My Spa Samui beach bungalow is less luxurious than I’d expected. For one thing, there was a large black slug in the bathroom on the first night. I assumed it was a slug; it could have been a leech for all I knew. I didn’t feel up to dealing with a squishy friend, so I shut the door, undressed and got into bed. In the morning, no slug, but the gusset had been eaten out of my knickers! ( I’d sluttishly left them on the floor). Is my squishy friend a secret weirdo pervert? Or should I blame the plump gecko?

It’s a setback, since as an intrepid traveller I’d only brought three pairs in the first place. However, in Dublin, it was considered a compliment to say ‘I’d eat chips out of your knickers, love!’ I’ve resolved to take this in the same spirit. What else can I do?

The night-train from Bangkok to Surat was tremendous fun. (There wasn’t much call for night-trains where I come from. Ireland is 160 miles top to bottom.) Train staff came by at 10 p.m. to put sheets and pillows on the beds. As I climbed into my top bunk and drew the curtain, I felt like Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot though likely I looked more like Jack Lemmon. At six we were awakened for Nescafe before making the boat transfer to Koh Samui.

I shouldn’t have had the coffee, of course. I’m here to do the famous Spa Samui 7-day clean-me-out. If anyone had asked, I would have had to ‘fess up to a diet of cappucinos, noodles, spicy pork sausages, and left-over Kit-Kats in Bangkok, instead of the prescribed week long preparatory program of lightly-cooked vegetables and liver-flush drink. But they didn’t ask, they simply presented me with a bucket, a colema board, a battery of supplements, and some icky drinks. No food for seven days. Yikes.

On day one, I was hungry—what a rare sensation. And headachey, nauseous, and cranky, too, though reluctant to admit it here since I didn’t bother with the pre-cleanse. I’m suspicious of the fake science here, and feel like a Regency-era lady taking the waters in Bath. I have qualms about paying not to eat in a part of the world where people do it for nothing without a choice. But more than half of the people here are return visitors, and they don’t appear to be nuts, so I shall wait and see.

Bangkok smells of diesel fuel, lemongrass, grilling meats, kerosene stoves, dirty canals, ripe fruit, and, occasionally, of unmistakeably stinky durian.

I’m getting braver. Today I bargained for my tuk-tuk fares. Then I took a river ferry, counting the stops and jumping off hopefully; once on the wrong riverbank.

In the gardens of the Royal Temple, I was interviewed by not one but two sets of young Thais. The first was a group of 18-year-old high schoolers doing a school project. They had a laborious list of questions—where was I from? what did I think of Thai culture? Thai food? Thai people? One cutie, clearly the class clown, asked boldly at the end: ‘You…Home Alone? Home Alone?’ One of the girls finally translated this as ‘Single?’, and they all fell about laughing. They asked to take my picture, standing like a monument surrounded by tiny teenagers in crisp uniforms.

Then three lovely girls, dressed like air hostesses, wanted to tape me for their university English class. They told me that they wore those neat black skirts and white blouses whenever they were representing the university, though not to class. I told them American kids never wore uniforms, and Europeans only wore them up to high school level. They giggled. They didn’t believe me when I said Bangkok was more frantic than New York. Same list of questions, more or less—-what do you think of Thailand? do you want to come back here? do you like us? This country is getting very Sally Field.

Then I watched an old monk get fitted for false teeth down a back alley. I talked to a diplomat from the Thai Embassy in London at an out-of-the-way temple. I learned how to bow in a wat—three times, very low, touching hands to forehead first, then chin then floor—and to say hello and thank you. A busy day.

Paul Ford notes my earlier post, where I offered a shout out to my homies. As well as correcting my spelling of ‘homies’, he writes:

I am glad my simple immigrant ways are the source of such amusement to my fast-living New York friends.

Darraugh/Darren and Edward were already downing pints of cooking lager when I arrived at the Coal Hole on the Strand on Monday night. It was twelve years since I’d seen Darraugh/Darren, and he still slips instantly between broad Dublinese and London glo’al, depending on whether he’s channelling his parents or his South London upbringing. It’s hard to keep up.

His da is from a long line of Moore Street fruitsellers. His ma is from Tinahely, Co. Wicklow. The da had left school at fourteen or so, and used to sneak off to meet his ma outside her posh convent school in the afternoons.
    ‘And then she fell pregnant wi’ me. At sixteen! So they moved to London.’

His ma was toughened by the experience, apparently. Years later, she asked his younger brother’s girlfriend:
    ‘Well, is me son good in bed?’
The girl, charmed by this twinkly confidante, admitted that indeed, yes he was good in bed.
    ‘So yer sleepin’ with him! Get outta me house, ya sluh!’

She managed to get to college even with the baby, but the da still asks Darraugh/Darren to count the number of Tube stops to his destination before he leaves the house. It’s a joke of sorts among the brothers: the auld fella still won’t admit he can’t read. I was shocked by this on Monday night, but today, my first day in Bangkok, I understand how he felt. Now I’m cut off from the printed word too. Colonel Sanders looked like a kindly uncle smiling down amid Thai squiggles (though I resisted his invitation). As usual, I try to walk everywhere, but the street signs won’t yield up meaning, and the tuk-tuks bear down when I try to cross the street. There aren’t many farangs where I’m staying, and I clutch my Rough Guide as I order food from pictures.

But there are baby pet rabbits to play with in my guesthouse, and everybody smiles, even in big, bad Bangkok. I’ll cope, but I miss my mammy and my mother tongue.

