Wok This Way: Thai and Malaysian Food

Malaysian food and Thai food. Which words do these cuisines justice? Probably: "Om nom nom nommm." Are they actually words? I don't know. But they're certainly the sounds I make when I have a mouthful of either. In my opinion, these are two of the best cuisines on the planet. I'm aware I say this about quite a few gastronomical traditions and this makes me a culinary tease, but what can I say? I can't pick just one for the top spot; I adore several equally and I love making foodie calls to whichever one will be most pleasing at any given dining moment.

While a debate about which of the world's cuisines is the best and why would make for a wholly thrilling, fascinating and spirited afternoon (cough *geek!*), all I'll say for now is that Thai and Malaysian are up there in the top ten, perhaps even in the top five. We all know about Thai food. It's a common part of our own culture now even if this means that unauthentic, bastardised dishes masquerading themselves as "Thai" are the norm on many British menus. Malaysian food hasn't quite reached the same heights of fame yet which to me is a good thing - the day a processed Laksa goes the same way as a Thai curry and finds itself on every pub menu, the food world as we know it is over and we should just give up on life. Even as I write those words, Imran rolls his eyes in a "Could you be any more melodramatic or OTT?" way but he simply doesn't get it. The obsessive foodies out there do. 

Our plan, when we went to Malaysia and Thailand, was to hit the street food stalls like a chavvy chick hits the bottle of fake tan. Try every single dish on the long list we'd brought along with us and chow down until we had no teeth left. How did we get on? Our food adventure starts here.

Malaysia: The Big O Bowl

Malaysian people love food. They especially love their own food. Who can blame them? Having been all around south east Asia by the time we reached Malaysia, we noticed a stark contrast in the size of the people here compared to the other countries. Still, they're doing pretty well; if I lived in Malaysia I'd be a roly poly. I'd never leave the kitchen and be a 'roll' model to my children. Hahaha.

I love their passion about their cuisine. Do you know how much I love it? I went for a facial at our hotel in Kuala Lumpur one day and the lady had just had her lunch. She'd obviously been eating with her fingers because all I could smell were spices, onions and fried bread being rubbed all over my mug. Instead of getting peeved, I found it absolutely hysterical and we had a great chat about what food she liked to eat for the next hour. I ran back to our room rubbing my face all over Imran crying, "My face smells of curry! Come and enjoy my yum yum Malaysian food face!" (He didn't seem to muster up quite the same enthusiasm.)

They say some foods are better than sex. I've always disagreed with that one. But then I ate laksa... now I kinda understand where the phrase comes from. What is laksa? It's an orgasm in a bowl. And I'm only half joking. We haven't had 'Fun Fact' time for a while, have we? Let's get it out of the way now so that we can go back to the bowlful of euphoria as soon as possible.

To understand this gastronomical paradise, you should understand the make-up of the population. As you know, there are three main groups in Malaysia: Malays, Chinese and Indians. While you can find the original food of each of these groups in abundance separately, what makes 'Malaysian cuisine' unique is the merging of them all to create new dishes. The fusion of cultures has led to a fusion of three intense cuisines and the results are pretty phenomenal. The Malays had the local ingredients: aromatics such as lemongrass and galangal, and pungent seasonings like shrimp paste. The Indians brought the spices: the cumin and the turmeric; the Chinese brought the advanced cooking styles: bamboo steamers and woks. Can you imagine the exciting results such a mix produces? Each took influence from the other and now, in the modern day, you have things you'd never find in the original respective countries: Indian noodles, Malaysian sweet and sour sauces and Nyonya/Peranakan food.

Aah, the incredible Nyonya cuisine. The early Chinese settlers - Straits Chinese - in the 15th and 16th centuries bumped uglies with and married the indigenous Malays, creating a distinctive ethnic group and fare to match. It differs from the Chinese-influenced cuisine of the modern day because the Straits Chinese had no access to their homegrown ingredients in those early years of non-refrigeration and little importation, and, being introduced to the local produce available in Malaysia, had to use them to try to make dishes as similar as possible to those they knew from home. Instead they just came up with a whole batch of new ones.

So what are the most famous Malaysian dishes you might know? Beef rendang, laksa and satay. Although Malaysia and Thailand both try to claim satay as their own, it's actually originally an Indonesian invention. However, I think the Malaysians do it best out of all three so, to that end, I'm calling it Malaysian in this post. We obviously wanted to try all of these with the two main types of laksa being top of the list: curry laksa and Assam laksa (the Nyonya version.) Our full list was far more comprehensive, however, with the consumption of the following dishes being a condition to being allowed to leave the country.

Rojak: a popular snack of fruit covered in a sauce made from shrimp paste and topped with ground peanuts. Sometimes there's powdered prawn paste sprinkled on top, too. The sauce is thick, gloopy, very sweet and very fishy. While we're ok with mixing fruity and seafood flavours in a balanced and subtle dish, rojak is a punch in the face. Definitely an acquired taste and not a dish we wanted a second time to try and attempt to acquire that taste.

Curry laksa: a seriously hot and spicy broth made with coconut milk, full to the brim with squidgy fried tofu puffs, crunchy beansprouts, soft rice noodles, and fresh herbs. We took local advice to ignore the street food stalls and eat this from a random cart in the corner of an alleyway selling nothing else. Wow. So delicious I think it's a top contender for my Death Row meal. You don't even notice that the spiciness is making you sweat because you're on a merry-go-round of flavour and texture. There's the creamy, rich coconut milk quickly filling you up but you ignore the signals; the slippery noodles struggling to fit in your mouth, so velvety that you barely chew; the tofu puffs which have soaked up the liquid and burst a river of lemongrass, chilli, garlic and ginger on your tongue; the vibrant and fresh mint and coriander. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. PLEASE text me right now and tell me which day you're coming over to my place and that you'd like to eat laksa. I need any excuse to make this as often as possible.

Nasi lemak: a bit of a mish mash of a dish and one that relies on excellent quality ingredients to be good. It's rice and curry - any curry at all - served always on a pandan leaf with the accompaniments of cucumber slices, peanuts, a boiled egg, ikan bilis (small fried anchovies) and sambal, the spicy condiment that is the Malaysian version of ketchup, made mostly from chillies, shrimp paste and garlic. Nasi lemak isn't often eaten in the evenings so we didn't have it at the street food markets; sadly, eating it in cafes during the day meant we didn't get a very nice version of this anywhere. Reheated curry slops and microwaved rice more often than not, with stale accompaniments.

Sambal: see above. It's a great condiment but the locals add other ingredients like vinegars and citrus to create a marinade/sauce for dishes that stand alone: our favourite was steamed sambal Red Snapper which we ate everyday in Borneo.

