Crossing roads

Walking around Chiang Mai is a little disconcerting at first. It seems that Thais seldom walk more than a block or two. The place is saturated with songthaws (go anywhere for 20 bhat), and the picturesque three-wheeler tuk-tuks (the haggling is as much fun as the journey). Motorcycles can be hired for as little as 80 bhat per day. Street pavements are cluttered with anything from pot plants and vendor stalls to sleeping dogs. Most streets are one-way. To cross them is an extreme sport - even at those with their own traffic lights.

I came to one on a busy three-lane street, pushed the button, waited patiently for the lights facing traffic to turn orange then red (which they did), and then for the one facing me to turn green (which it did - showing 13 seconds to make the crossing), and then... nothing happened. They ignored the red. A Thai couple approached from the other side, pressed the button and the traffic stopped to let them cross. Que? I tried again but instead of waiting on the pavement when the lights changed - 13 seconds, 12, 11, 10... I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a moment and walked across. They stopped.

I turned right after Thapae Gate, and walked past massage parlours, agencies for tours and motorbike rentals... until I got to a quaint general-dealer store and a market selling fish, fruit and vegetables. Once through that I entered what some call the guest house ghetto. It's a network of narrow lanes where houses have been converted into hostels or guest houses for backpackers. There are laundries and back-yard workshops. Some of the restaurants double up as Thai cookery schools. Some are not much more than a kitchen in a tin shack with a couple of plastic tables and chairs out on the road. I liked the atmosphere. I ignored the hostels, I needed solitude for writing. Most other places rented out basic rooms, some very cheap but then either the place or the staff lacked character.

I was thinking about crossing roads and traffic lights and London. We wouldn't dream of going through a red light, even if it was four in the morning and quite obviously safe to do so. It would be an automatic fine, with proof of offence being a photo from an automatic camera. We are ruled by an uncompromising system of law - policed and punished by machines - ever more automated - increasingly automatons - discretion discouraged... I'm ranting aren't I?

A laundry was set a little back from the road. A round table and two benches under a broad canvas umbrella at its entrance. A small Buddhist house shrine was garlanded with fresh flowers, a cup of tea and burning incense at it's doorway, "Lawan house" on a large sign and "rooms to let" chalked onto a board. Lawan greeted me with a Thai wai (more about them later) and one of those famous Thai smiles which sweep the shadows from my thoughts. She had four rooms. She showed me all of them. I told her which one I liked most. She looked at me sceptically as though I had made a mistake. If I was to leave Parami it would be in two days time. I was undecided. I told her I liked the place but still wanted to look at more before making up my mind. Some had better rooms and were even cheaper, but none merged with my character as seamlessly has hers had done. It was an hour later when I returned.

"I've made up my mind. I'd like to stay here from the day after tomorrow."

"Kaa. I know." she said with a serene smile, as though I had already booked in.

"I'd better tell you my name."

"It's Dominic," she said "I'll be waiting for you."

I must have told her. The worse my memory gets the more mysterious my life becomes.

Drifting away

I was lucky enough to sit next to a real Thai woman on the flight to Bangkok. I liked her attitude. She was delicately respectful, yet without undue deference. She was spontaneously amused and amusing. She was particularly courteous to the cabin crew when they served her. She used both hands to receive things from them, even though one would have been easier. They in turn treated her with noticeably more respect than the rest of us. You get what you give. It reminded me of the Zulus back in South Africa. They have a similar custom of receiving with both hands - to show they don't have a knife to stab you with in the other.

A vicious head-cold attacked me without any warning. It was to be a battle lasting a week. I reluctantly turned my back to her to prevent collateral damage.

I took my dribbling nose and pockets full of tissues on a metered taxi ride from Chiang Mai Airport to Parami Guest House. We skirted the western and northern moats of the old city, crossed the Ping river and arrived - 75 bhat (£1 = 50) for what I had already noticed was an unusually grand form of public transport, the driver ecstatic with a 10 bhat tip. I was welcomed by Roger and his wife Ari. I'd guess they're both in their thirties. He's Swiss, originally from Zurich and she's Thai. Is there a better combination for the hospitality business?

