"Staying On" might be described as a sequel to the"Raj Quartet", that series of novels set in the last days of British India.  It features characters who were also in the Raj Quartet. 
It is in a slightly different style from the component novels of the quartet, being much shorter.  It does not dwell on the political issues surrounding Indian Independence.  It is shorter.  Almost a long, short story.
It is a Booker Prize winner.  What is notable about this novel is that it explores the problems of old age. Not a subject that interests the young, but a subject that confronts us all sooner or later.  The problems are typically those of an elderly couple hanging on to the past by staying on in India after Independence.
It was a good read. I enjoyed it as I have enjoyed other novels by this author.

    This novel is the finale of the "Raj Quartet" and in a sense is where the various threads of the story come together.  It continues the "Alexandria Quartet" technique of telling the story from diffrerent points of view.  indeed, within this novel different characters speak in the first person from their own points of view.  Not all the characters know all the story; they each know parts of the story.

This novel introduces a new character, Sgt Perron, who plays the role of interested bystander and narrator. One suspects that Perron is speaking for the author and that Perron's experiences are really those of the author.

The story culminates with indian independence from British rule in 1947 and the ensuing partition and communal violence.  However, it highlights the ambiguous position of the several hundred principalities or princely states who's treaties with the british crown are about to be repudiated.  The mostly Muslim princes are left with little practical choice but to declare allegiance to the newly independant Hindu state apparently deserting their own Muslim subjects.

The entire quartet comprises some 2500 pages and can not only be described as a monumental work but one that is absolutely entralling.  what I enjoyed most is that whether the quartet is pure fiction or not, it is utterly credible.

This is the third novel in the "Raj Quartet".  It is said in the forward note that the novel is independant of the other novels in the quartet.  This is so, even though this novel shares some of the characters of the other novels.

This novel is both contemporaneous and succeeds "The Day of the Scorpion".  The novel focusses more on other characters.

This quartet seems to work better than the "Alexandria Quartet" where the format was pioneered by Lawrence Durrell.

This is the author's autobiography in three volumes. They cover the period from her birth in Simla in 1908 until she met her husband when in her thirties. She was working on the fourth volume at the time of her death at the age of 95.

The story of her childhood begins at Simla. At the age of ten she is sent to boarding school in england where she stays until she has finished her education almost ten years later. On completion of her schooling the family moves back to India. On retirement from the Indian Civil Service, her father serves the ruler of one of the princely states in Rajastan. On her father's final retirement, the family sails for Northern China where her father met her mother who was working as a missionary teacher at the time and where most of her mother's relatives lived.

It was while she was staying at Hyderabad, that the author met Somerset Maugham. She was disappointed to find him an unfriendly old gentleman. After Somerset Maugham had stumped off to bed she told his secretary that she has purposely avoided mentioning his books as she imagined that the great man must be sick to death of people saying “Oh Mr Maugham, I simply adored this or that book or story” To which his secretary replied: 'You are quite wrong. It's the only thing he likes to talk about'.  The next morning she got on with him very much better and she admitted that she had just written a very light-hearted novel, but that she was afraid that she would never make a writer. He asked why. She said that it was because she wrote much too slowly and would stick for hours on end over a sentence that she couldn't get right and had been advised by friends that she should leave it, press on, and come back and fix it later. She said that she had to get it right before she could go on and sometimes got held up for hours on end. For every word that she wrote, she might have rubbed out twenty. Somerset Maugham said that this was the one thing she had said that made him think that she would become a writer. He said that he did that, and so did Colette, who he apparently admired.

She asked him if it was true that the plots for all his stories ones he had overheard or had been told by people who had been involved in them in some way or another, and that they were all based on fact. He replied that of course they were and said “Why should I cudgel my brains to invent stories when people keep giving me excellent real-life ones on a plate? If they ever stop handing me interesting stories I may have to start inventing them. But not until then!”

This confirms for me what I had always suspected which is that Somerset Maugham's stories are so realistic that they could be based on fact. I suspect that it was his secretary, who was more communicative than Maugham and did not stomp off to bed early, who obtained the stories, and Maugham merely had to put them into words.

Although the writer's family always seemed to be short of money, they always seemed to be staying at the best places, for example, the Raffles at Singapore and the Taj at Bombay. They also managed to get invitations from to various Government Houses, for example, in Calcutta, through her father's connections with the various governors. It was that shortage of cash that led the family to spend summers in Kashmir on the Dal Lake at Srinagar rather than in the more fashionable but more expensive hill stations like Simla as in the past and it was the beauty of Kashmir in Spring and Autumn that she was particularly taken with.

