Letter from Thailand

You come across some characters when staying in backpacker hostels and I found myself sharing a dorm with some right headers. One, an early thirties Galwegian called Paddy who had been living in Perth for over a year, was on the bunk above me. He studied robotics in university and was working for an Australian company that manufactured car assembly machinery. In his spare time he told me, he was working on a computer program that he would allow him to cheat at online poker. Although his short stature, dorky profession and thick glasses gave the impression of a studious, quiet type, he was actually a funny, eccentric sort of a lad.

He was full of off-the-wall stories that generally only came to light when the drink was flowing. One such tale was of the time when he went to Belfast as a 17-year-old to try to enlist in the IRA. He didn't know anyone so he just wandered into a bar in West Belfast and started asking random punters if they could put him in touch with the local OC. Happily, he wasn't taken as some sort of security forces plant and he returned home unharmed after being informed that the war was all but over and his services would not be required. His decision to travel to Belfast came about, he told me, as a result of a short-lived romantic notion of the IRA's campaign that had long since past. But he enjoyed telling the story all the same.

Another one started off a bit more mundane but ended in far greater personal tragedy. He got his own place in Galway shortly after leaving college and immediately set about redecorating. Walls were painted, tiles were laid and a laminate floor was glued into place with some dodgey tin of industrial adhesive he got from a mate. He slept on the floor after his day's work but he would wake up, he told me, feeling increasingly groggy and short of breath. His brother dropped by to check on his progress and was impressed by the results. He was less impressed however, by the discoloured, disheveled mess Paddy had suddenly become. He was a shade of green, by all accounts, and a trip to the hospital was deemed necessary. He was sent home after extensive tests and a short stay with the sad news that he had permanently lost 30 per cent of his lung capacity. “Don't laugh at me! I've the lung capacity of a eight-year-old girl!” he lamented, throwing his hands in the air when he saw my unsympathetic reaction to his sorry tale..

Also sharing my room were the hostel's only two French representatives – Sylvan and Thebault. The pair were of such different personalities that it was amazing that they came from the same planet let alone the same city. While handsome, brooding Thibault was quiet and darkly intelligent, larger-than-life Sylvan was probably the most out-going person I've ever met.

A particular bug-bear of Sylvan's were the big, screeching crows that seem to infest much of Western Australia. They look quite like the Irish fellas but oddly, they sound nothing like each other. To all intents and purposes the Australian version has a different accent. It's difficult to wake up in the morning to anything other than their howling cries that sound like a mixture between someone dry retching and a bag of cats being stamped on. Unless of course, you shared a room with Sylvan. He hit the roof as soon as the first bird began to vomit its morning chorus off in the distance. He would be out of bet and barreling towards the window shouting, “Zee berds! They cannot shet ap!”

Sylvan's main hobby was smoking cannabis. Not unusual in itself, but he had an oddly artistic way of approaching the practice. Anytime we went to the super market he would pick up a piece of fruit and announce that he would smoke it. I didn't really know what he meant by this on the first occasion he started manically declaring his nefarious intentions towards an unsuspecting water melon but I soon found out. He bought it, took it back to the hostel and went to work with a big grin on his face. He cut a lattice of internal chambers into the fruit and then started rolling a half dozen joints. Next, he fitted them into strategically placed holes in the outer skin of the melon, sparked up and smoked them by sucking on one end of the fruit. Over the weeks that followed he would burst into the dorm with some other unfortunate victim from the fruit and veg isle quite regularly. I personally watched him smoke grape fruit, banana, mango, a large apple and, on one of his less inspired days, a bewildered carrot.

I was quickly finding out that sharing a room with a bunch of strangers is at times uncomfortable, sometimes unhygienic and occasionally dangerous, but rarely boring.

My latest plane touched down and finally, after stopping off in England, Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore I was at last in Australia. Despite the fact that the first Irish to set foot on this part of the world had to be shackled and dragged kicking and screaming down the gangplanks onto the shores of Botany Bay by our then colonial master, Oz has been a voluntary target of our emigrating masses ever since. The Irish played the same role here as they did in the other 'new' countries, namely, battled their way onto the building sites, docks and farms, worked their arses off and played a major role in hacking a nation out of the wilderness. Our late affluence however, triggered a massive shift in the type of individuals being dispatched Down Under.