Nasi kandar: the Indian version of Nasi Lemak. Rice with a load of different curries dolloped on the side. Our reason to go to Little India in every city with, as you'll read later, varying results.

Roti canai: One of Malaysia's most popular breakfasts and based on the Indian fried bread, paratha. The dough is put on a grill and lifted and slapped back on it with extreme speed to stretch it. It's really thin but the layers are folded on top of one another to create a fluffy mini mattress for your curry. It's crispy and buttery and gloriously satisfying in a way that only fried bread can be.

Char kway teow: a hawker stall staple. Simple, quick and traditionally fattening as hell as it was the food for labourers. Flat rice noodles are stir-fried in pork fat with soy sauce, shrimp paste (belachan), bean sprouts and chives, and served with pork lardons. These days it's generally made with vegetable oil and served with prawns as, despite the Chinese origin of the dish, Malaysia is a Muslim country and the peeps don't dig on swine. Tourists seem to go crazy for this dish, especially in Penang where it's most famous. Here they add egg to the dish too. It's... fine. It's nice. It's a noodle version of egg fried rice, to be frank. Understandable, then, why it's friendly on the tourist palate but not overly exciting.

Durian: In the health circles it's called the king of fruits. It's huge, distinctive in its thorn-covered exterior and yields an inner fruit that is plump, meaty and so, so very good for you. What makes this fruit famous though is the smell. It stinks to high heaven. The odour is bad enough to ensure prohibitions against bringing the open fruit onto public transport or into hotels and other public places. Here's the problem: we never managed to find someone who would cut it open just for us to smell. I guess it's not cheap. We found ones with just a slit in the skin and the whiff wasn't bad at all, so either we didn't find the scent particularly offensive or it needs to be completely open to fully hit you. We had it mixed into smoothies and it was rich and creamy - very custardy - but nothing that made us want to jump up and down and do the running man. I have a feeling we didn't get the best of the stuff. This is one I need to try again in the future properly before I make a final assessment.

Nyonya pineapple tart: exactly what it says on the tin. It's a European-style tart with a fruit filling so I can only imagine the 'Nyonya' in the description refers to the use of a sunshine fruit. It's the Pussycat Dolls version of a standard European lemon tart: Dontcha wish your tart was tropical like me? Imran ate a whole box of these mini tarts in Melaka. An entire box. And he doesn't even have a sweet tooth. And he said I was only allowed one from a box of twelve. Addictive, much?

In Kuala Lumpur, we pitched ourselves close to the night time street food markets. Here we ate grilled stingray - first and last time because, as delicious as it was, it felt a bit wrong to be eating this particular fish after swimming with it in Indonesia and so I enjoyed it once and will forever have happy memories of it. In KL's Little India we had some badass Papri Chaat. This is one of our favourite Indian street food dishes. Another one to go on the Death Row list, I reckon. The base is fried wheat crisps. They have to be thick enough to be a substantial chew but thin enough to be crispy. Not too oily or greasy and at room temperature. Nestled in the middle of these discs of crunchy loveliness is a spoonful of diced potato, onion and chickpeas. On top is a viscous sweet and sour tamarind sauce made from boiling tamarind pods with jaggery (unrefined sugar), chilli and spices. Cool, natural yoghurt refreshes the tongue as an ideal counter balance to the other flavours but you finish with the fire of a green chilli sauce or fresh sliced chilli garnish. Mmmm mmmm mmmm. Yes, yes, yes. It was better than any single one we'd tried in Mumbai.

The Indian food just got better in Melaka where we had lunch at the restaurant next door to our hotel everyday. In the baking heat, sweating like mad, we blew our heads off and ate in vortexes of steam with hot, spicy, authentic food. The fish tikka made us bang our fists on the table and cry: "F**k me, that's good!" The pieces of fish were blasted in the tandoor for a matter of minutes and came to us moist and barely holding together. I asked the chef for the recipe of the tikka marinade and he said it was yoghurt paste, chilli powder, salt and mustard sauce. Sounds simple enough but I reckon there were a few extras in this 'mustard sauce' and 'yoghurt paste' than just those named ingredients, so I'll have to get creative when I try to recreate this one. Gimme time.

And so on to Penang, the food capital of the country. High expectations here. Were they too high? It seems so because most of the food we had in Penang turned out to be a letdown. Maybe we didn't go to the right places.. but we went to the same places as the locals. Maybe we went at the wrong times. Maybe they gave us the crap food because we were tourists. Who knows? But we sighed in disappointment on more than one occasion. A few times I just got damn right pissed off. Seriously, don't give a foodie crap eats - it actually ruins our day.

There is a ridiculous amount of street food in this city: every road seems to have numerous stands. All the Indian stuff we tried was poor. In Little India we had roti canai that was chewy, soggy and obviously reheated In a microwave. A rubbery, elastic piece of bread: yum. We were willing to let that one go because we went at lunchtime and I guess the fresh stuff is whipped up first thing in the morning. However, the mee goreng (a fusion noodle dish) was so disgustingly heavy on fish paste that we dumped a few notes on the table and walked out of the joint without eating another bite. Across the road we saw a sign claiming 'Best nasi kandar in town!' and a long queue of local people waiting patiently outside. They must know where the good stuff is, right? Wrong. What, was it a bad day in Penang or something? Had the people been eating nothing but stale porridge for the last month so any kind of rubbish curry was worth waiting in line for? Man, I'm getting annoyed just writing about it. We had high hopes for this place but we ended up eating concoctions that were only marginally better than a curry house special in the East End. Potentially great flavours but badly executed, cold and a bit 'meh.' Trying to talk to anyone in there was a waste of time. I'm brown so I can get away with saying it: Indian people can be unhelpful and unfriendly at the best of times, but they're much worse when you're making it obvious you think their food is shite. We tried to find one more place, just to say we'd had a positive experience here, but nothing attracted us. 

Perhaps we'd have better luck with the Chinese influenced cuisine and the Nyonya fare? Gurney Drive, a hot spot for the natives, was to be our evening location of choice. 30m down the road we could smell the pork in the air. Yep, definitely Chinese influenced. We could barely see the stalls for all the smoke billowing around and having a conversation was difficult over the volume of frying, chopping and sizzling sounds. All positive signs, surely? Nope. We had popiah, Assam laksa and grilled fish. I'll explain exactly what the first two dishes are in a minute. All you need to know for now is that the popiah was bland and lacking in substance; the Assam laksa didnt have the ideal balance of sweet and sour but was instead salty and had that artificial background taste that comes from using a powdered sauce base. The grilled fish was covered in curry paste and chilli sauce so had the potential to be a fabulous 'pow!' to the taste buds but it was severely lacking in seasoning and therefore flavour. Why were the indigenous people eating this rubbish? They know what tasty, authentic food is even better than we do so why were they enjoying it and we weren't? Perplexing. But then we remembered that not everyone in the world is a foodie. You just need to look in London to know that even people who know what good food is will regularly eat ready-made convenient stuff if they're too busy or don't find it enjoyable to make something themselves.

