be represented on this Cambridge alumni cruise. It’s almost fifty years since I drove across Europe to Istanbul in 1964 to be met at the border by a welcome from the Turkish army mobilised to attack Greece over the Cyprus issue. This time troops were confined to barracks but there were certainly a lot more people in Istanbul than before, currently over twenty million, most of whom seemed to be walking the streets or filling the bazaars. Yet there were still enough locals available to create all-day monster traffic jams on the roads.

  There is still the odd picturesque water-seller to be seen handing out chained metal cups to thirsty pedestrians, as well as overzealous merchants using every trick in the book to part the customer from his or her money, and convince you that his wares are superior to the identical items next door.

  However, Istanbul is merely the point of departure for an exploration of the Black Sea just twenty miles north and east, so we pick up our small ship and head east for 500 miles to the far eastern end of Turkey bordering the republic of Georgia and the port of Trabazon. Apart from the production of tea (third largest producer in the world) and hazelnuts (seventy percent of world production), the town’s main claim to fame today is the UNESCO site of the Sumela monastery, built in 384AD and perched precariously half way up a mountain, difficult to reach on foot but worth the climb, just to see the 14th and 17th century frescoes. Whatever doubts I had about the climb were dispelled when I found a fellow traveller with only one real leg had made the climb while I still have the benefit of two. Many of the frescoes are sadly defaced with ‘Mustafa woz here in 1987’ etc., a global practice it seems.

  ***

  ‘Into the valley of death’, not to be confused with Death Valley, of course. The peninsula of the Crimea was a Russian satellite until 1991 (ED: but is now an autonomous part of the Ukraine) and is probably most famous for three things:

  hosting the 1945 Yalta conference

  the charge of the light brigade in Sevastopol

  and being the base of the Russian navy in Balaklava

  It seemed fitting to be following in Winston’s footsteps, and therefore to be invited by the Oxford and Cambridge Alumni group to lay a wreath at the Monument Stone of Reconciliation set up on the battlefield some years after the end of the Crimean war, and probably visited by Sir Winston during his visit. Three men dressed as soldiers in period Russian uniform stood one side, an English and French soldier in uniform on the other.

  It was salutary to stand, as Lord Raglan once did on June 18th 1854 above the Balaklava valley where several hundred (probably less than Tennyson’s 600) of England’s finest were mown down in just fifteen minutes. It is recorded that Lord Raglan disclaimed any responsibility for the disaster, and immediately retired to eat dinner and drink champagne. The battlefield has now been sown with extensive vineyards which thrive unsurprisingly.

  No visit to the Crimea would be complete without a visit to the site of the Yalta conference itself, when the three world leaders met to discuss the post-war reconstruction of Europe. I do not know how many old Churchill College alumni have visited the site, but I felt moved to be there, where there were so many references to yEPUNnnR (a poor attempt to translate Churchill’s name into Cyrillic as it was written in Yalta. It was doubly moving as the site had been the summer home of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, with many mementos of this tragic family, in particular a moving photo of the four daughters in profile.

  Before we left the Crimean Peninsula for Odessa, we spent a fascinating afternoon exploring the underground tunnels dug into the foothills of the Balaklava Mountains to provide access for Russian WWII submarines to return for maintenance and fitting of warheads. Certain design precautions were deemed essential for such a site (only open to the public since 2003): maximum protection from a nuclear explosion outside, and from catastrophic mistakes (nuclear or other) inside. All specialist staff were sworn to secrecy (even from employees’ families) on pain of death, and all the specialists were required to talk through their actions one by one to a dedicated ‘minder’ to provide an ‘audit trail’. Subs would sneak into the lake (invisible to ships passing along the coast) and enter the underground canals where staff worked on them (without electricity and therefore without electric light for safety reasons) in claustrophobic working conditions.

  ***

  Odessa to the northwest of Crimea is a relatively new (1794) city established by Catherine the Great, a city whose main claim to fame seems to be the incident in 1905 when troops fired on civilians when the mutinous crew of the battleship Potemkin rebelled against their Tsarist regime officers over food hygiene. Consequently, the city features numerous war memorials and indeed is currently awash with modern-day Russian sailors on shore leave. The architecture is grand in the French style, built on a grid pattern and featuring many fine tree-lined avenues, paths, parks, orthodox churches and a grandiose opera-house built in the 1880s along the lines of the Opera in Paris. An evening of ballet enabled us to fully appreciate the rococo gold and red luxury of the internal decoration as well as the performance, of course.

  ***

  The last stop before returning to Istanbul lies in Bulgaria at the ancient peninsular (again!) of Nessebur, founded in the sixth century by the Greeks (again!). All these Black Sea bordering countries seem to ‘change hands’ every few centuries, and Bulgaria is no exception: Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Russians, Germans, with the odd brief periods of independence in between.

  Its claim as a UNESCO World Heritage Site is based on its remarkable forty odd churches built from the 5th to the 16th century, all set in cobbled streets and old wooden houses, plus a corresponding volume of tourist tat outlets it must be said.

  Chapter 21

  London, England

  Notes from a small island.

  I just wanted to say that I am often accused of seeking out lesser known remote spots around the world while failing to explore the country of my birth and the country in which, to a certain extent, I reside. In any event, the terms remote or exotic or far-flung are all geography and society dependent: the average sea-Dayak ex-headhunter up the Skrang River in Sarawak would no doubt find South Ken as pretty far-flung and possibly exotic.

  With this in mind, I felt it was important to refute this accusation by confirming that my wife and I recently made a journey to West London, Ken South to be precise, in search of a first floor flat in this expensive part of the city which was flying the flag of Venice for reasons to be explained if you will be patient.

  The journey itself was uneventful as we encountered neither highwaymen nor unsolicited car-screen washermen, but the purpose of the visit was to find a spot where we could wax lyrical about the remote corners of the world without risk of boring the listener or, worse, just trying to get one up on the listener by relaying our experience of, say, Outer Mongolia, because there was every chance that he had, him or herself, already been there.

  To explain, this was a biannual meeting of the UK chapter of the TCC – Travelers Century Club (US-based, so one letter L in ‘traveler’ before you get picky). As the name implies, TCC members all have claimed to have visited at least 100 counties worldwide, in most cases many more. Naturally, it was always going to be unlikely that all members would be present at any point in time or they would not be world-travellers, but about twenty-five did make it from all parts of the UK together with a couple from the Czech Republic, perhaps because attending the Prague meeting would not involve travelling.

  Our hosts, a gregarious couple of Canadian London residents (resident if the sense that they come back to their flat in London to occasionally change the flag hanging from the balcony before heading off to all points west (or east) again.

  As you might now have guessed, Venice tops their lengthy list of best cities in the world in the view of our hosts; hence, the Venetian flag.

  And so, as we enjoyed an exotic range of wines from the Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and various countries we never knew even produced wine, we indulged in conversations about Andorra to Zanzibar and all point in between, without fear of social embarrassment, because these twenty-five people had between them covered almost every country in the world in their lifetimes, including the latest one: South Sudan.