After China, and a holiday in pre-war Japan, the family return to India where the father died. The author and her mother returned to England to be with relatives leaving behind in India the younger sister who had married. The mother found it difficult to adjust to widowhood in England and returned to India to keep house for the elder brother leaving the author behind in England to embark on a career of being a commercial artist. It was at this time that the author turned to pulp fiction in the evenings for want of anything better to do. She used to merely ask the librarian to select a handful of novels to last a week. The quality of this literature led the author to the conclusion that she could write just as well herself. She decided to give it a go and set about writing a whodunnit. Her first effort was accepted by the publisher who paid her what was a tidy sum in those days. She said that she had not realised that she was selling all her rights because she had not read the fine print in the contract.

From that beginning, she went on to produce a prodigious quantity of work including the three volume autobiography, children's' books, full length novels, and whodunits set in every part of the world.

We left Perth at fifteen minutes past midnight after inordinate hassles, worse than usual, getting through the airport. I managed to get a couple of hours sleep on the flight taking my sleeping pill just before take-off. It must have been at least an hour before it took effect. I was fairly groggy when we arrived in Sydney where we had to get bussed from the domestic to the international terminal.

The time between flights gave us enough time. The aeroplane to Auckland was not as full as the one from Perth to Sydney had been.

On arrival in Auckland the customs and immigration procedure is similar to what we experience in Australia. A minibus from the car hire firm collected us after we phoned them and took us to their premises near the airport. By the time we picked up our car it was getting on for 4pm.

There was just one problem getting out of Auckland where we went straight on instead of turning left to Hamilton. After a mile or two we decided to turn back and got back on the right road. It took us on to a dual carriageway which we followed for the 110 kilometres to Hamilton.

At Hamilton it was just geting dark when we spotted the sign for Rotorua. Surprisingly, a right turn which took us round the Western side of Hamilton before we headed East to Rotorua. After leaving Hamilton the traffic was not so busy even for Friday night and the roads reverted to a single carriageway and became more winding.

We covered a further 110 kilometres from Hamilton to Rotorua arriving there just after 8pm. The timeshare resort was 17 kilometres out of town. After asking directions we found it without too much difficulty. The first thing you notice in Rotorua is the sulphuric smell of the geysers.

Our accommodation is a smart two story town house that has a smell of newness. It overlooks a lake. We are here a month too late as the Autumn colours are just disappearing. The lake is surrounded by wooded hills.

Next morning we set off for town early to do our shopping. Some things are more expensive than in Australia, some things are cheaper and some things are about the same. Petrol might be slightly more expensive than in Australia but diesel fuel is a lot cheaper.

Over the supermarket public address system there was a food warning about the dangers of overindulging on the wrong types of food. Well, we went without breakfast and did not eat lunch until three o'clock in the afternoon.

In the evening Kim and family came round. They are all looking well. The resort property is owned by Thais. As is the custom, they have photographs of the King and Queen of Thailand in the foyer.

There is rugby on the television of one form or another all night. New Zealanders are looking enviously at the tax cuts in the recent budget in Australia and a lot of them would like to move there. Yes, it seems like the whole population of New Zealand would like to move to Australia - for economic reasons anyway.

On Sunday we spent the whole day with Kim and family. We met them at their house and they took us to the craft market on the shores of Lake Rotorua. We took a few photographs across the lake including the old stern wheel paddle steamer. After lunch at the shopping centre we went to Kim's mother's place and met Fred who is Kim's step-father to be. Kamala cooked mince curry for them from the food that they had. They all seemed to enjoy spicy food. Yes,it seems that the whole population of New Zealand would like to move to Australia – for economic reasons – to Brisbane where it is warmer.

We went into Rotorua and picked up Kim and went to the bath house in Government Gardens, a tudor style building designed by a bath expert from Bath, England, now turned into a museum. Afterwards, we carried on around the shores of Lake Rotorua.

On the shores of the lake is a “Woka” which is a Maori canoe. Seven of those large canoes each holding 40 or 50 people brought the Maori from the Cook Islands to New Zealand in the year 1350. Fred told me that the Maori can trace their ancestry to the people who arrived in 1350. The knowledge has been passed on from generation to generation by word of mounth and it forms the basis of Maori claims to the land.