‘Our weather is going to be quite changeable this week. You can expect one wet day to be followed by one dry day, in fact. We did get a report of a tornado. Now, don’t worry, it’s nothing like those you see in America, but it gives you an indication of how windy and rainy it is up there in Northern Scotland.’
—BBC Radio 4

I borrowed a bike yesterday and rode around the giant Monopoly board of London. I love being in storied cities, where each new street is like being introduced to the dear friend of a dear friend. ‘Ah, Royal Albert Hall, I’ve heard so much about you.’

On the Portobello Road, I heard a man actually say ‘tickety-boo’. In Holland Park, I was busy smirking at uptight Englishmen averting their eyes from the bare-breasted babe reading a newspaper on the grass, when another yelled ‘Nice awws, dawling!’ at my sweatpants. In Little Venice, a woman puttered by on a moped making notes on two large clipboards attached to the handlebars. She was doing The Knowledge, the three-year preparation for a London cab-licence, where candidates are expected to know the location and traffic rules of every street in the city. (Opinions on immigration and ‘anging are optional.)

Signs in the Tube advised people on staying polite in the scorching heat (which is perhaps 75 degrees). In South Kensington, hanging on the railings:

I’ve just finished Jeremy Paxman’s entertaining The English. Sitting here, listening to wonderful Radio 4, I’ve grown fond of the English again. Any country that loves wordplay as much as these people do is fine by me. That they can maintain the ‘grandeur on a human scale’ that previous generations built is so much the better.

—Celia Johnson, Brief Encounter, 1945.

God, the weather in Ireland and England is depressing. The damp air sucks the latent heat out of your body year-round, and shoulders are permanently hunched against the rain. In mid-July, people huddle in pubs at three in the afternoon. When my Dad felt the first rays of sun at Alghero airport last week, he shook his head in disgust:
    ‘At this moment, I don’t care if I never see Ireland again.’

And yet people don’t seem to accept that this miserable climate is here to stay. They slosh through freezing puddles in sandals, because that’s what you wear in July. Me, I wear a cardigan and a down vest indoors and out, and I pity the snotty, shivering children in the rain. But the countryside is lush and neon green, and the cattle are sleek. And when the watery sun finally does make an appearance, the Irish look truly happy.

‘The end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.’
—TS Eliot

As I strutted down the new boardwalk on the Liffey yesterday, wearing sunglasses against the first shy rays of the Dublin ‘summer’, two local chancers checked me out.
    ‘Howya! Welcome to Dublin!’
    ‘Thank you,’ I replied in my best Brooklynese. I hate to let people down.

‘Just because a man was born in a stable it doesn’t mean he is a horse.’
— The Duke of Wellington, on being claimed by the Irish for his Dublin birth.

At Stansted airport, the woman at the Ryanair check-in desk asked to see my visa. Dopily, I flicked to the back of the passport to show her my precious H1-B.
    ‘No, this is for America. Where’s your visa for Ireland?’
I was stumped.
    ’I don’t need one. I’m Irish.’
    ‘No, you’re not. It says you’re Zambian.’
    ‘No, I’m not. It says I was born there, that’s all. I’m an Irish citizen.’
    ‘Well, do you have proof of that? I can’t let you board the plane without proof.’
My gears turned slowly. Then a brainwave:
   ‘Um, it says on the front cover that that’s an Irish passport.’
    ‘Okay then. That’ll do.’

I thanked her.

‘Even in Kyoto
Hearing the cuckoo’s cry
I long for Kyoto.’
—Basho

On the beaches of Sardinia, I thought about whizzing over the Brooklyn Bridge. The arches frame the shining city, and I used to feel like one of Chaucer’s pilgrims entering Canterbury. (And also like the pig from Babe, Pig in the City, which I made the mistake of seeing when very premenstrual. I sobbed through the entire scene where Babe is chased by a pit bull, and then through every appearance of the faded pink Blanche Dubois poodle down on her luck. Jason, who had come along only to see the Star Wars trailer, clutched his toy Light Saber and looked bemused.)

I miss the bridge because it reminds me of the freedom and belonging I felt there, in New York Fucking City, which I claimed as my own every morning when I freewheeled down through those arches. For a month or so before leaving, I’d glumly noted ‘lasts’—the last time I sat in Central Park, rode the N train, biked to work, ate Brooklyn olive bread, or kayaked on the East River. I tried to remind myself I’m only going for a year or so. But then, that’s what I thought when I left both London and Dublin, and things don’t always go according to plan. Especially when there isn’t a plan.

The Irish used to celebrate American wakes for their emigrants. The United States was so far away that those who left for it might as well have been dead, and their final week was a mourning party. My New York friends gave me a good wake. Tricia spoiled me with pedicures, brunches, drinks, and true friendship. Harley called to tell me that the Bangkok Oriental were expecting me for afternoon tea. David gave me a handwritten note that I’ve carried with me. Joe cheered me up whenever the upheavals made me panicky, and then started his own web journal to make up for my sporadic entries from here on out. Candy gave me her own flashlight and hunting knife, and kind advice that made me cry. Michael wrote a wonderful letter. Paul squired me around on my final trip to Brooklyn. Max came to Paragon Sports on my last day, and held my bags as I panicked about shoes until the end; I gave him the shoebox to hold my mail. Mark made me laugh over my last risotto in Le Zie. And Claire schlepped, ran errands, and cheered me on, and on my last day presented me with a Polaroid camera so that I would have photos to give as gifts to any Hmong tribespeople I might meet.

I miss them all, and I wish I’d had the chance to say proper goodbyes to others, too. So here’s a shout out to my homeys. For what we have received, may [insert as applicable] make us truly thankful.