The Beach

Koh Chang to Singapore

MONDAY: Wake at sunrise. Open my bedroom door. Step out on to the beach. Lie in the sun. Swim in the sea. Drink at the bar. Watch the sunset. Eat under the palm trees. Go to sleep.

TUESDAY: Wake at sunrise. Open my bedroom door. Step out on to the beach... you get the idea!

One of the things I definitely wanted to do during my time in Thailand was visit one of those idyllic, picture postcard islands that I'd read about and seen in movies. Only trouble was, I couldn't decide which one to go to because everyone I spoke to about them had good things to say about them all.

Koh Samui? - Original backpackers paradise, now much more tourist-centred?
Koh Pha Ngan? - Full moon party every month… unsurprisingly?
Koh Phi Phi? - where 'The Beach' was filmed?
Koh Tao? - Tiny, remote outpost with excellent diving opportunities - rumoured to be favoured by most Rangers players???

Eventually I said to myself, "Phuket! I'm gonna go to Koh Chang" so I slung on my backpack and headed for the beach.

Throughout my month in Asia, I've wrestled with the issue of whether I'm a tourist or a traveller on this trip. I've got a backpack but does that make me a backpacker? I don't seem to have many of the trappings of other 'travellers' I see around me.

No dreadlocks, no shaven head, no scrawny beard, no bandana, no piercings, no (new) tattoos, no fake Diesel t-shirt, no decent sandals, no sarong, no flappy linen trousers and no Lonely Planet guidebook - can't stand them, I'm a 'Rough Guide' kinda guy.

Instead I've got nice comfortable gutties (sneakers for you Americans), too many socks, a floppy golf hat, a Celtic strip, a blue Brazil strip (to annoy the England fans cause let's face it, a Scotland strip isn't gonna do it), baby wet wipes from Boots (greatest invention of the modern age) and a bright green, rain poncho from Universal Studios with Fred Flintstone on the back and yeah, okay, I lied about the scrawny beard!

I arranged all my travel and some of my accommodation throughout Thailand and Cambodia through a travel agency in Bangkok and came away with a heavy sense of guilt that I wasn't exactly winging it or enduring long, arduous, overland journeys interspersed with hectic border crossings and the bribery of customs officials. I even flew to Koh Chang, or to be more accurate, to Trat on the mainland which has the prettiest airport in the world - two large bamboo huts set in perfectly landscaped surroundings, one for arrivals and one for departures.

But now, after a week or so of doing not very much at all, I couldn't really care less what category of traveller I fall in to. It's my party and I'll fly if I want to (NOT this week's song lyric) and after reflecting on the quality of some of the roads I saw in Cambodia, I'm very, very happy not to have spent 12 to 14 hours on the back of a bus/truck/donkey in the baking sun.

Koh Chang is Thailand's second largest island (after Phuket), about 25 miles long and eight miles wide and it's absolutely gorgeous. One main road winds round almost all of the shoreline and the centre is made up of towering, rain forest covered mountains. It's one of those places where you expect to see Ursula Andress (or Halle Berry for you youngsters) emerge mermaid-like from the surf and strut confidently on to the pristine white, sandy beach. I'm pleased to report that every night, she does!

"Nighsh to shee you," I call out, suavely, from the mango trees but then I wake up before she can reply.

There's one or two up market, 'resort' type hotels sprouting up here but in the main, accommodation is predominantly of the beach hut/bungalow variety. It's basic but more than adequate. Every night, I fight a running battle with the mosquitoes in the bathroom, me wielding the shower head like it's a lightsaber, and every night I hear the slightly disturbing, shrill cackle of a creature that lives in my roof. I'm sure it must be one of the little gecko lizards you see running around everywhere but to me, it sounds like a velociraptor!

Next door to me, lives a 62 year old Australian who, for the purposes of this story we'll call Jim, because that's his name. This man can swear to Olympic standard but curiously it doesn't sound offensive when he does it, just very colourful. Still, the following is sanitised for those of you with Big Brother IT departments at your place of work.

He tells me that he's going back to Bangkok for "a bitta business" at the end of the week but before that, he's going to have a couple of nights in Pattaya for "a separate bitta business, if you know what I mean, mate?"

I tell him that I don't (even though I do) and he goes on to explain that there's "50,000 f#cking prostitutes in a f#cking 10km square radius, mate!" This number seems awfully high to me as I quickly try and calculate a myriad of trivial statistics. How many to the square metre? How many can you get in a phone box if there's a phone box every ten metres? How many can you get in a Mini if there's two nuns in the front?... that kind of thing.