Back in town, we stopped at the thermal park where the geysers are bubbling and the steam is rising. The Autumn colours of the trees around the park are very pretty.

We then left Kim with Les's parents. While we were there Les turned up with his daughters. After this we headed back to Okawa Bay Resort for the complementary drinks and meeting with the other timeshare guests. We struck up a conversation with a couple of American ladies.

Today is Kamala’s birthday. She has cooked a meal and invited Kim and her family including stepfather Fred who was the first to arrive. It turns out that Fred’s daughter is a retired diplomat. She has had postings in Korea and India. Fred has given her his house on the shores or Lake Rotoiti and Fred lives in her garage.

I went for a walk around the other side of Lake Rotoiti this morning but I got rained upon. Kim and Les stayed the night but they had to go quite early in the morning to get to work so they did not really have any breakfast the next morning.

Fred called for me in the morning and took me to the Maori meeting house where I took a few photos of the wooden carvings. In the evening we called on Kim and Les and they took us to the Polynesian baths. These are hot baths in strongly sulphurous water. Although the baths are open air the temperature of the water is 38 degrees. We spent about an hour there. About half the bathers were Japanese tourists.

After bathing Les showed us the old Maori houses on the shores of Lake Rotorua including the church where he and Kim wee married. Les was telling us that the local authority had required people with wells to block them up but they had then found that the subterranean pressure built up and started new geysers in people’s gardens. Les said that Rotorua is in a volcanic crater with mountains all around, Lake Rotorua being a volcanic lake, and that it could blow up at any time.

We bade them farewell as we have made a decision to leave a day early so that we can take the longer route to Wellington going by Napier. It looks like an hour longer but it might be easier going down the coastal plain rather than through the mountains.

We packed up and cleared the resort by 10am. The drive up to Taupo through the wooded hills is easy and Lake Taupo opens before us. It is a huge lake. We cannot see to the far side. The town of Taupo stretches as far as the eye can see. We take the turning to Napier. Before long we are driving through some very rugged mountains. We stop on the summit and it is very tempting to get out the camera for a photo of the distant peaks illuminated by the sun. However, I do not want to waste time getting my gear out for a single shot. There road is not bad as there are many passing lanes but there are a lot of trucks hauling logs on this road.

We reach Napier early in the afternoon and then we settle our accommodation for the night at the tourist information bureau. At 3pm I hit the streets armed with my Art Deco Tour brochure. The guide takes one past 90 – odd Art Deco buildings in the city centre. The walk should take between 60 and 100 minutes but I have photography to do as well. At the outset it appears that the sun is just about to disappear behind the clouds for the evening. Two hours later I have just finished but it is almost dark and I am down to a very slow shutter speed. It is almost night photography without a tripod. I had chosen a slow high resolution film having no idea that I would be using it for low light photography.

I return to our lodgings and then we go for fish and chips. They are excellent and much cheaper that in Australia. Why is Napier so distinctively Art Deco? In 1931, an earthquake of 7.8 on the Richter scale, severely damaged the commercial centre, and killed 160 people, and started several fires. A couple of years later the city centre had been largely replaced with new buildings in the Art Deco style of the 1930’s

We are on the road at 8am this morning leaving Napier and making for Wellington down the coastal plain. The drive through the dairying districts was delightful. There is plenty of grass and the sheep look fat. There is a mountain range to the West and the long white clouds are below its peaks. I chose too go to Wellington via Masterton to the East rather than by Palmerston North. I was hoping that we do not have to go through the mountain ranges to the West. However, my fears were well founded. We eventually got onto the mountain road. I could see vehicles on the road high above us. It was hard to believe it was the same road. The climb seemed to go up for ever. The mountain I went up at Chiang Mai last month was the highest I had ever been up but this may be even higher. The corners were certainly tighter and this time the responsibility for safe passage is mine. It was fortunate that the mountainside fell away from the other side of the road. In spite of this there were rucks with trailers climbing the hill. We had to pass them on the short passing lanes. The descent down the other side was not too bad. The road followed a valley down to Wellington but the mountain range continued all the way to the coast.

On reaching Wellington it took us an hour to find the ferry terminal. We would not have had time to find it the next day as we had to be on the boat before 7.55am. We set out early in Wellington after a hurried breakfast. I thought I knew the way to the ferry terminal but something went wrong in the one-way traffic system. Once we located the railway station we were able to find our way.

