THE LOLA BOYS ABROAD !

Paul and Andrew had eventually found each other in a tatty room, in an old wooden house, in an equally tumbledown town deep in the south of Thailand.

Their re-connection had been as ordinary as the abode they were renting, but Paul knew that was often the case with couples who’d been together as long as they had.

Nearly thirty-two twelve month periods.

Which was equivalent to four hundred and sixty eight in gay years!

And now absence only seemed to make his hair grow blonder! (But that was another pony-tale!)

Yet their love was just that and didn’t always need to be proven.

They shoved their clothing, half of it murky laundry by now, and hit the road, or rather the tracks, and made for the Equator. That great imaginary line that separated the old world from the new.

Or most of it.

Paul was always surprised when re-acquainting himself with a map of the world just how little land lay south of this geographical dividing line. The majority of the southern hemisphere was made up of boundless ocean when compared to the land massed in its northern neighbour.

Down south it really was the blue planet.

It always gave Paul a frisson of excitement when he crossed the Equator. He imagined it was the explorer in him. And he just adored the way the water swirled in the opposite direction when it went down the plug hole – that must have been the child!

He and his partner had no real plan, only not to get lost once more!

Then again, sometimes that was the best way to find something.

They clambered aboard a busy night train and it being far too late to sample the dubious delights of her buffet car they climbed directly into their respective bunks and hunkered down for the bumpy night ahead.

Paul was far too long for the berth he’d been assigned, as was usually the case in equatorial climes. He found that the people were generally squatter at the planet’s girdle. Like compact flowers. Perhaps it was unnecessary for them to stretch towards the more distant sunlight as it appeared to be for those nearer the poles.

He wondered how a six foot six Scandinavian would cope with the childlike coffin of a bunk into which he was now crammed like an unfortunate anchovy. He struggled and writhed around to find some sort of comfortable position and as he did so heard the tutting from the bunks beneath. They were probably Thai, he mused. In Paul’s experience the Thai race tended to travel in utter silence. A railway carriage was normally akin to an undertakers’ waiting room.

Taciturn and funereal.

Even the slightest rustle was usually met with approbation.

He accidentally kicked his plastic water bottle against the train window as he tried to turn over. The minuscule thwack initiated another audible chastisement from the bed below.

Jesus Christ! Anyone would think he was masturbating!

These people had obviously never made a journey on an Indian train. On that great sub-continent every rail journey was a cacophony of Chai-sellers, Dhal-dealers, water wallahs and purveyors of anything living or otherwise one could fit into a basket.

And wankers everywhere!

There was rarely a quiet moment.

It was marvellous.

Thai trains, on the other hand, were full of prefects and goody-goodies ready to dob you in at the flick of an illicit cigarette.

Paul was always pleased to alight.

Early next morning the train pulled into Pedang Besar, one of those ordinary border towns which tended to cater for the travellers passing through rather than those who resided there. Paul and Andrew had spent many a week amid such transience and had often enjoyed themselves immensely. The constant chopping and changing of characters made for some colourful and sometimes rather lurid encounters if one stayed for more than the next bus out.

But not this time, as the border with Malaysia was half way along the platform which seemed too terribly convenient to pass up.

It ended up just being terrible.

Of course one could never take anything for granted at a checkpoint and The Lola Boys arrival did not go as smoothly as planned, as a particularly officious Thai border guard noticed that they were both seven hours over the expiry date on their respective visas.

Seven hours!

Paul attempted in English and highly rudimentary Thai to blame it on the train, but the jobsworth, wearing a uniform which was more uptight than he was, was having none of it!

A heavy fine ensued and an even weightier interview, conducted in a stifling office with three more railway staff each got up in a different get-up!

Paul always marvelled at the Thais love of a uniform. There seemed to be a particular garb for every official occupation and rank within it.

The man in khaki conducted the interrogation A lady in Navy blue completed the paperwork. And a stout, surly girl in cerise took the cash.

An older official clad in livery worthy of a Brigadier entered the sauna of an office at the finish of the tortuous process to complete the stamping. His regalia rattled as he applied the ink with an ostentatious flourish.

It was quite the circus.

And an expensive one at that.

