Letter from Thailand 1990

Rock on the Island of Phuket
 

Without the hassle of street vendors, the crowded trains and the Indian food, things could only get better for us in Thailand ?

 A grand hotel with a grand bathroom suite for accommodation was a good start for my partner in the city of Bangkok. There was plenty of sea food to eat, gallons of beer to drink and whilst we were in the land of durian fruit producer we had the taste of the most smelly fruit on the planet (in Thailand it is illegal to bring the fruit durian on to any public transport because of the smell). Though the smell is foul it is regarded by the Thai people as truly the king of fruits and the taste is heavenly, provided the fruit is eaten without any alcohol!! I loved the taste of durian it was certainly beautiful fruit to eat but my partner managed to get a pint of beer down after a slice of durian and fell sick and wondered what he had done to deserve that?

 

Having spent few days in Bangkok to admire all the Buddhist Temples, we headed West of Thailand to Kanchanaburi to see the sight where the movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai” was filmed, a pilgrimage sight for lots of British and American who fought in the Second World War.

 

 From the West we headed towards the South of Thailand to the seaside resort of Phuket. Here we stayed in a very simple beach hut with a shower room made for tourists like us. There were body masseur on the beach, lots of coconuts to drink on the beach and since we loved cricket we managed to organise our own beach cricket game to play.  

 

 

 

Oblivious of the seedy life of Thailand ( sex trade of all sorts) we left this paradise behind to come home via Moscow where an unexpected bonus was added to the end of our journey.... we were allowed to roam the city’s Red Square for 5 hours in the freezing cold winter of October 1990.