We boarded the boat without any problem. It was just a mater of parking the hire car and leaving the keys with the ticket clerk for the ferry. On the ferry we got talking to a chap who was going to Oamaru to take part in a sheepdog trial. He was telling us about a neighbouring farm of 2000 acres consisting of 1000 acres of uncleared land that was sold for $7M because the purchaser had $7M to spend. There was no way that he could make an economic return carrying on an agricultural enterprise. The crossing of the Cook Straits was smooth and the entry into Picton was surprisingly narrow; only a couple of hundred metres between the rocks. We got of the boat and checked in the train. We had plenty of time for a fish and chip lunch at the pub. I do not know if it was the sea air or the scant breakfast but the fish and chips were a meal to remember.

The train journey down the coast was spectacular with snow capped peaks to the west and the sea to the East. There was a brief stop at Kaircoura where I got a shot of the train in the station with the snow capped peak in the background as the sun was setting. Gavin and Hamima met us at the station at Christchurch and took us to their place. Later, we went out to a restaurant by which time it had become very foggy. The Super 14 Rugby Final was being played at this time under lights but the television pictures show that for the TV cameras and spectators the visibility was very poor.

On the Sunday afternoon we set out for Akaroa which was at one time a French whaling station. The drive along the peninsular followed the sea shore for the most part. However, as we neared Akaroa we had to climb over the mountains and down the other side into a most spectacular bay where Gavin’s yacht is moored. Gavin is sailing his 50 foot yacht to Picton where he will take it out of the water for the Winter. He is going with his yachting friend and they will return by hire car in time for their trip to Spain on Thursday. Gavin said that there was a tribe of Maori at Akaroa but a more warlike tribe from North island came down and killed them, cooked them, and ate them.

Gavin has a 1965 Daimler – Jaguar completely restored with new mechanicals including an XK 4 litre V8 that had only done 13000 kilometres. He is also restoring a Fiat 500.

On Monday we went into Christchurch again to put in place the rest of our travel arrangements. We had coffee at the Modern Art Centre. We walked past the upstairs room where Lord Rutherford had invented atomic energy. After that, Hamima roped us off in Cathedral Square where the successful Canterbury Crusaders Super 14 rugby team is signing autographs. We went to the tourist information bureau and they made our bookings for Dunedin. Then we went to the opposite side of the square and finalised our hotel booking for when we get back to Christchurch. With all our arrangements made, we retired to an Indian restaurant we have spotted for a lunch special. Hamima picked us up later in the afternoon at the arranged spot. We had a very nice meal with her in the evening and her son Thomas treated us to a violin recital.

We had to be up early today to get off to Dunedin. It is five and a half hours on the bus including half an hour stop for fish and chips. There are snow capped peaks again to the west as we go down the coastal plain. We pass through and have brief stops at Timaru and Oamaru which are both quite large towns. As we approach Dunedin it becomes more undulating. Dunedin itself is quite steep and the countryside around could almost be Scottish. On arriving at Dunedin we have about half a kilometre to walk to the Leviathon Hotel which was built in 1886. We walk past the most photographed railway station in the world. I hope I will get a better light for my photograph of it tomorrow.

Driving through these towns in New Zealand it struck me that the houses are smaller and older than in Australia. It may have been prosperous enough once but it does not look as prosperous as Perth.

Dunedin is almost as cold as Edinburgh. People are dressed for the cold. They look smarter. The whole town looks smarter than Christchurch. Apart from the railway station the town has a couple of particularly tall church steeples.

Along the country roads there are hedges that are three to five metres high. There are also rows of poplar trees planted two to three metres apart although the leaves have now fallen. The tree that are grown in the timber plantations are Ponderosa Pine for making paper and Radiata Pine for the building industry. The papermakers like the branches lopped to avoid knots in the wood but if the branches are lopped too far up the trunk it kills the tree.

For my day in Dunedin I took a tour on the railway up the Taieri Gorge. Once I am on the train the clouds cleared and gave way to a blue sky and bright sunshine. The gorge is line with Manuka (Tea Trees) which have all died because of a late -10 degrees frost in the gorge that struck after the sap had started to rise up the trunks. The leaves of these trees are used by the Maori to make an infusion that are a health remedy. However, the trees may be re-generating. The temperature in the gorge in Summer can be as high as 40 degrees. The rainfall is only twelve inches.