The problem is that Nyonya food is incredibly time consuming. The dishes have masses of ingredients and they take a very long time to bring together. There are several methods, stages and techniques to create the perfect plateful and people don't have the time or inclination for that anymore. Convenience ingredients are everywhere in the world and Malaysia is no exception. Sadly, this means that real, delicious Nyonya food is slowly dying out and it's the ready made rubbish that's killing it. So, how did I know all this and why was I so clued-up about about how disappointing the street food was and how the dishes should actually taste? Because I got myself a Pearly.

I was desperate to learn legit Malaysian dishes. The proper stuff: the grub all 30-somethings remembered their grandmothers making in the family kitchen. There were 3 recipes I especially wanted to know: satay, Assam laksa and popiah, and I wanted genuine, bona-fide instructions on how to make the real deal. Every single little bit from scratch, exactly as it was done a hundred years ago. And I found just the woman to teach me.

Pearly Kee runs cooking classes at the Tropical Spice Garden, about a 45 minute drive outside of Penang's central hub of Georgetown. It is a beautiful place and an acclaimed tourist attraction in its own right due to the well-tended herb and spice garden and lush surroundings. They run cooking classes regularly here which are known to be of a very high standard but only one of the recipes I wanted to learn was on the schedule of any given class. This just wouldn't do. I sidled up to Imran one night and told him about this place. I told him how desperately I wanted those chosen dishes in my repertoire and how I wanted to be in a select minority in the world of people who knew how to make Nyonya recipes from scratch. I wanted to preserve a fragment of a history that wasn't even mine. He heard the disappointment in my voice when I told him how I'd have to do three separate classes to learn all this - which we didn't have time for anyway - and how the Laksa they taught was a modified version regardless because it was just too long and complicated to fit into one cooking session. Then my amazing, wonderful hubby made my day. "Why don't you ask them to give you a private class?" he suggested. "Those exact dishes; a whole afternoon if that's what it takes." I did and they came back to me with a price that would make a private lesson with Gordon Ramsay look like a bargain basement deal.  "So? Do it," said that generous man of mine. "What the f**k do you think I make money for? So my belly can benefit from your new found knowledge. Get your arse there and learn how to make me a proper bad boy satay."

I was like an excited kid on the first day back at school. Pearly was charismatic, loud, bossy and vibrant. She wasn't shy to tell me off and criticise my incorrect techniques. I didn't care because she also wasn't shy of divulging every bit of knowledge and and insight she had, and I learned more from her in a day than I would have ever done reading five books on Nyonya cuisine. We made satay: charred hunks of skewered meat (or whatever you fancy) with a deliciously heavy, coat-the-roof-of-your-mouth peanut sauce; sweet, earthy and piquant all at the same time. We made Nyonya popiah: a spring roll of sorts but with a wrap that is part way between Asian rice paper and a thin wheat chapatti. All the different components of the filling have to be cooked separately, from the shredded jicama boiled in turmeric water, to the seafood and the chilli-based sauce. Along with Hoisin sauce, this is painted on the bottom of the wrap. The jicama goes on, as does the salad, the herbs, the crab and prawns, the fried shallots, the cucumber and the tofu. It's rolled up and a ladle of the yellow-stained jicama water is poured on top. And finally, we made Assam laksa: a noodle broth just like its curry counterpart, but whereas the latter focuses on chilli heat and coconut, the former is sweet and sour. The stock is predominantly tangy tamarind and blended pineapple. The usual aromatics like galangal and lemongrass are used in the base mixture and the common toppings of mint and coriander are a mainstay, but the subtle differences lie in the use of fish like mackerel and a garnish of torch ginger flower. As delicious as this bowl of sexiness was, I'd move away from authenticity to not use ginger flower. I didn't like it. It looks beautiful, like a flaming torch which has exploded in pinks and reds, but to me it tasted overwhelming: like ginger on Speed, so pungent it bordered on medicinal.

It was one of the best activity days I've ever had. Pearly might have been the sort of domineering woman you wouldn't want to cross but she was also open and generous. She expected us to finish at 7pm but I was such a teacher's pet that we were done by 5.30pm. If there's only one thing I can do well in the kitchen, it's chop like a demon. Two young girls from Singapore happened to be visiting the Spice Gardens just as my class was ending so we all shared the food together. They kept profusely apologising for eating the fruits of my labour after Pearly told them how much a private lesson cost and tried to refuse any more offerings. But that just made me want to give them even more (cough *feeder!*) and hey, come on, the real enjoyment of delicious food comes from sharing it with others. There was plenty for me to take back to Imran and left him to feast all evening on the best versions of all these dishes "by a million miles."

It really is true: there's nothing to do in Penang except eat. Does it deserve its reputation as the home of the tastiest food in the country? That's very debatable. If we go by the standards of what we ate out and about then the answer would be no, but if we go by the food we sought out and learnt at the Tropical Spice Garden and use this as a benchmark to what's out there then yes. Our Malaysian pal Shantha told us to go visit her mother while we were in Penang but unfortunately our schedules didn't coincide. It would've been a nice experience to see what a local cooked up for us. Maybe one day we'll go back and try eating in another well-known street food area; there are an array to choose from, after all. But while our gastronomic findings on the bustling roads of Penang might have been underwhelming, our food experience in Malaysia as a whole was incredibly positive. Screw Mr Nobu - Malaysia was doing fusion way before the word fusion was ever invented. This truly has to be one of the greatest cuisines in the world. On that note, it's nearly dinner time and I need me a laksa. Come to mama, baby.

Thailand: Burn, baby, burn

Everyone knows about Thai food. Athough the restaurants at home cover only a tiny number of Thai recipes and adapt it to foreign palates, the standard of the best known and most loved classics is generally ok. Green and red curries, fishcakes, pad thai, hot and sour soup (tom yam) and beautiful salads such as the ever popular papaya salad (som tum) are so unbelievably easy to make at home from scratch that we rarely eat these when we dine out anymore. Let me give you a tip. When you go to a family-run Thai restaurant in London, ask them to make you something not on the menu that they themselves are eating. They'll try their very best to change your mind; tell you that you can't cope with the chilli levels or the very testing parts of the animal they use, but, if you know you can, then insist. That's when you'll get some real authentic food. It will blow your head off, no doubt about it, but ordering this way has gotten me some blinding versions of vegetable dishes (no idea what was in them but they were like nothing I've ever eaten before and absolutely nothing like any dish on the standard menu.)

