“It’s the fear of what comes after the doing that makes the doing hard to do” 
Tony Kushner – Angels in America

I am sitting in bed writing this in a hotel just outside the moat and fortified wall of the old city of Chiang Mai. Walled cities are going to be a reoccurring theme on this trip. The rest of the ones to make an appearance lie under snow , or at least drizzle in a European winter, this one gently swelters in a South East Asian one. The aromatic moat decays extravagantly.

Holidays don’t come often in my game. Running a small brewery where one’s own labour and skills are fairly central to the continuing operation of the business means they are often more trouble than worth. But here I am 5 years since my last big trip doing it again. I have, I think, brewed enough beer to last the time I am away and the time it will take for beer to be ready after I return. I have delivered my precious wee terrier Ruby into the loving care of Shannon. I have traversed the various electronic border passes in which we have traded money and biometric surveys of our crumbing facades in order to gain temporary entry to the countries beyond. I have ticked the insurance company boxes and wagered a chunk of money upon misfortune.
So I am off for 5 weeks round the world with my mother: Thailand for a wedding, then England, Scotland, England, Canada , home. Boom. A middle-aged man and his aging mother taking on the world, think Poirot and Miss Marple on the grand tour but fatter, me and more antipodean, both of us.  

After my last trip in 2019 I had told my mother I would take her on a holiday to Britain. She hadn’t been back since returning from her O.E. in 1977.  2020 turned out to not be an auspicious year for travel and so it has taken until now for us to regain momentum. In four days, my cousin is getting married here and this has been the spark to get us moving again.

Two days ago , or was it more? , we set out with a flight to Auckland where we had the biggest layover of the trip. I decided a mission into town and dinner and beers at Galbraiths were preferable to 8 hours in the terminal. It was a good move as we were joined by friends Gareth and Helen and bumped into an old business contact John Cope Williams . The beers were absolutely singing! Really good to drink at the pub which sparked my love of cask ale before heading out to drink it in its homeland.

We returned to the airport and after all the usual scanning and vetting machinations we boarded our 1.40 am flight to Kuala Lumpa. What is there to be said about long haul flights? That aching combination of compressed boredom, and acute physical containment. We had a brief layover at Kuala Lumpa airport, Malaysia was entirely battleship grey and as hot and damp as a clothes dryer. After a lot of confusion, we finally worked out we had to join some massive queues and be herded into buses to change terminals. We then were directed to queue for what ended up being entry into Malaysia , after an interaction with a pint sized , shot gun lunged security lady who shouted something at us and then ran away we found a second one who showed us a wee almost hidden escalator which led to our gate for transit on to Thailand.  Our flight from Auckland to Malaysia had been mainly Malaysian Indian families with a sprinkling of holidaying Westerners. This flight was both less full and had more tourists. Behind me a young man from England chatted to a young man from America. They both decided there was no reason for tourists to visit their home countries. We often can’t see the beauty in what we see every day.

Entry to Thailand at Chiang Mai was much more sedate and after a quick coffee we allowed a taxi hawker to tee us up with a pre priced cab to the hotel. Then there was a prolonged wait for both our rooms to be ready , a spectacular melt down by a Chinese tourist about the smell of his hotel room rubbish bin, and mercifully at last a shower.

After achieving some cleanliness we walked down to the nearby 7 Eleven. Pedestrian navigation is not easy in this town. Perhaps this is how it is in all of Asia, this is my first Asian travel experience. There were no real footpaths , for awhile we hobbled over a semi open drain that ran across the front of a hospital , then it was just onto the edge of the road which of course was surging with mopeds and cars. We made it to the convenience store and stocked up on bottled water and toilet paper. I wanted beer but had already read up on Thailand’s odd afternoon prohibition where from 2pm till 5pm bars and shops can’t sell alcohol. We returned to the hotel and I popped back at 5 for beer and a bag of crisps.

I downloaded a food delivery app and ordered us each a Khao Soi . Khao Soi is the dish of the area.  A dish with a history that involves the spice trade and the Muslim community. When it arrived it came in the Thai way which is in plastic bags like how you used to bring goldfish home. In hindsight my ticking of yes to cutlery on the app was extremely optimistic. I asked at reception if they had bowls and cutlery we could borrow , the young lad came up with one bowl, one fork , one spoon. Apparently that was all they had, I think we were using what he had for his work day lunch. We took turns eating the delicious noodle broth. Northern Thai Khao Soi is all about the components. First the noodles , then the curry broth laden with chicken, then a soft-boiled egg, fried crispy noodles, pickled mustard greens, raw shallots, lime , and finally a dark pounded chili paste. We ate and drank on the veranda deck of the hotel; the sun set , strange birds filled the air with  their own call to prayer. Then we retreated to our air-conditioned hotel rooms and slept the sleep of the innocent.