The railway line commenced in 1870 and was still under construction 16 years later. The area was the scene of a gold rush. Unsuccessful miners with no money ended up working on the railway. With no experience as stone masons they built bridges that the engineers say are as good today as the day the stones were laid.

It was 58 kilometres to the end of the line at Pukerangi where the locomotive was hitch to the other end of the train for our descent. A minibus was waiting at Pukerangi to take passengers on to Queenstown.

The old steam trains used to have difficulty with the gradient up the Gorge but the modern diesel locomotive has no such difficulty. There is a wrought iron viaduct built in the 1870’s that was brought up the Gorge in sections. We went across numerous bridges and through many tunnels. It took two hours each way. At the top end of the Gorge there were no trees; just rock faces with the tops being strewn with boulders.

It is an early start at Dunedin and we are ready to be picked up at 7.05 but the bus does not come. We express our concern to the hotel receptionist who very kindly makes phone calls for us and as a last resort takes us to the bus depot where we are just in time to get on the bus before it leaves. It is a cols morning; three degrees but it becomes a bright sunny day. On the way back we have stops at Oamaru and Timaru. We arrive back in Christchurch at about 2pm and check into Base Christchurch Backpackers in the corner of Cathedral Square which is fine and central.

After settling in we take the free shuttle bus to the Pak’n Save supermarket where we bought food for our evening meal of salmon and lobster salad. By the time we got back to the hotel it was almost dark. I thought Christchurch was more like Fremantle than Perth. It is ripe for redevelopment but if New Zealand is losing population who would want to invest here. Fred had said that Les and Kim would never be able to buy their own house because they spend too much. With wages about two thirds of wages in Australia and twelve and a half per cent Goods and Services Tax on food, what chance do they have. There are only one million people in South Island and half of those are in Christchurch.

And this is the last day in New Zealand. I noticed yesterday as we came up to Christchurch the huge irrigation equipment in the fields. The bus crossed long bridges over wide river beds with little more than a trickle of water. I got the impression that the East coast of South Island is very dry at the moment.

As it was our last day we hung around Christchurch. It rained in the morning which inhibited my photography but it was drier in the afternoon and I took my final shots in Victoria Park in the city centre.

It struck me that there are a lot of old buildings in Christchurch. Although it is ripe for redevelopment, that does not seem to be happening. In the suburbs the houses seem older and smaller than one would see in Perth.

We started out to the airport before daylight. We have two flights to catch today. Air new Zealand to Auckland and then Qantas to Sydney. Unfortunately there is a final sting of $25 to leave Auckland.

“My Trade” by Andrew Marr The author started his career as a journalist for “The Scotsman”. He rose to become the editor of “The Independent”. Then he went on to become a TV journalist with the BBC but also writes for “The Economist”. In this book the author covers the history of journalism. He writes about the newspaper owners - the press barons. Becoming an editor seems to have been an interesting transition from being a mere producer of words and stories to that of businessman with responsibility to the owner to ensure that the newspaper is on the street each day and that circulation is maintained. In fact, the author admits that newspaper circulation has been dropping steadily for quite a few years. The response has been for broadsheets to go tabloid form and to change the content to what is perceived to be in demand. The has been a gradual shift from what the author calls “hard news” to celebrity scandals with the result that world news - foreign news - gets pushed off the front page. Local news is more in demand by the readership. The author also looks at the love - hate relationship between the press and the politicians. They both need each other. Journalists are seeking a “scoop” and the government is paranoid about how and what is leaked to the press. In an open society in which the public have a right to know, all must be revealed eventually. But it is how it is revealed and what opinion the public forms is heavily dependent on how the news is reported by the press. It is the stuff that can make or break governments. The press is usually subject to an editorial policy that reflects the political views of the newspaper’s owners. Politicians are very concerned about the media having the means to advantage or disadvantage one political part or the other. This could result in a political party being kept out of office for a very long period of time. The media therefore plays an integral role in a democracy in shaping the opinion of the electorate. In summary, an interesting book.

