Ask any traveler what they remember about a country and invariably it’s their first impressions that remain the most vivid. Undoubtedly, this is due to a heightening of the senses. The smells, tastes, colors and language are all registered with a freshness, simply because they are foreign. Depending on the degree of the cultural shock, the traveler’s mouth can spend more time open than shut. Not in speech, but amazement. But, over time, the excitement wanes, those mental photo negatives be...

I was always taught that good judgment comes from experience and that experience comes from bad judgment. I therefore claim August in Bangkok as “Survivors Month”. It rains. Potential visitors are elsewhere chasing sun. Let’s be real. Bangkok is a Thai city with a few foreigners thrown in for flavor. Occasionally a few are thrown out when they’re out of favor, yet anyone who has ever been here, will know that its sentiments identify most with those who came here of their own volition, put ...

It’s all Uncle Mac’s fault. And it started on 1st February 1971. “Well, that’s it. I’m off”, he said to my father in a casual, laid-back way that suggested he was just popping out for a pint of ‘bourbon’. He then climbed into his Land Rover, checked that he had his sandwiches and a thermos of tea and set off for India. He reached Heart, Afghanistan, where he traded the vehicle for a horse and headed east. And he was never heard of again. A rumored sighting of him on the Great Wall of C...

“Yes we have apartmen’. You fine it top stair. Loom ereven”, she said. To me, the image of an ‘apartment’ has always conveyed comfort, income, decency. But as I headed along the dark corridors and up the dilapidated stairs, it reminded me of a tenement block in a Gothic horror movie. It was full of alien noises. Screams uttered in strange languages from behind shut doors competed with glasses smashed in anger and purpose. There were thumps, moans and bad stereos. Through an open do...

I received a birthday card from my younger sister Marliza last week. It was three months late, which is normal for her and the tasteful illustration pictured that gothic horror shop of England, the Bloody tower of London. On it she wrote, “Wish you were here.” She’s always been a woman of words; not many, but always meaningful. Speaking of words, I was leaning against the wall of smog the other day, nonchalantly filing my talons, when I realized how little of the Thai language I have truly...