Sponsored by
Spontaneous combustion
I'd returned to Bangkok in anticipation of heading south to Ko Samui, one of Thailand's most-visited islands, on which two friends were due to be married. However, they weren't going to tie the proverbial knot for another two weeks, a fact which awarded me plenty of spare time to gad about at my leisure.
It was a scorching hot Friday morning, and I'd just met an English girl called Abi on Soi Rambuttri in Bangkok. We both had something in common: money... or rather 'lack of.' Reassuringly, she had been lucky enough to eventually score a stack of cash by handing over her passport at a 'Western Union' booth. I, meanwhile, needed to call my bank back in England to ask that they lift the security restrictions they'd planted upon my debit card, having essentially disabled it until such a time that the person attempting to withdraw cash (i.e., me) was willing to confirm his or her identity.
Given that it was nine in the morning in Thailand, it was the dead of the night in the UK. Unfortunately, the call centre that I so desperately needed to contact only operated during standard daytime office hours, hence why I was unable to do anything in the short-term to aid my plight. I'd cope so long as I rang my bank at some point within the next twenty-four hours, for I had enough ready cash jammed in my pockets to see me through the rest of the day.
Abi had only just landed in Thailand, having flown over from New Zealand where she had 'left' her long-term boyfriend. They still loved each other, but Abi hoped a break would do their relationship the world of good, and that it would force them both to really focus on what they each individually wanted out of their lives. Abi and her boyfriend John had travelled through Thailand before they settled in New Zealand, and Abi had returned in order to teach English for a while in a school in the northern reaches of the country... in Udon Thani, a city which conveniently lies on the northeastern railway line that terminates a little further north at Nong Khai, a waterbomb's throw from the Mekong River and the border with Laos.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Driffield
Sunday 05 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -1 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North