They say Thai food is all about a balance of sweet, salty, sour and spicy flavours. Get this balance right and it's easy to concoct any dish at all. Palm sugar, coconut milk, fish sauce, soy sauce, lime, lemongrass, tamarind and chillies: those are all the go-to ingredients you need in your pantry and fridge to make any kind of sauce, marinade or dressing. Throw in some garlic, fresh coriander, rice noodles and your choice of protein and you have an infinite number of potential dishes. Thai food is certainly my number one preference when I want to throw a quick dinner together. But while I try my utmost to get this famous harmony just right, I don't quite know how Thai cooks manage to get it spot on even when they use enough chilli to burn a hole in your oesophagus. I think this cuisine could possibly hold the title for the hottest on earth. The folks eat birds eye chillies like they're Skittles.

It would've been nice to go to Thailand and learn some new dishes but, as expected, the cooking schools cover only the tourist favourites of spring rolls, pad Thai, papaya salad, masaman curry, sticky coconut rice with mango and banana fritters. Still, the class I did in Bangkok was £20 so at least I got value, and they did teach us how to make fresh, homemade coconut milk which excited me no end. It takes ages and it's a real case of trial and error in London to find a young Thai coconut at the perfect ripeness in the Asian supermarkets, but when everything goes your way, it's an incredibly satisfying way to spend an hour. For bonkers people like me, anyhow.

It's likely to come as a huge shock to you (sarcasm intended) to find out I'm a total snob when I go to cooking schools because I get irritated by the other pupils, who, 99% of the time, are completely clueless about food. Don't you yell "That's why they're going to a class!" at me. I understand that logic. But it doesn't stop me from getting on my high horse and rolling my eyes when students ask questions I believe to have very obvious answers. I'm a total... um, nightmare. In the instance that 'nightmare' means 'arse', of course. I get there, I immediately make judgements as to who knows their shit and who doesn't, and if nobody does, then I lose interest in making friends and just want to make the dishes and leave. As I shamefully admit this in writing, I'm embarrassed as to how terrible this makes me sound! I promise I'm not like this when I go to a class with friends, by the way: the complete opposite, in fact. Just thought I'd get that out there before anyone I know decides they're never going to a cookery lesson with me. I really am like this just with strangers and generally only abroad.

I feel like I should justify my actions a tiny bit. The other students in this Thai class were young backpackers; 21 year olds who were nice enough but thought coconuts were a root vegetable. I could've been ok with that; I couldn't be ok with one of the kids, a 7 foot Swedish guy and a moronic halfwit, who thought it was acceptable to tell the male Thai teacher and a half-Chinese guy from Canada that they "all look the same" to him because "of the slopey eyes" and proceeded to pull out the corners of his own eyes to illustrate his point. At least his mate had the decency to look mortified. I guess my patience was a little short after having had the most fantastic cooking class ever in Malaysia. And now that I think about it, I was bosom buddies with everybody in my class in Vietnam too when, for the first time ever, all the participants were foodies with a similar level of skill and knowledge. Except Imran. Hahaha. Good job we're already solid because love would never blossom if we'd met at a cooking school. (Once again, I reiterate: I'm fun when I go to one of these things with a mate! Promise.)

Our biggest food education came in Phuket and at the detox place. The Raw food movement. The core idea is nothing can be heated above 42 degrees C. We'd been trying to bring more raw food into our diet for a while but were just so limited in knowledge, and it seemed as if making anything 'gourmet' or 'a proper meal' was time consuming and complicated. Phuket Cleanse showed us the light. It seriously is easy. The staff at PC would whip up batches of sauces and dressings in the blender in five minutes flat; they showed us how to make wraps and crackers in the dehydrator, incredible desserts as well as fantastic versions of samosas, massaman curry and noodle dishes. Many people pooh pooh the idea of Raw as a cuisine and it's understandable why - we live in a world where everyone is so attached to foodstuffs with specifically-chosen chemical ingredients to addict us and brainwashed by advertising that convinces us we have a wholly independent emotional need for them that anything healthy is automatically considered boring or rubbish-tasting. But I speak from the point of view of a foodie and nothing more when I say Raw is the most creative and inventive cooking (or 'uncooking') style I've ever come across. The variety of techniques is phenomenal - culturing, fermenting, dehydrating, cold smoking - and ingredients are used that most top chefs probably would not have heard of. It's common sense: if the movement wants to be an established 'cuisine' as opposed to just made up of people who only eat fruit and salad, it's got to be innovative and clever. A Raw kitchen is like a laboratory; a healthier version of the kind of mad experimentation Willy Wonka would be proud of. In addition, the diversity within the community is great - they don't all agree with each other. Some say Raw should be completely vegan; others say raw fish and meat is ok. Some say you should go heavy on fruit and low on fats like oil and nuts; others say the exact opposite. Some say you can eat bucket loads; others say you need to eat barely anything.

I'd been playing around with veganism a little bit before we went travelling but never went very far with it because Imran just wasn't interested in it. "You can do whatever you want," he'd tell me, "as long as you don't stop making dinners for me with some form of animal protein in it." Well, I wasn't about to make two separate suppers, was I? He was like most people who thought this was essential to a 'complete' meal. But the grub he was given at the detox blew his mind. He changed his tune within a day and is now predominantly meat-free with me. Who on earth would have guessed that could ever happen? He claimed the raw feasts played mind tricks on him; they were made to look like 'normal' food but were tastier and made him feel vibrantly alive rather than in need of a nap. One of the coolest inventions was a 'salmon fillet' that was actually a chunk of papaya. The colour, shape and size is the same. It's cold smoked on the stove which changes the texture to one a bit more similar to fish and then marinated to bring in more flavour. I wasn't too bothered about being on the juice detox and not eating any of the food because I asked for a million recipes and I knew I'd be able to recreate them at home, but I did constantly dip my finger into Imran's pots of sauces to get an idea of tastes and textures. Since we've been back home, we've been eating a lot of raw food with our meals. I'm not sure we'd ever go fully raw because we love cooked food too much and, to my knowledge, some foods are healthier cooked. However, we now need a certain percentage of 'live' food in a day otherwise we really feel the difference: our bodies literally crave the stuff and it's ridiculously good fun making it. Our cupboards are filled with things like lucuma, chia, camu camu, he shou wu, baobab and ashwaghanda. There's a constant stream of crackers and crisps coming out of my new favourite toy these days (the dehydrator.) And hey, if we can make 'Bounty bars' and 'Twix bars' at home that are actually good for us, then how can that be a bad thing?

Bangkok street food was as prevalent and as satisfying as we expected. Papaya salads were our favourite; the hypnotic rhythm of the maker's hands, one constantly bashing a pestle into a mortar and the other throwing in the next ingredient at the perfect, precise moment. Papaya, bash bash, fish sauce, garlic, bash, sugar, bash bash, tomatoes, bash, chillies, bash bash, dried shrimp, snake beans, bash, taste, adjust, bash, serve.

