Bangkok, Thailand

Monday morning in Bangkok. Sunlight breaks in through the blinds, and I slowly come to waking life in my upper bunk bed. Elsewhere in Bangkok, the protestors are still barricaded inside the Government House complex - although 'barricaded' is perhaps overdramatising it a little, given that the 'barricades' have plenty of gaps, and indeed I myself wandered through one of those gaps for a look around yesterday. See pictures. The government is undoubtedly corrupt - he who pays the piper calls the tune, and all that - but at the same time the 'protest movement' is very obviously nothing like the spontaneous expression of people power which it pretends to be. Someone somewhere is paying for all these protestors to have free food, water, medicine and toilet facilities. Indeed I understand that they're actually being paid hard cash just for the protesting itself.

Monday afternoon in Bangkok. Smoke drifts upwards and out of the common room window into the street. At times it's sunny, and at other times the rain is torrential, but the muggy heat is everpresent. Swigging water at regular intervals, I lounge on a sofa; I've been out for a Subway, and now I'm sleepy from the food and the heat. People are coming and going, checking in and checking out...I find myself dispensing helpful travel-related advice to those who are newly arrived in SE Asia. (The fact that I'm much older than most of them seems to give my advice more credibility than my actual travel experience to date can really justify.) Some of my fellow inmates are gap-year students who are too young and flighty to feel homesick; others are older people who seem, for whatever combination of reasons, to be travelling more to get away from their old lives and homes than to seek out new ones. I suppose there are some people who just never really put down roots. After four months on the road, and for all the fun and relaxation and stimulation and experience I've been lucky enough to have along the way, I'm now more sure than ever that I do have roots, and that a trip abroad for me is like a night out - no matter how long it lasts or how good it is, you still want to come home at the end of it.

Monday evening in Bangkok. There's a night out on the cards. It sounds tempting, but then I've already had enough Bangkok nights for one summer. And anyway, Sunderland are playing at home on Saturday.

Inside the Bangkok protestors' compound (1)

Inside the Bangkok protestors' compound (2)