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Am back on yack. Meaning, I braved central Bangkok last night to buy a new phone at the MBK centre, rabbitwarren that isn't even shops exactly, more booths. The new tough me attempted to negotiate on the price, but the vendor said the phone was so cheap that he only got 20 baht commission. Maybe. But the phone was cheap - it doesn't even have a camera and I think I've conquered most of its features already.

The red shirts are still in the downtown area and the glossy department stores are still shut, which must be causing a few financial ulcers.

Visted the tourism ministry yesterday to report my dodgy travel agent. Feel like quite a crusader now. The place Ninja booked me into at Ao Nang was quite nice in some ways, very low key and it had free internet and gardens. I think it may have also had bed bugs. But I was there to spend time with friends. We got fed up with being hustled, although the islands were beautiful,. The beachfront however is bursting with massage huts, ATMs, 7-Elevens and tour operators charging central Bangkok prices (and more).

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Ironically, on my friends' last night they returned to sample the Japanese restaurant at their five-star resort while I diced with digestive death eating street food sitting on a plastic stool in the street. I probably got a bigger dose of car fumes, but guess who got food poisoning? I was fine, a little instability in the gastronintestinal region, but that's to be expected. Besides, it reminds me of a friend with a truncated bowel.

Ao Nang is very family/resort oriented - no obvious sex industry. But every inch - even beaches only reachable by boat such as East and West Railay - are colonised by shops and bungalows.

East Railay is a little swampy and mangrovey, so it's more laid back there, with wood/bamboo bars that remind of the Thailand I saw 15 years ago.

And 15 years ago I was on Koh Phangan, and even attended a Full Moon Party on what is now called the 'world famous Haad Rin beach'. It may be more famous now, but a raised profile has not necessarily improved things. Development there is mostly unattractive, and there are ugly 'bucket' shacks or booths on the beach where strong, er buckets of alcohol are sold. I'm not sure I can write what these booths have painted on them, as I might use up my swear word quota, or wear out the asterisk key. But they have names like: 'Free bum sex bucket' and 'I don't give a f***, I just want to f***' bucket. Charming.

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On the way there I met two Israelis who tell me they are there to party. 'It is the only reason to go to Haad Rin,' says the stocky one, who however dismisses the Full Moon Party as 'just 10,000 people on a beach'. So probably not the place to discuss Scandinavian philosophers.

As I wandered around Haad Rin, I thought back to the first time I was there. I was flying to Koh Samui with a planeload of Germans and was seated next to an American woman called Dana on the aircraft. She was off to the islands to get over an infatutuation with a work colleague who'd injured himself and gone home to Zimbabwe to consult his witch doctor. Dana was peeved he didn't want her to go with him, though as I recall she did have a financee somewhere.

Anyway, I'd paid for a hotel on Samui, but Dana found me - easily spotted wearing the most clothes on the beach - and she persuaded me to put a few things in a weekend bag and accompany her to this other island. We stayed in a simple bungalow with a cold water tap, a bamboo bar near by where you could buy chilli noodles, and the Full Moon Party came to us. copyright www.hysjw.cn

Questions lapped my brain matter as I stared at the sea: What happened to Dana? Did the witch doctor cure that bloke she liked?, and where did the past 15 years go?

I never actually planned to return to Koh Phangan, but Ninja booked me there, so maybe it was fate. Anyway, while there I met Petter the Norwegian, who was complaining loudly about a Ninja in Bangkok. A forklift driver whose mother was dying of throat cancer, he was paying nearly double what I was for a similar scummy bungalow at Or-Raworn 'resort'. He intended to visit Ninja when he returned to Bangkok.

I visited the office of tourism development yesterday and lodged a complaint. His Tourism Authority of Thailand accreditation was bogus. I interrupted a number of Thais snacking and chatting before being handed over to a young woman who said she would keep me informed.

I also met two young German women Or Raworn, who said the bites on my feet could be bed bugs. Yuk. I read a bit about them, and sometimes they drop out of the ceiling when they sense a body. That night the huge cockroach appeared in the loo and refused to go away - it tried to come into the bedroom and I had to beat it back and then I lay there thinking about the roach and the bed bugs dropping from the ceiling and I twisted and turned on my gritty sheet and was still awake at 4am. Content source World Travel Information www.hysjw.cn

The clean sheet and insect spray I demanded the next morning were calming, as was an excellent massage from Jeab at the Siam Healing Centre, who teaches massage and really knows what she is doing.

