There is something instinctive about returning, a base desire of the heart, even though the head knows better. Never go back, but I was returning: I was driven by necessity. I was going back to Paradise after a year spent in Hell.I arrived in Bangkok on a direct flight from London. I left the capital immediately on a train bound for the northern city of Chiang Mai, dozing fitfully to the rhythmic pulse of the rails, the sing-song glockenspiel chatter of my fellow passengers. Three hours later the train drew into the town of Khon Khai and I alighted.The platform was deserted. Sunset lay gaudy acrylic tones across a flat horizon. Crickets thrummed their monotonous double-notes like faulty electrical appliances. I was back, and the sight of the ramshackle town, stark unshielded bulbs illuminating bamboo kiosks on flimsy stilts, the aroma of barbecued rat and chicken, tore the months away from under my feet: it might have been 2002 again; I might have arrived in Khon Khai for the very first time.I made my way to the town’s only hotel, a whitewashed hovel with a corrugated tin roof opposite the station.