“The Day of the Scorpion” by Paul Scott This is one of a quartet of novels on the British Raj. The author was in India for a few years in the 1940’s. He focuses on the lives of the British civil servants and the British officers in the Indian army. I would venture to say that he is like Somerset Maugham in India. Born in 1920, he died in 1979 at the age of only 59. In his later life he suffered from marital and drinking problems. In the 1970’s he won a Booker Prize for “Staying On”; the last novel in the quartet. In addition to the quartet he left quite a large body of work. I enjoyed his style of telling the story through the dialogue between the characters. The characters are vividly sketched. Just brilliant.

This beautifully written Booker Prize winner is unusual in that it deals with homosexuality. There are 450 pages to read before anything much happens and then all hell breaks loose and everybody catches AIDS. If the purpose of a novel is to entertain, I did not quite find enough entertainment in this.

 
This is a monumental work of almost a thousand pages.  It is one of the great novels of the British Raj.  With a combination of romance, murder and intrigue, there is never a dull moment. 

The author has an intimate knowledge of India under the British Raj having been born at Simla and leading her early life there.  Part of the action takes place in Rajputana, as it was called under the British Raj, now having reverted to its original name of Rajasthan.  I imagine that the Rung Mahal at the fictional Ghithor may have been modelled on the City Palace at Jaipur and that the Hawa Mahal at the fictional Kulkote might be modelled with Jai Singh’s fort in mind as it sits on a hill top and has steep sides under its walls.  I have not visited the fort but it seems to better meet the description than the Hawa Mahal in Jaipur even though the same name is used in the book.  The Hawa Mahal in Jaipur is where the zenana overlooks the street so that the ladies in purdah may be entertained by watching passers-by.

The closing chapters cover the siege and assault on the British Residency in Afghanistan which was an historical event in which the author’s own ancestors may have taken part.  The Far Pavilions has been filed in the 1980’s on which Ben Cross, Amy Irving, and Rossano Brazzi played parts.  It would be interesting to know which palaces were actually used for film locations as the author, who passed away in 2004 would have advised during the making of the film.

Through her characters, the author expresses her views on the justification, or lack thereof, for the British military occupation of India and the attempted annexation of Afghanistan.  These views are almost certainly against the views of her parents as servants of the colonial administration.

What we perhaps tend to forget is that India as such was largely a creation of the British but what the British left behind was two antagonistic neighbours, India and Pakistan.  Before the British Raj, India was a collection of principalities ruled by Mughal princes who had also invaded India.  Just as the British built the railways, the Mughals left behind some fantastic palaces and tombs.  In fact, a visit to India is not complete without a visit to one of them.

Off to Malaysia just after midnight.  We took off to the South West and got a good view of Perth as we turned right to head North.  I thought I could make out Herdsman's Lake as a black hole in a sea of street lights, the lights along Mounts Bay Road leading to the Narrows Bridge across the Swan River, and then the coastline where the lights ended abruptly.

I had a little bit of sleep on the aeroplane but I was awake in time for a similar visual experience as we glided into Kuala Lumpur.  This time the occasional flash of lightening added to the experience.

By the time we got out of the airport it was daylight.  This free flight was to have commenced in the morning and taken us to Kuala Lumpur via Sarawak.  However, that flight was cancelled but the direct flight to Kuala Lumpur took five and a half hours whereas the flight  via Sarawak would have taken seven or eight hours.

<>The hotel at the airport turned out to be a collection of single storied buildings with corrugated iron roofs that I thought may have been an army barracks or a construction camp for the airport.  We had an excellent breakfast and then went to bed until early afternoon. 

We took a taxi to Kamala's brother's place before the rush hour traffic to deliver the presents.  They took us back to the hotel or rather just to the airport for us to find our own way to the hotel.  After a nightmare trip trying to find our way to the airport it was easier to take the hotel bus from the airport to the hotel rather than to try to find the hotel ourselves.

We set off again the next day on a flight to Bangkok and landed there just before the heavens opened.  We allowed a little over two hours to land in Bangkok, get to the domestic airport, and to get our flight to Chiang Mai.  we needed all of those two hours. we had sent our suitcases through to Chiang Mai from Kuala Lumpur as I was afraid that collecting them in Bangkok would delay us.  When we got to Chiang Mai there was no suitcase.  A man told us to go to International Arrivals.  We did, and, like magic, there were our suitcases.

<>The Star Hotel in Chiang Mai booked over the internet turned out to be fine.  Chiang Mai is flat but it is surrounded by mountains.  I have no ideas what the temperature is but it must have been over thirty degrees during the day.  Everyone we meet who has been to Chiang Mai say how nice it is and many ex-patriots choose to live here.  For me, it seems hot, dirty, and backward.  The day we arrived it was the Songkran Festival when people throw water at each other.  I got drenched but the water was not cold.