After which they were allowed to proceed along the platform and into Malaysia.

Paul was rather pleased to see the back of Thailand with which he had a love hate relationship. So he knew he’d be thrilled to return when the time came. Plus he didn’t want to blog anything too contentious as the written word had a way of getting one into deep trouble in certain countries. He knew his loyal and intelligent readership was entirely capable of reading between the lines. He didn’t want to be banned. Or worse.

It had happened to him before.

He was well aware that the Bangkok Hilton had a notoriously low rating on ‘Booking.Com.’

And there wasn’t a pool!

As he and Andrew sped south through Malaysia on a modern commuter train, which had made the last engine on which they’d ridden look like something out of ‘The Railway Children’, Paul couldn’t help but notice the landscape change. The ramshackle huts and semi-aquatic compounds of rural Thailand gave way to much richer looking accommodation. Paul was reminded the country was an oil producing nation and more affluent than the country to her north. Endless palm plantations whizzed by in a verdant blur. Dull monoculture on a vast scale. Impressive yet tedious.

When the engine reached Butterworth Station, named after John Butterworth, a former governor of the Straits settlements during the British Raj, Paul and Andrew took their leave. They were heading for the island of Penang and planning to stay in Georgetown it’s old colonial capital.

Paul was astounded that for such a modern station Butterworth had few facilities.

A cafeteria one would only be seen dead in by the looks of the refreshment on offer and a set of lavatories which could only be described as prime evil.

There was also no ticket office which even resembled being open and nowhere to get hold of some Ringitt, the local currency, of which they had none as it had been impossible to acquire the stuff in rural Thailand.

It was hardly the best start to a Malaysian trip for the first time visitor but Paul and Andrew did not qualify as one of those and knew the country to work very effectively in most parts.

Just not at Butterworth.

Paul considered it a situation in need to immediate remedy, as first impressions lasted a lifetime on the palate when getting the taste of a place.

Especially if it was one’s first course.

He imagined what the old British Governor would have made of such inconvenience. After all, efficient rail travel was one of the very few positives to come out of Great Britain’s plundering of such nations. Paul had no doubt Mr Butterworth would have had all responsible whipped and sent across the water to Georgetown’s infamous prison. Paul felt like doing the same as he wrestled with his rucksack amid the stultifying heat, still riddled with cramp from the box in which he’d spent the night, desperately searching for an A.T.M.

But he wasn’t the governor.

Also the aforementioned jail was now closed.

And he’d mislaid his whip.

So he put the thought from his mind.

However appealing it was.

Eventually he and Andrew found some cash at the ferry terminal, which was much better appointed than her pathetic railway sibling, and were soon bustled aboard the local ferry to cross the straits on the short hop to Penang.

Andrew and Paul had visited Georgetown some years before but had not stayed long as they’d had other fish to fry on that journey. In the Mekong Delta and far beyond. But Paul had remembered being fond of the town.

She was a muddle of dilapidated, antiquated Chinese shopfronts and extremely faded, once grand, colonial architecture. There was a smattering of modern architecture thrown in but certainly nothing like her bigger sister further south, Kuala Lumpur, that impressive jungle of futuristic steel and concrete carved out of the jungle.

Georgetown still possessed that most ineffable of qualities – atmosphere.

Paul often found this to be lacking in some of the larger cities of south-east Asia where vibrant and thriving local communities had been eschewed for soulless condominiums. These towering monstrosities may come replete with a pool and a gym but no-one had a clue who Paul and Jim were! They were towers of anonymity.

Paul loathed them!

His usual response to these skyscraping monoliths of monstrosity was to jump.

But so far he’d resisted the urge.

Obviously.

As he and Andrew checked into the more bijou than boutique hotel on which they’d splashed out, Paul noticed the swimming pool advertised was now filled with Koi carp, so there would certainly be no splashing in! He made a mental note to not be coy and carp about it to reception later.

But for now there was a bed.

A four poster at that.

And after the long and drawn out expedition the boys had just undertaken drawing the shutters and laying out on it was highly appealing.

Especially as there was no miserable bugger beneath to complain about the bloody noise.

Bliss.

Time to unpack.

And unravel.

And re-connect …….