In Koh Phi Phi we ate spicy glass noodle salad every single lunchtime. This is another five minute wonder but HOT as hell. It's comprised of glass (mung bean) noodles, large prawns, cherry tomatoes, cashew nuts and a bit of freshly chopped coriander. And a LOT of chopped chilli as well as the usual 'fish sauce-more chilli-sugar-lime' dressing, of course. We've had this a million times since we got back and I have just one word of advice: don't omit the cashews; they make the dish.

On that note, I'm going to abruptly end this post 'cause I've got a sudden craving for cashew nuts. Don't get me wrong, I love writing this blog, but sometimes a woman just really fancies a mouthful of nuts.

Happy eating, everyone!

Thailand: Koks a Banging

Well, what d'ya know? My blog posts are like London buses. None come for ages, and just when you give up on believing one ever will, three turn up at once. What can I say? Life's taken over since we got back and other things took priority. But a few days of sitting at the dining table and not allowing myself to do my new most favourite thing - pumping iron - until I'd written at least two posts - was all it took to crank out the final few instalments of our travels. 

So, in the last post, I told you all about how Imran nearly got us arrested in Malaysia, right? You can only imagine my apprehension about us going to Thailand, especially the capital city. There's a reason why the Hangover films are set in Vegas and Bangkok: they're the two seediest, most hedonistic, sex-fuelled places I can imagine on earth. The nicest thing you can say about them is they're dodgy as hell; at worst, you don't even want to think about the exploitation and abuse that goes on as part of the sex trade. In Thailand, it's not secretive. It's so out in the open that it makes you feel sick to your stomach sometimes. Western guys are everywhere looking for a good time, be they paedophiles proudly walking the streets with little Thai boys, 20-somethings unsure of their sexuality falling literally into the hands of ladyboys but pretending they were honestly searching for women, or just the good ol' desperate lads who can't get laid back home and can't afford to pay for it in pounds or dollars. I don't know what it is about Thailand that makes the debasement of its people and culture so acceptable and why this country itself created and heavily promote this scene; I've read loads, watched many documentaries and talked to locals - even monks - to figure it out but it's complicated and long winded. Therefore, rather than subject you to my internal debate and ponderings this time, I've decided I'm going to take the piss instead, but just in case it sounds like my light-hearted musings show a lack of principles and abhoration for a world I despise, let it be known I think sometimes life's too short to get deep and upset about a situation you're not going to contribute to changing yourself.

Fun Fact time! Thailand is the world's largest consumer of ping pong balls. (I made that up so can't attest to its validity.) For the blissfully unaware among you, it's not really known where these balls go; everyone just knows where they come from. Or should I say, where they shoot out from. Who knew you could make a living from being excellent at your pelvic floor muscle exercises? If the ping pong shows aren't crazy enough, walking the streets of Bangkok means you'll be stopped every twenty metres with a MENU of tricks you can see women perform. Our minds boggled at the thought of some of them: smoking cigarettes, blowing out candles, blowing horns and whistles, shooting darts at balloons. I mean, seriously? I wonder if the girls put that on their CVs in the Skills section: "My nether region has deadly accurate aim and makes my kids' birthday parties so much more entertaining for the other childrens' dads. Tan Som Junior, on the other hand, is usually very upset that his cake has been ruined." Hobbies and Interests? "When I'm stressed, my vagina has a fag." We were kind of in awe and sickened at the same time. "No, thank you," we told the men trying to entice us into going to one of these shows. "Unless you've got a chick who can cook us dinner and deal the hands in a game of poker with her bits, we're not really interested."

Transvestites are as common as flip flops in Thailand. In fact, 'ladyboys' are inherently part of the Thai identity. Why it's so common, so routine and so tolerated is difficult to figure out and I guess there are both positive and negative reasons behind it. It's just a bit strange to get your head around. Thailand, despite the seedy sex trade, is at heart a conservative country but young lads often leave villages as men and return as women, and not even their grandads bat an eyelid. I guess whatever brings home the money is ok by them. So many Thai guys become chicks that if you count them as girls, surely over 90% of the population is now female. (I plucked that number out of thin air, by the way.) Crazy, considering sex changes aren't actually legally recognised here but performed more an anywhere else in the world. Who are the other 10%? Probably ex-pats from our side of the world looking for a wife with a working penis. ("Aww, its just one of those cute little things she has, like the mole on her elbow and the beard.") There's no better way of showing how well you're going up in the world than telling your Mama in Gloucestershire you've got an exotic STD courtesy of your missus with the hairy balls.

There's a saying that 'the most beautiful women in Thailand, aren't.' And by golly, let me tell you, I think it's true! For some reason, I had an incredibly attuned 'tradar' in Bangkok - my transvestite radar. I could spot 'chicks with dicks' from a mile away and got into some hot and heavy debates with Imran and our friend Sally about their gender status. Some were just unbelievably stunning; so beautiful that I wished I looked like them (and I'd probably tolerate having a penis to do so.) If you've not seen the documentary about the Thai Miss Tiffany beauty pageants, just google it and try to convince me you'd automatically know the contestants had chest fluff. And guys, check out Nok Yollada and tell me you wouldn't give Thailand's most famous transsexual a second glance on the street.

It's a great place for women, especially married women (providing their husbands don't go off alone, of course.) It's the one country where you can tell your man to happily perv on any fit girls he sees as much as he wants and you won't care because the likelihood of them having a shlong is very high. For some reason, that seems to put straight dudes right off. And so it was with us, as we toured around Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Krabi, Koh Phi Phi and Phuket, with Imran looking worried every time a female with a slightly deep voice started ruffling his fro and telling him how much she enjoyed playing with his head. We went to Chiang Mai right after Laos so that we could fit in a trip to the Elephant Nature Park but then headed to Borneo and didn't come back to Thailand again until the end of our trip. We enjoyed the bright lights and city buzz of Bangkok before lazing on Thailand's famous beaches ready for our detox fortnight in Phuket to finish.