One of the first business establishments we visited was an Indian dress shop.  It was owned by a Kashmiri.  I have heard it said that Kashmiris look like Italians.  Yes, I guess this chap looked like a darker version of Dean Martin.  He said that there had been 800,000 tourist cancellations due to the civil unrest over the election.  Someone else pointed out that it was not civil unrest but peaceful demonstration.  Kamala's brother had warned that it might not be safe and that it could turn into the strife they had in Malaysia in 1969.

Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand with a population of 200,000.  Later in the day we met another Indian tailor but he was Nepalese, having entered Thailand from Burma and marrying a Thai person.  He has the right to apply for Thai citizenship but has not yet done so.

<>

I cannot bear another day's shopping so I have booked a tour to the Golden Triangle where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Burma meet.  A minibus calls for me at the hotel just after 7 am.

Already on the bus are a South African couple who are teachers at Phuket.  We pick up two Chinese men from Malaysia and one from Perth so there are six of us, the tour guide and the driver.  It is 180 kilometres of winding road to Chiang Rai.  <>

We stop on the way to Chiang Rai at a hot spring.  The water in the spring is almost boiling and the steam is rising. The local people are cooking eggs in it.

Chiang Rai has a population of over 100,000.  Like Chiang Mai, it is a flat city.  The Thai people originally settled along the Mekong River but it flooded so they moved South and established Chiang Rai.  After attacks by the Burmese, they moved further South and established Chiang Mai. 

After Chiang Rai the land is flat up to Mekong River.  Chiang Saen is the town on the Mekong where the borders of the three countries meet at the Golden Triangle.  At Chiang Saen we first visit a Buddhist temple.  The tour guide gives us an interesting talk on Buddhist philosophy.  There is a large stupa dating back to the 13th century made from clay bricks and coated with stucco. Chiang Saen is much bigger than I expected and it seems to live off the tourists going by the number of street stalls selling souvenirs of the Golden Triangle. 

<>The Mekong River is a couple of hundred metres wide at this point.  It is one of the longest rivers in the world having its source in the Himalayas and running into the South China Sea from Vietnam.  All six of us get into a long tail boat wearing the life jackets provided.  The long tail boat has a four cylinder car engine and it takes off up the Burmese side of the river at about 40 kilometres an hour.  At the speed the boat is going the bow wave of the boat in front gives us quite a bump and a bit of spray.  <>

We see the huge, red brick casino on the Burmese side before crossing over to the Laotian side.  There is not much to see on the Laotian side.  The fishermen and the beautiful Laotian ladies that we were promised that we would see must have gone for lunch. Presently, we reach a jetty and disembark.  <>

Entry into Laos costs less than a dollar.  Even though this is a Communist country no passport or visa is required.  But you can have your passport stamped if you want to so I do.  This causes a potential problem which I did not realise at the time because the Laotian passport stamp proves that I have re-entered Thailand illegally. 

All there was to Laos is a few thatched huts which sell souvenir merchandise to the tourists from across the river.  The main item is snake whisky.  It is rice whisky but there is a dead snake at the bottom of the bottle. The only relic of French Indochina was a group of children playing petanque. 

Back in Thailand we board the minibus and drive off along a tributary of the Mekong with Burma on the other side whose mountains rose in the distance.  It was then that I realised the photographic possibilities of the successive planes vanishing into the afternoon haze.  We then stopped for a meal included in the cost of the tour which was surprisingly good and provided in a clean and pleasant establishment. 

After lunch we go on to Mae Sai, a border own on the Thai side of a fairly narrow river that marks the border between Thailand and Burma.  On the Thai side are the usual souvenir stalls for tourists.  I was never to see what was on the Burmese side but there seemed to be plenty of pedestrian traffic across the bridge.

<>We left Mai Sai and headed South in the direction of Chiang Rai. We turned off the main road and headed into the hills.  Here we were to visit the Akka people who are a hill tribe who have come from Tibet.  They have become Thai citizens and have been given electricity and made roads. There are only women and children in the village.  The men work at jobs locally. The hill tribes make handicrafts for sale to the tourists.  The tour guide says that they have no real need to sell their handicrafts as they are virtually self sufficient and have no need for money.  However, they have not much more than rice and vegetables to eat so they are very short in stature. Until recently these people grew poppies for opium.  <>

After the Akka people we visited the Yao people, another hill tribe further down the hill.  These people have come out of China and they speak a language similar to Mandarin.