Parami is remote from the clusters of guest houses, hotels, tourist bars and expat hang-outs. It was what I wanted. I wanted to be amongst the Thais, where they live and eat and shop, where they are the customers. I could cross the Ping at a pedestrian bridge directly into the corner of Warorrot Market where fruit and flowers are sold. It's the Chinese market of Chiang Mai. It's a labyrinth. They sell everything. Few tourists venture into it. Beyond is the Night Bazaar surrounded by big hotels, Starbucks, Burger King, Pizza Hut, McDonalds and restaurants where Thai food is adjusted to Western palates. Everything sold in the Night Bazaar is bought in Warorrot and resold at a higher price. And then there's the eastern entrance to the old city through Thapae gate. The old city, surrounded by the bustling, modern city is surprisingly tranquil, almost rural in atmosphere. With dribbling nose and aching sinuses I wasn't enjoying myself, but I'm always curious. I did a lot of walking and while my consciousness was mostly concerned with finding more tissues, the other side of my brain was looking and looking, and doing it's own obscure uncontrolled kind of thinking. Then it made a weird move and I came close to panic.

I was lying on my bed, dozing off when I felt myself drifting away. I've had a similar feeling when I was very young - a kind of transcendental meditation - the sense that my consciousness had separated from my body. This was similar but not the same. My consciousness - my identity was not only drifting away - it was leaving. I grabbed for it like one would grab for the leash of a dog as it tried to slink out the door and into the night. While I hung on I was wondering what would happen if I really did let go. What would leave? My sanity? What would remain? A part of my brain was trying to evict the concept I had of myself, the conclusions from every triumph and every tragedy, all my unhealed wounds, all my obsessions and hang-ups. I couldn't let them go! Why? Because that is how I define myself. How else could I? And... and I need them to finish the bloody book. That's what it's all about. I tightened the leash and it returned reluctantly. I felt a strange sensation that I should have let go while the door was open.

I did something after that which in retrospect had a connection. I put my tent, sleeping bag, coat, jacket and jersey into the suitcase and donated it to the guest house staff. The battle with my cold was over and I wandered off into the old city.

Silent lies

I visited my old hostel two days after returning to Edinburgh - the one which for three years had been my base in Europe - the one where the owner had banned me. It's a long story and short one. His manageress had joined me on the island of Mykonos for a 10-day holiday. That must have had something to do with it. I walked up to the counter and heard her voice. She was speaking on the phone. I didn't call out. I didn't need to. She could see me on the CCTV monitor. That's what it's there for. The camera stared at me. Her voice became agitated, impatient— The owner emerged.

"Hi. I don't know if you're still keeping my post, but I'm here to collect it if you are."

"Yes. We have some of it," he said and went back inside.

"Thanks. I'll change my postal address as soon as I find a new place to stay," I said it through the doorway. She would have heard my voice.

Her call must have ended. She was silent. He returned with a small pile of letters, far less than usual, and went back inside without another word. The letters had been hastily collected. I was later to discover wrapping paper, a postcard to him, and his motorcycle insurance policy (I threw them away). I spent another second or two straightening the pile and listening to the silence back in the office, long enough for her spontaneous emergence, should it occur. It didn't. I turned around and left with a small expectation that she would follow. She didn't.

I reread her last email. I had dismissed it as soap-opera, expecting to resolve it when next I saw her. Yes, there it was - she didn't "hate anyone on principle." It implied she should hate me. I had had a feeling of some closure, but the previously ignored implication weighed a wordless sadness into my gut. I got to thinking of how people believe what they want to believe, or what they need to believe. Almost everything in that letter is a response, not to things I had said but, to what he claims I did... and to whatever speculation ensued. Who knows?

Truth exists only at the moment it occurs. Even then it's uniquely filtered by the perception of the observer. Thereafter it's transported via motives of recall into something quite distant; a lie constructed then consolidated by repetition. It's the lie which is most adamantly defended. It's the lie which is preserved. It is lies which become what we call reality.

Distortions like his are spoken lies. Truths unspoken are lies of silence like hers. When hearing something which alters our opinion of a friend - it's a lie of silence if we don't confirm it. When we know of something which will be to their detriment and don't tell them - that is a lie of silence. When we could help them to understand our situation and don't - that too is a silent lie. Each one is a betrayal of precious friendship, until there is nothing but a shell drained of truth and filled with a poisonous fiction.

That's the short story. There's a long one too. Too long to end like that, too long for me to remain. I was trying to be a writer. The only way I knew how to write a story was to live it. It was time to start a new one.

The red-shirt protests were getting ugly in Thailand. Governments were advising their citizens not to go there. The air-tickets would be cheap. The cheapest flight was via Lufthansa believe it or not. I booked for the Friday evening. Edinburg to Frankfurt, then to Bangkok, then to Chiang Mai. It's in the north-western corner of Thailand, west of Laos and south and east of Burma. Apparently it's mountainous, beautiful and very cheap.