Chiang Mai: mosquito central. There were plagues of mosquitos here; the worst on our entire trip. We really loathe those little gits. Chiang Mai is located in the far north of Thailand and is a cultural hothouse; there are over 300 temples here. The vibe of the place really reflects this; it's chilled out to the extreme, peaceful and serene. We hung out at the temples where there were hardly any tourists and prayed, meditated and just chatted until the sun started to set outside. Our best day in this city - and one of the most memorable times of our travels as a whole - was when we talked to a couple of young Buddhist monks for hours. They wanted to practice their English and give information about their faith to those interested in hearing it and we wanted to discuss the meaning of life. Fair trade, surely? No question was off limits. We discussed everything from Facebook to languages to how they deal with sexual urges when they pass a pretty woman (hoping she is actually a woman, of course) and, leading on from that, the Buddhist ideas on sex and gender. Up to this point in time, I was the one leading Imran in any kind of meditation practice; he generally did it if he could be bothered or if he just happened to be in the room when I was starting one. But those monks gave him a 'penny drop' moment. "It is so simple," they said. "When you have physical hunger, you feed yourself with food and that hunger goes. When you are stressed or angry or sad or simply feeling 'not quite right', you are mentally and emotionally hungry. Meditation is just the 'food' to stop that hunger. If you do not give yourself mental and emotional food regularly, as if you are on a diet, you will not be as healthy as you can be. And you will always be a little bit hungry all the time; that is, you will always have a little bit of stress or unhappiness." Beautifully expressed. So true and simple common sense. They're a wise bunch, those monks. It took twenty seconds for them to explain that to Imran and yet the shift in his thinking has been vast. Nowadays he's the one who suggests a quickie to me when he's got a free twenty minutes (steady!!) Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'food for thought', eh? As we said our goodbyes and left the monks sitting in the sunshine with the bright rays reflecting off their saffron-coloured robes and emphasising their heavenly luminosity, I wondered if they had any idea of the amount of people they must touch deeply with their words. They've probably changed many lives, in small and large ways, and they don't even know it.

A couple of months later we were back in Thailand and, despite our experiences since Chiang Mai continuing to make us think deeply about the hippie side of life, we were now in Bangkok and there's no way we could be deep and meaningful here. This city chews you up and spits you out so the best thing to do is just make the experience as quick as possible and enjoy the ride. We wanted street food and martial arts: Pad Thai and Muay Thai. Partying would've also been a welcome activity but every lively scene was marred by sleaze and a lot of REALLY stupid tourists. Ladyboy encounters are the norm here, to the extent that we saw t-shirts in the markets with a picture of a Western bloke snogging a Thai lady who's suddenly gotten an erection. You've got to think there's a bit more to the reason guys come here on lads' holidays than mere fun. Either they just come for the smut and strippers based on reputation and simply hope to avoid the 'she males' (which just makes them very, very sad) or they're kinda hoping for some alternative experience of their own. Come on, it's all in the name! 'Bangkok' tells you every thing you need to know about this city because that's EXACTLY what happens here on a daily basis! A more apt and perfect name? I don't think so. Maybe the very first tourists in the 60s told the locals what the name sounded like in English and the Thais thought it sounded like a rather grand idea.

Anyway, we learned that you can ignore all of this if you're with the right person and we certainly were. Enter: Sally Robinson. Sally was one of the other volunteers at Grace House in Cambodia with us; more specifically, she was Imran's fellow teacher in their particular class. She's a jolly, lively, fun and sociable Scouser who hates it when people say: "they do though, don't they though" in a Liverpudlian accent - something which, as you can imagine, Imran loves to do. He only did it once, though; he claimed it was because he liked Sally too much to annoy her but I think he was a bit afraid she might punch him. We've been very blessed on our trip to meet some fantastic people and there are a small handful who have become really good friends. Sally is right up there. She was going to be in Bangkok already by the time we arrived so we arranged to meet up on our second night. We went to Pattpong Road, a market area where we were accosted over and over again by men showing us ping pong menus. They just didn't know how to take no for an answer and wanted us to pledge allegiance to their particular club if we changed our minds. For a reason that I still don't understand, Imran and Sally found it absolutely hysterical when I became frustrated and yelled: "No! I'm not committing to you. I'm playing the p**sy field tonight." It was a fun night and, had things gone the way we had intended after that night, we might not be as great pals with Sally as we are today. We'd had our one evening of fun; we'd done the obligatory meet up that all travellers do when they end up in the same city and were going on our merry separate ways, planning to stay in touch through the obvious social media. But Bangkok had other plans for us and there's no arguing with that bitch. A couple of nights later, Imran and I were coming out of a shopping centre looking for a taxi but it turned out the taxi rank was at another part of the mall. Luckily for us, a random cab pulled up and as we ran to grab it, Sally jumped out of it. 'Ok,' we thought. 'What are the chances in a city of approximately 12 million people? Random coincidence and pretty cool." We had a hug and a chuckle, said goodbye again, and trundled off to a Thai boxing event thinking that was it.

Muay Thai is quite possibly my most favourite martial art - to do, anyway; not necessarily to just watch. The event we went to was great but most definitely for die hard martial arts fans who can understand what's going on. There were quite a few tourists there who had only come because it's one of those things that's always on the 'must do things in Thailand' lists and were obviously bored because it just looked like the guys were hugging a lot. The clinching rules were a bit difficult for even us to follow but the skill, athleticism and weapon-grade knees and elbows the guys had were phenomenal. It was nice to be in the native environment of the sport, seeing how passionate the locals are about their national sport. Men everywhere stood around yelling and making hand gestures; unlike the actions of football supporters in the UK, these were betting gestures and not rude ones to opposition fans. Sportsmanship and politeness is the backbone of all Asian martial arts.


Buzzing and energised from our dose of bone crushing kicks and knockout blows, we decided we weren't ready to go back to our hotel and hit the hay just yet. We must've been in a very good mood because we randomly decided to go to Khaosan Road, the most touristy area in the city. This is where all the eighteen year olds on their gap years hang out. Thumping beats coming out from the clubs met us as we got out of the cab; smoky street food carts were busy with trade as drunk youngsters tried desperately to soak up some alcohol and there was a mind boggling array of transvestites parading themselves. I left Imran on a little plastic table eating his noodles to rummage through some souvenir t-shirts on a market stall when I suddenly heard him laugh and shout: "Are you frickin' kidding me?!" Yep, it was Sally again. Another random coincidence? We didn't think so. 
"It's a sign!" we all cried.
"A sign of what?" someone asked.
"A sign to drink!" someone else yelled (I'm pretty sure it was Sally.)

And so we began the craziest night out on our entire trip, filled with buckets of booze, stumbling out of clubs and dancing on the street with a dwarf, a fruitless search for a karaoke bar and getting together a mini choir outside instead, receiving death stares from scary chicks as we debated very loudly and obviously if they were really men, making friends with odd people who kept disapperaing and reappearing with corn cobs, cracking up at the Thai 'girl' who gave us a thumbs up as she left with a hammered Aussie bloke who hadn't noticed she had her hand over her crotch, and finally finishing with our own little table planted right in the middle of the road next to a hi-fi playing welcome old skool RnB while people swerved their bikes around us. We laughed and chatted until the sun was coming up and that was it; our friendship was well and truly cemented. Ain't nothing that brings people together like buckets of unidentified cheap liquor, shemale prostitutes and starting a dance craze with dwarves.