By the time we get back to Chiang Mai it is 10pm.  Kamala had had a good day of shopping and other activities. In fact we had to go out again for a fitting with the Nepalese tailor.  We also got a very light meal to take back to the hotel.

The next outing is also a solo outing while Kamala pursues her shopping.  I go up the mountain to the Buddhist temple.  It is 16 kilometres but the mountain starts just outside the city.  It is the longest hill I have ever been up if not the steepest.  In spite of this there are tourists riding mountain bikes up the hill. 

On reaching the car park the driver gives me his registration number so that I can find his vehicle among all the other similar vehicles.  He says that the temple should take me about an hour.  There is a choice of climbing 300 steps up to the temple of to take the cable car.  The entrance where I am dropped off turns out to be the entrance to the cable car so I take the cable car.  It is a fine temple with a golden stupa but it is quite noisy with the children ringing the gongs.  After an hour I am ready to descend the 300 steps.

I asked Kamala if Thailand is like Malaysia as it is her first visit.  She says that it is quite different. I would like to have photographed the remains of the Chiang Mai town wall but it seems that all that remains are the corners. Although we have driven past a couple of well preserve corners there has not been the opportunity to stop to photograph them.  Although Chiang Mai has pretty tacky architecture, the flowering trees lining the moat surrounding the old town give a pleasant aspect.

Departure from Chiang Mai after breakfast and arrival in Bangkok went pretty smoothly.  After arriving in Bangkok we had a late lunch at the Robinson's department store. On the way back to the hotel I was able to find a copy of an out of print novel that I have been trying to track down for the past twelve months. 

<>We did not get back to the hotel for quite a long time.  We were accosted in the street by a couple of pretty young ladies and taken to a hotel where they tried to sell us more time-share weeks.  Time-share in Thailand has a bad reputation due to instances where the builder of the resort has gone bust leaving the time-share purchasers in the lurch.  Henry, the ex-Royal Navy time-share salesman, said that his father who was an employee at Christie's auction house could afford to live in London, Henry's generation could not afford to buy a house in London.  However, in Bangkok he could afford to live.  <>

The next day we got an all day ticket for the skytrain and make for the river where we take a boat upstream.  The boat was not crowded and there was a running commentary on the points of interest on the riverbank so I presume we had got on a boat for tourists rather than the regular public transport. There were many boats on the river including blunt nosed rice barges being towed. On reaching the last stop we got off and went to a Thai cafe for lunch.  <>

On the way back I had intended to go to the Jim Thompson house but I am not quite sure where it is and since it is getting very hot we took the cool comfort of a department store to go for a cup of tea.  Kamala is more interested in doing more shopping rather than seeing an original Thai teak house.  Jim Thompson was an American who started off the Thai silk industry but he disappeared in Malaysia in the 1950's.

Suitably revived, headed back to the hotel to pack for an early start tomorrow.  The hotel did not provide breakfast so we went straight to the airport before the Bangkok morning rush hour gets really bad.  At the airport we found a food court where all the patrons seemed to be either wearing uniforms or wearing an identity tag or some sort.  The Thai noodle soup is delicious and very cheap; it was worth waiting for.

<>The final sting is a $20 per passenger charge to leave Thailand.  Our flight is delayed 45 minutes for the midday thunderstorm. I was glad that we did not try to take off in that.  It was a smooth take-off and a smooth landing in Malaysia.

We got a cheap taxi ride into the city. Instead of taking a taxi from 'arrivals' where a tout gets a 30 ringgit commission, by going upstairs to departures and by getting a taxi that has just dropped off its passengers, the taxi driver does not have to pay the commission and can charge us less.

<>We spent the first night at Kamala's brother's place.  It was a hot night and we did not realise he now has air-conditioning installed.  After lunch the next day we headed off to the hotel attached to the shopping centre at Mid-Valley where we can shop seriously without having to leave the building.

At lunch the next day Kamala's niece was saying that although Malaysia is ideally situated for benefiting from trade with China and India, the government is busy building national symbols to make the country look good but they are not building schools and hospitals.  Obtaining healthcare and education is going to make life unaffordable for Malaysians in the future.