Some of the good she bestowed was cancelled out by the return to Bangkok, which was a long day. Up at 6, I walked to the pier at Thong Sala to catch a catamaran to Chumphon, then bus to Bangkok (lomprayah.com). The whole thing took about 13 hours, but at least the bus was relatively efficient, though leg room was limited.

Saw my friend Bryan last night. He's American, a tall blond Mid-Westerner who works in the entertainment industry. He came to Thailand with US$10,000 and blew the lot in his first two months. Now he's broke, but he knows a lot about the bar situation in Bangkok. He was able to explain quite a few things to me.

As a European female, I am completely ignored. Thai men say hello occasionally, but the communication barrier - at least - probably puts them off. Lone European men aren't interested in white women - they want eager-to-please, nubile Asian girls. Gorgeous Thai women are what the the sex industry here is all about. They are, after all, what many European men come here for, especially the ones with no necks that look like toads. Reprinted Please specify source www.hysjw.cn

According to Bryan, Thai women are relentless. He was pursued tenaciously in bars, clubs, chat rooms, the street. He says Thai women have sex like some people have a cup of tea. But foreign men need to be careful - once a woman latches onto them, she can call all her friends to the bar or wherever you are where there is a frenzy of drink ordering, and the bloke is left with the large bill. Bryan didn't mind too much, he enjoyed being popular. And the sex. 'You know, I screwed my brains out when I got here,' he said, adding wistfully: 'But sometimes you just want more.'

He's found more in the form of Mai, 20, who came to Bangkok to open a hairdressing salon, got into debt and drifted into the sex industry. Then she drifted into a documentary that Bryan was making, and then she moved into his apartment. He is ambivalent about this arrangement. He cares for her, but Bryan is 35 and says he can't deal with '20-year-old girl craziness'. Also she's Thai, and the Thai agenda seems to be fairly focused. She's known Bryan three months and she wants marriage and a baby. She rings every 20 minutes or so to find out what he's doing and remind him of this.

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Apparently Mai no longer 'goes with customers' although Bryan is not thrilled by her profession. 'I still have Western ideas about monogamy,' he says, though he's made it clear to Mai that he did not come to Thailand to find a wife.

Be careful, I advised. Don't get her pregnant. She's been moody the past couple of days and now it appears she probably is pregnant.

Bryan took me to Soi Cowboy a couple of weeks ago. This is the almost 'friendly' face of the sex trade, being less hyper than Patpong. In general, these bars have women in bikinis downstairs shuffling on a table. Bryan explained that they all have numbers and if you fancy no 37, you order her, as you might a dish on a large chinese menu, and she comes to sit with you and drink beverages that you buy her.

As we make our way down the street, a street vendor selling watches approaches. 'No thanks,' he says. 'I want peanuts.' When another guy with peanuts comes up Bryan says: 'What I really want is a watch.' www.hysjw.cn Submit Travel Information

He was swigging from a big bottle of Chang. This is what you do when you are broke in Bangkok. You buy Chang at a 7-Eleven, get the staff to open it and then you go for a walk. When I tried it, I felt like what is known in Australia as a 'dero', but the Thais don't care - they live on the street. Eating and drinking on some sticky steps is normal for them. More normal anyway than a bar where cocktails cost hundreds of baht.

Bryan has theories about Thailand. First, the women are relentless in their pursuit of rich white men who will set them up for life. Second, because no one's physical needs are denied (excluding European women) they are a calm and satisfied people. More or less. 'It's a sex saturated society,' Bryan announces. It's night, I'm standing in the middle of a red light zone and I feel completely safe. My only immediate danger is that I may eat too many peanuts.

We walked through one bar together and saw the bikini-clad girls shuffling miserably. 'It's like a slave auction,' Bryan remarked. Or a livestock sale, I thought.

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'Look up,' Bryan urged. 'The floor is glass and there are girls up there in school uniform dancing around with no underwear.'

He spoke the truth and hastened to add: 'Last week I came in here and the girls upstairs were all naked and having an orgy. I'd brought these two lesbian friends from San Francisco and they loved it.'

Last night Bryan was a DJ at a street bar made from a converted minivan. I chatted with young guy from Hamburg whose girlfriend didn't want to leave the hotel room because she thought Bangkok was so scary, which seemed inexplicable to me. We discussed the psychological make-up of serial killers and German grammar.

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