Lack of sleep was not in our best interests that morning as we had a flight to Krabi to catch. Krabi is a town on the coast in southern Thailand and at the time we went there, the monsoon season was literally just starting. Grey clouds met us as we went to the harbour to take a boat to our hotel. The weather might have been in stark contrast to Bangkok but there was fresh air and an invigorating ocean breeze to fill our lungs. The best thing for party-fuelled tiredness but not for a boat trip. The waves were majorly choppy and a tad nerve-wracking at times as we watched them coming towards us, bigger than the boat we were in. It took ages to get to our secluded hotel but we were just thankful we could go: had the waves been just a touch bigger, we wouldn't have been allowed to sail. Hilariously, there was no harbour or docking area for the boat at the hotel. Instead, the staff had made a makeshift bridge about 30m from the beach which basically looked like buoyant, plastic jigsaw pieces joined together with hope and a prayer. Every wave of the sea curled under this walkway and raised and dropped it like a snake. Once we got the technique of stopping and running between waves right, it was actually good fun trying to get to the beach. There was, however, a very real threat of falling in the sea which made me quite apprehensive - I really didn't want to fall in because there was no way I could cope with that current and it would be highly embarrassing to have someone jump in and save me. I don't do the weak, helpless little girl thing well. Luckily, we got to the hotel fine and, while not exactly dry thanks to the rain, a great deal drier than we could've been. You should've seen the hotel staff: tiny Thai women who could fit into my pocket, carrying everyone's suitcases and holding people double their size up at the same time on this balance-busting bridge.

Sadly we were only in Krabi for one night as a stopover since we'd originally decided we wanted more time in Koh Phi Phi. The town of Krabi had nothing to offer us because we were only interested in lazing on a beach at this late stage of our trip. When we got to our hotel in Krabi though, we found it was a million times more beautiful than we'd expected and we really wanted to stay longer. It was secluded, surrounded by white sand and a raging ocean on one side and huge, imposing limestone formations covered with jungle greenery on the other. The air smelt of the heady, salty brine that only a mixture of pure seawater and rain can create, invigorating all of our senses. Due to the weather conditions, we'd arrived there at 6pm and were being made to leave at 8am to ensure boats could travel so we only had fourteen hours to make the most of this gorgeous place. Of course, most of that time was spent catching up on sleep but we did see an amazing fire show at dinner and record a rap video (our version of 50 Cent's In Da Club) as a Happy Birthday message for our two year old niece. We are so politically incorrect, y'know. As our mate Nik said recently, if these kids say "I'm a mother f**king hustler" in front of the grandparents, we'll be 100% to blame.

And so on to Koh Phi Phi and another stunning beach resort. Yep, we were going for all out luxury in the whole of Thailand to detract from the pain of our trip ending soon. Our beach hut opened out directly on to the velvet sand and we slept peacefully to the sound of crashing waves each night. I loved this place and had a great time doing very little except writing. Imran was a bit more frustrated because of the rain. Even though it was still hot, the monsoon season meant boat rides out to different beaches were cancelled and Imran had desperately wanted to take pictures at the beach where Leonardo DiCaprio filmed the movie 'The Beach.' Look, I would've loved to go there too. If the scrumptious little dumpling Leo had rested his sexy topless self on any tiny patch of sand on that island, I would've rolled around on it butt naked just to get my own little piece of him until I got arrested and banned from ever entering Koh Phi Phi again. But it wasn't to be, so why let it ruin our holiday? Sod's Law, the sun was shining (blazing, in fact) on the morning of the day we were leaving and all the taxi boats were open for business. If we hadn't booked something important, we would've stayed there an extra day but it wasn't to be: bring on the Phuket detox.

It's no secret I love detoxes. Love, love, love them. I especially like the ones where the world falls out of your backside and, if it doesn't, you can shove a pipe up there to get the same result. Imran, on the other hand, is not up for such shenanigans. "I can't allow myself to be violated, even in the name of intestinal health," he explains. So here was our compromise. We found an awesome place called Phuket Cleanse where the skin was the organ of choice for elimination, not the bum, so we just had to sweat as much as possible. This meant exercise... and bucket loads of it. We love this kind of stuff so were well up for it. Early mornings were Muay Thai sessions with some of the best trainers in Phuket. In the afternoon we'd have some kind of resistance workout, either a weights bootcamp or a TRX drill or something similar. Finally, evenings had us sweating double even after the sun went down at a hot yoga class. Ever tried being in 40 degree sauna conditions inside when it's over 30 degrees and madly humid outside? Frickin' amazing. Think it sounds bad? To us it wasn't at all but we met many during this fortnight who couldn't hack the intensity. We don't buy lame excuses and could barely muster a sympathetic smile for those who did only one training session a day, if that. "I think the heat has gotten to me and I feel a bit dizzy. I need to go and sunbathe." Oh, bore off, eejit! Why choose to come here if you won't throw yourself fully into it? It's a waste of your own money. The endurance levels of the body are incredible; it's only the mind that quits. But, as a consolation/reward for all of us, there were some amazing mediations to look forward to each evening as well as nightly massages in our bedroom.

The massages were incredible. We could opt to have regular soothing, relaxing ones but, like crazy people, we almost always went for the Thai option. We figured it was better to go with what the locals do best and felt damn good after the hour was up, but for sixty minutes prior it was painful. This was one of those times when my high pain threshold really came in handy. By each evening, my legs were covered in bruises from the constant kicks we threw in the Muay Thai classes. I'd tell the masseurs to be gentle with my shins or avoid them all together but they'd completely forget and start kneading those buggers like they were making dough. I'd scream into the pillow and they'd giggle, then go gentle for two minutes before they forgot again. In the end I just let it be because the girls would laugh at the state of my limbs and take the piss to each other in Thai about how I was suffering as a result of doing something only men are supposed to do. (It took me a fortnight to realise that, after I asked the staff to translate a same few words I'd been constantly hearing. It made me laugh a lot!) And so, yes, it made me feel like a hard nut, but the agony was what I imagine slowly wedging burning sticks into your ears when an aunt starts talking about sex would feel like.


