Boats, monkeys, tubes
After bobbing in the lakehouses for two days, we left on lengthily boats, the kind you see in movies about the Vietnam war, expect rather than powering them by paddles or perhaps being propelled sheerly by the navigator meditating on the concept of movement, modern Thais have added what must be a diesel tractor engine to the back, its spluttering coughing engine primarily producing metres of black smoke and a lot of noise pollution, as well the byproduct of just enough kinetic energy to rotate the tiny propeller and move us forward in the water.

After the longtail boat and a truck ride of a couple of hours (I managed to snag a ride in the airconditioned cabin, while everyone else sat on two planks in the back) we arrived right on the other side of the national park, at Art's Bungalows. Art's was a very peaceful location, in front of another big lump of limestone mountain, with the river flowing meekly past. In the evenings a little band of monkeys would venture out to play, scratch themselves, swim into the water to catch bread thrown by the German kids, and randomly engage in not-entirely-consensual rumpy-pumpy.

The day after we arrived, we went tubing down the river. Because it was dry season, the river lacked about a foot of water that would've protected my derriere from the bumps of rocks as we moved gently downstream. I felt a sense of true peace descend on me as I bobbed downstream, my head resting back on the tube to look back to see the trees and bushes meeting the curves to the river, hearing only the swish and tumble of the water. Then I looked back up to see our Thai river guide winning a place in my heart forever by handing me a new bottle of Singha. It was one of the moments that I travel for.

Cicadas
About a week later we were camping on the island of Koh Rok. I was hoping for a similar sense of peace and total relaxation to descend on me, but my frame of mind was disturbed slightly by the oppressive and continuous whine of cicadas, pitched at the perfect tone to eventually but inevitably lead to human madness. I filled in more than an hour or two daydreaming about the perfect way to commit genocide to my little insect friends, and I'd like to share the results with you.

1 - The preferred option - through the employment of previously-untapped superpowers, to snap my fingers and have every cicada on the island fall from every tree, inert and lifeless, its brittle wings to torment me no more.

Some details need to be considered in the implementation of this strategy. First - how to unleash said superpowers. Second - need to ensure that cicadas don't hold a niche in the Koh Rok environment that prevents the rise in vast numbers of an even louder and more sanity-challenging insect. Would hate to see my carefully developed superpowers applied only to find cicadas are only natural predators of an even more annoying insect - perhaps crickets whose mating call is The Best of John Denver, and which know how to use the island's PA system. (Note to self - check that PA system is cricket-proof as first step).

2 - Choose one cicada (the one who burrowed into my shirt last night over dinner and stayed there unknown to me for several hours seems as good a candidate as any) and infect it with insect plague, which quickly spreads across the entire population. The virus lies inert until the cicada begins rubbing its wings together when - phfoot - the insect spontaneously explodes and all that remains is a gentle falling mist of insect goo.

3- Publish nasty, spiteful review of the cicada singing in the Koh Rok Times. Wait for sensitive cicada artistic temperament to take offence and watch as cicadas leave island in huff.

4 - Ring friend on mobile phone, casually mention that we have come across a militant branch of communist Al-Qaeda reading the New Yorker. Retreat to water as Donald Rumsfeld personally drops enough Agent Orange and laser-guided missiles to level island, including cicadas. Emerge from water and enjoy the serenity.

This option has bonus of not needing to carry out potentially long and certainly boring evaluation of islands ecosystem - no chance of more annoying insect rising to dominance when the whole place will be annihilated!

Khao Sok National Park
After Bangkok we went to floating rafthouses on the dammed lake in Khao Sok national park. We rode a long-tail boat, past limestone mountains erupting out of the water, their cliffs towering what seemed to be hundreds of metres above the water. The jungle wrapped itself around the cliffs unevenly, a mess of trees and vines. Sometimes the jungle covered the rock evenly all the way to the edge of the water, sometimes it left the rock bar and empty. Seven years ago they lowered the level of the dam about five metres, leaving a pale strip of rock at the base of most cliffs, where the jungle stopped neatly. To me, this looked precisely like a choc-top from the Astor in Melbourne, where the chocolate coating stops just short of the cone, revealing a neat line of white ice-cream.

After about an hour, the boat arrived at our accomodation - the Plern Prai rafthouses. They look like sturdy set of huts as we approached over the water, so it was only once I was on them that I realised that the huts actually float on the water, supported by sunken logs and the remains of acres of bamboo forests. One minute they look so sturdy and dependable, the next it looks like a strong wave would send the rafts off in separate directions. Most of the time, though the huts and the bamboo walkway that connects them shifts to accomodate my weight confidently - it was only the long and decidedly dodgy section that connected the huts to the toilet block on the mainland that where I tread carefully.

The place was so peaceful all day, but especially so in the soft light of the mornings when the noises of the forests carried across from the lake. After jumping straight off the walkway into the lake, I could hear amazing bird calls echoingfrom the mountains, or locusts or crickets twittering from nearby. Occasionally a gibbon called out in their sing-song chant, which one of the Thai guys here assured me was a mating call. I spent a few minutes just listening to the noises of the lake around me - the chatter of the staff working, the creaking of the bamboo walkways as they shift to a new position, the heavy roar of a long-tail boat ferrying people in or out, then a few moments later the gentle lapping sound of its wake against our huts.

Jetlag

I hadn't slept enough, nowhere near enough. And those three glasses of red wine had caused headaches well out of proportion with the amount of alcohol they contained, but that was probably because the tiny portion of roast pork in my dinner wouldn't have satisfied a sparrow. And once I had woken up I had to sit for hours on a bus as it stop-started through smoggy crowded streets, then trudge through hundreds or thousands of people shuffling slowly in front of me.

I eventually found my room, and after a few hours of sleep my foul mood lifted long enough for me to realise... hold on a minute... that I wasn't hungover, I was jetlagged! And this wasn't London, it was Bangkok. That was the 414, it was the airport shuttle!!

It all suddenly made sense.

And so here I am no, trying to face breakfast when all my body wants to be doing is what all sane Londoners are doing at the moment - making the always-unwise decision to have a third martini!

Of course, there are thousands of differences between Bangkok and London. You can get good coffee here, for a start. The service in cafes is pretty bad in both places sure, but when you pester waiters in London you just get attitude, but here them seem a little panic-stricken that the foreigner has come up with yet another request! What, a spoon now? their expression seems to say. Hold on, I'll see what I can do. Also, when you're buying illegal copies of DVDs at street markets over here, they're willing to take orders of movies from you, then deliver them to you piping hot from the DVD burner in a couple of hours.

And in London to brown your undergarments as a twenty-tonne bus heads straight towards you, you have to get on your bike. Here, the experience is available on a tuk-tuk, allowing you to mentally draft your will as exhaust fumes blow gently through your hair.

Another thing - they have a huge "Democracy Monument" here. It commemorates the move to a consituitional monarchy in the 30s, and was the scene of massive riots and the deadly put-down by the army in the 70s. It's quite a sight, two massive pillars arcing towards the sky in the middle of a massive roundabout. The effect is qutie beautiful and poignant. One thing. There's a McDonald's overlooking it. Who said global corporations don't have a sense of humour?