He asks me if I've been to, or am planning to go to, Pattaya and is dumbstruck when I tell him that I haven't/am not. I just know it's the kind of place where years of dormant, Scottish Presbyterianism would resurface and I'd be hopelessly out of my depth. Picture the scene, I'm sitting at a local roadside restaurant in Pattaya and get approached by a smiling, eager woman.

Woman: "Hey Mista, you wanna fock?"
Neil: "No thanks. I'd really like to try and master these chopsticks."

See, hopeless.

Jim is invaluable though when I ask his advice about whether I should consider signing up for one of the local cruise, snorkelling, diving packages.

"F#ck that mate! F#cking friend 'o mine wasted his f#cking money on one of those f#cking trips last year. No f#cking fish mate! They f#cking dynamited the f#ck out of this place f#cking years ago!" Informative, educational and to the point.

Instead, I rent a motorcycle and am immediately transported back to Ibiza 1984, the last time I drove one. It's the same exhilarating feeling - no helmet, no insurance and no long trousers to protect my legs from the scorching exhaust pipes... and sadly, no pal Doug (greatest drummer in the world) riding on the back asking me when its going to be his turn to drive every 2 miles. As I pull away from the rental place, the "Easy Rider" soundtrack is pulsating in my head. 5, 6, 10 miles an hour and I'm gone baby, a blur of green in my spanking new, fake Diesel t-shirt. Nothing between me and the Swiss border but 1,000 German troops and a big f#cking wire fence mate, as Jim would say.

It's amazing to me how much time you can spend here doing absolutely nothing except enjoying simple things. I've been on beaches before but have always been restless to do something different every ten minutes. The other night, I sat on the beach for two hours watching the tide roll away, watching the sunset change to twilight and then change to stars and moonlight... two hours... in exactly the same spot... in exactly the same position... just staring... and I'm only smoking Marlboro Lights, mum!

But here's the thing. I'd strongly urge you all to come to a place like this before it gets over commercialised with McDonalds or Starbucks (much as I love Starbucks) but when you do come, come with someone you know. Could be a best friend or a family member or a partner but ideally it should be with someone you love. Take it from me, to experience this beauty, this peacefulness, this level of relaxation and not have someone to share it with is a crime.

Anyway, I left Koh Chang at the weekend and have spent the last three nights on the small island state of Singapore. Singapore reminds me a bit of Hong Kong and Bangkok but there's more affluence, more humidity (it's very close to the equator) and more trees and greenery than I've ever seen in any big city. It's clean, safe and the shopping opportunities appear to be endless - Gucci, Prada, Top Shop, they're all here. They have some strange laws though that attract big fines if broken such as no jaywalking and no chewing gum and God help you if you leave a public toilet unflushed... although I haven't worked out how they enforce that one!

I've been staying in a dormitory style hostel for 6 quid a night, my first experience of such a place since the second year Latin trip at High School (year withheld to protect the old). Like then, it has creaky bunk beds, the lingering, stale aroma of sweaty feet and some world class snorers. These people really are so inconsiderate!

And tonight I fly to Australia, Perth to be exact, to discover another new continent for the first time. Asia, even the very little that I've seen of it, has been fascinating. It can assault all of your senses, overwhelmingly so at times, and is an extreme contrast of the old and the new. Happily, the most consistent aspect of it though has been the friendliness, politeness, humour and level of service of the people I've encountered. Some, especially the taxi drivers in Cambodia, can't seem to do enough for you and offer two or three extra services in addition to just transportation.

"You want nice smoke? Nice girl? Go to shooting range?" I presume he's inviting me to his ranch to meet his sister and share a Hamlet, no?

My favourite though, is one of the kids I met at Angkor, a little girl selling 10 postcards for a dollar. After asking my name and where I come from she meticulously lists the capital, main cities and population count of Scotland. I'm so charmed and impressed that I generously hand over the dollar without a hint of bargaining and tell her that she's very sweet. Just as I'm climbing back into my motorised rickshaw, she runs after me and gives me a little pen drawing of a house and flowers that she's sketched herself. Now for all I know, she's running off 100 of these an hour on her colour photocopier back home but all the same, I was very touched.

Anyway, before I cross that fine line that separates Santa Claus from Michael Jackson, I'll say bye-bye for now. Till next time.

Love, Neil x