Incredibly, however, those bruises were GONE every morning without fail. Vanished. From purple and green to original brown in six hours. This was because of the detox plan I was doing: nothing but green juices. The healing elixirs with magical results comparative to the Hogwarts' incantation of 'Reparo.' I'd always planned to do the green juice detox because it was the most rejuvenating and effective but had prepared myself for some disgusting drinks; Imran was content to forgo a tiny bit of effectiveness for taste, so had chosen the green fruit smoothies plan. But, when we got there and Mr 'I Eat Like There's No Tomorrow But Nobody Knows Where It Goes' Lakha was given a meal, he decided he wanted to eat and changed to the raw food detox instead, leaving me all alone to sip my juices while he ate so much it had the staff in hysterics. I'll talk more about the food at the Phuket Cleanse in my next post but suffice to say, everyone there was at first shocked at how much my metabolic man could put away but, after a while, started using him as their guinea pig to test out new experimental dishes on and made extra meals just for him. I was perfectly happy and motivated enough to be on my juice plan, especially as most of them were far tastier than I had banked on and the jug - yes, jug - of wheatgrass each day was clearing up my bruises at the speed of light. We were so full of energy it was ridiculous; we'd sleep for five hours and wake up buzzing, hyper and ready for 90 minutes of Muay Thai as an easy start to the day. There was just one drink I couldn't stand: I don't remember the name but it was made from a local herb or leaf. It tasted like vomit - like actual vomit, I'm not even kidding. A couple of times I just held my nose and downed it but, despite my usual iron stomach, this was the first time ever I can remember gagging. I was truly horrified at the thought of having to taste that stuff on its way back up again so on the nights we'd get back from a hot yoga class and I'd have that waiting for me and nothing else, I'd very politely tell the poor staff to go screw themselves and eat a plate of fruit or a bowl of soup instead. 

The fortnight sped by; it was too quick for us and I wanted desperately to stay for another couple of weeks. The Muay Thai trainers didn't seem to share my sentiment. They're used to Westerners coming and going, and seeing women in their classes is normal. But, as the Asian attitude goes, that's white chicks for you - they're always doing stuff that's meant for men. The trainers thought I was a 'good girl' (obviously white chicks aren't; they're promiscuous hussies, the lot of them) and they believed I should go home to have babies. "Come back next time with children and your husband will train with us!" they ordered. I will go back. I'll go back with a pair of sprogs cradled in my arms and get Imran to look after them while I kick the pads instead. That would really give them a heart attack. Asian mentality, eh?

I really wanted to carry on travelling. The Philippines was next on my list but Imran was now missing home a bit too much and was ready to go back. Gutted. But hey, I'd gotten seven months out of the man and had encouraged him to give up his job and all the security he knew for us to make this trip a reality so I was appreciative enough to let him go home to his mum - er, his life! In the meantime, we made the most of the phenomenal calibre of the trainers kicking our arses into shape, as well as the beautiful accommodation and the company of a large variety of fascinating people we met. It was truly a brilliant couple of weeks. Imran was already fit as a fiddle when we got there so he started getting ripped almost immediately. The staff at Phuket Cleanse would joke he was made of iron and had to stay away from metal detectors. I used to sigh glumly and think, "Yeah, yeah, I'm married to Benjy Button" but now I was thinking, "Hell, yeah, I'm married to Benjy Button! When I'm 40 it's gonna look like I got myself a toyboy!"

Thailand was definitely a place of contrasts for us; in fact, to be more specific, I'd say the contrast lies between Bangkok and the rest of the country. Bangkok really is one of a kind. I used to think London was quite unique compared to other parts of England but, next to Bangkok, it's positively same-same. Bangkok is in your face, loud, brash and a metaphorical punch in the stomach. There are other places in Thailand that give you a slap around the face a bit but nothing compares to the capital's oomph. Looking down onto the main road from our hotel room high in the sky, we saw miles of traffic dotted with the striking rainbow colours of the taxis. This reminded us of the thing about Bangkok that well and truly pissed us off the most: the taxi drivers. I don't like to generalise about people and stick everyone in one group under the same umbrella but I'm going to this time: they are all F**KING. DOUCHE. BAGS. I can't even begin to tell you how many arguments we got into with the cabbies. They refused to put the meter on. They refused to take us if we didn't agree to all the stops they insisted on making. "We don't give a shit how much commission they pay you; we've got no interest in going to a clay pot-making factory or a daytime porn show." Even when they smiled and agreed to take us to our chosen destination, they were just lying and took us somewhere else completely - somewhere that totally ripped us off for the service we needed and gave some of that cash as a backhander to the prats. We got well and truly screwed over on our first day in the city but learned VERY quickly. We hated them with a passion... and it takes a lot for us to feel that strongly.

But cab drivers aside, Bangkok is welcoming and inclusive. Whether this is for the right reasons or not comes down to individual preference; the city just loves tourists. It's arrogant, mixed-up, messed up, colourful and, well, funny. Occasionally it didn't matter what our principles were here because we still laughed about everything we saw a million times a day. There will always be something in Bangkok that makes you gasp in shock and I can't see that ending anytime soon.

The rest of Thailand is a little calmer, although places like Phuket aren't far off, at least in the tourist areas. Everywhere else we met terrific people; happy, friendly, open human beings brimming with cultural identity and a sense of positivity that comes from being one of the most developed countries in South East Asia. The difference in Thailand, compared to Cambodia, Laos and even Vietnam at times, in terms of the infrastructure and ability to speak English by the general population was stark. They have Tescos here, for goodness sake. That really wound me up. The devil and destroyer of all that is good and holy is even getting into Asia. I worry for my sanity when I pass a Tesco because it makes me feel quite accepting of arson. But I digress.

We had a wonderful time in Thailand and would certainly go to Chiang Mai again. We'd go to Phuket Cleanse again, for sure! Thai food is out of this world - one of our favourite cuisines - and the country is definitely an excellent place for ex-pats. We wouldn't be averse to living there if we were given the opportunity (although if we're choosing somewhere of our own accord, there are several other countries which we'd choose ahead of Thailand.) What's weird is that the seedy scene is such a big part of the culture but that isn't what would put us off; away from the tourist areas and closer to the local people, it's actually full of wonderful communities to be part of. 

And then there's the incredible nature: the breathtaking beaches, especially. The greens, blues and yellows that make up the environment; the perfumed air; the kaleidoscope colours of plants and flowers.

Of course, you do wonder why the vulgarity is so rife here; how on earth the country manages to continue to come up with crazier and more bizarre ideas to sexualise, exploit and demean its own people when it's such a proud nation. It's a testament to how great the overall culture is when you can still really like this place despite the fact there's something truly fucked up in the Thai psyche that has created this side to its identity.

The best thing about travelling to different countries is that the locals give the tourists everything they want. The worst thing about travelling to different countries is that the locals give the tourists everything they want. Thailand, in my opinion, is ruining itself by offering what they BELIEVE tourists want and, as a result, get a lot of visitors who don't appreciate the real beauty of this land - losers, I call them (and I'm sure they'd consider me a total snob, which is fine with me too.) But hey, that's just my opinion. There are millions of guys who'll tell you the offerings are the best thing about Thailand. There's something for everyone... and I guess overall that's a good thing.