With a trip to the other side of the world less the life sentence it once was and Australia's immigration laws tightened significantly, the profile of the average Irish arrival changed. A young Corkonian or Galwegian travelling to Oz did so for an extended holiday on a one-year visa funded primarily by cash generated in Ireland and subsidised by as little casual employment as possible. With our little economic miracle now over things are slowly creaking into reverse.

I travelled to Australia for a three-week holiday about four years ago. I flew into Sydney and went straight for the infamous Bondi Road where a mate of mine was living at the time. Bondi had been home to the city's Orthodox Jewish community for decades but they were in the process of being ousted by a partying hoard of gap-year Irish aiming to transform the area into Ireland's 33rd county. I was stunned by the number of GAA jerseys floating about and struck dumb when I saw a game of beach hurling in full swing on my first trip to the seaside. The Irish I came across were there primarily for a good time and they new exactly how to go about getting it. This time round though, the Irish I've been coming across have been pushed out of Ireland by lack of work rather than pulled to Australia by the promise of a year-long session. Many are riding out the storm – more still are going to stay if they can.

Unfortunately, Australia has been hit by the international economic crisis and work is nowhere near as plentiful as it was in years past. Although not brutalised to the degree to which Ireland has been, there is still massive competition from travellers for any and all positions that crop up. A lot of guys who used up savings, redundancy or bank loans to come here in the hope of getting work and putting aside a few quid have been forced home to dole queues and debts after being unlucky in the jobs market here. There are of course wealthy exceptions, but the all-encompassing party that had been ongoing amongst the Irish youngsters knocking around Australia for a decade is over.

I had a pre-booked bed in a backpacker hostel in Perth's traveller Mecca of Northbridge and made it there some time around midnight. I smiled hello at a small gathering of backpackers stoically drinking their way through a bottle of vodka and went to reception. I was beat after my trip and ached for a bed. I paid for the night and was shown to the dorm where I would be staying.

I've put my head down in some dodgy spots over the years but this one took the biscuit. The room, which looked like someone had pilled a dozen backpacks onto a hand grenade and then pulled the pin, stank of a mixture of sweat, cigarette buts floating in stale beer and feet belonging to someone with late stage trench foot. I dropped my bag onto the ground and glared at the guy who had escorted me to this midden. “Are you serious mate?” I said, hoping he had another room reserved for people who weren't filthy.

“What do you mean?” he asked, fully aware of exactly what I meant.

“I mean I wouldn't put a dog in here.”

The argument went back and forth for a while with me hamstrung by the fact that it was too late to go wandering a city I didn't know looking for somewhere to stay that had a late night reception. I knew it wasn't one I was going to win so I bit the bullet, called the guy a dirtbag and climbed into one of the free beds.

I pulled a t-shirt over my face in a forlorn attempt to block out the stench but without any joy. I tossed and turned and through my disgust, fatigue and discomfort began to convince myself that there was something crawling on me. I shook it off eventually and passed out but when I woke the next morning I was head to toe in swollen, red bites. The place was infested with bedbugs. The only thing that saved the bloke at reception that morning was the fact that he had been replaced by some other clown. It wasn't the start I had been hoping for.

I suffered a disorienting start to my time in Singapore – the spoiled little rich kid and multicultural poster boy of Southeast Asia. I booked a room in Hotel 81 on the city's Geylang Road only to find that there were in fact eight Hotel 81s on Geylang Road. Squeaky clean Singapore has a reputation as being super spotless to a fault, but nobody told Hotel 81's cleaning lady. My room, when I eventually found it, was manky and for some reason had a disconcerting amount of other people's hair clinging to various surfaces. I knew something was amiss but at that point, couldn't figure out what.

I reported the lackadaisical approach the elusive cleaner had taken to her duties to the looker at reception and she responded with a frosty smile bordering on a grimace and a new room key. Sadly, my new room was equally gross and hair coated. Eight Hotel 81s – at least 20 stories each and with a minimum of 30 rooms per floor. I didn't fancy measuring the hair content of all 4800 rooms so I cleaned the place as best I could, took a shower and headed out determined to spend as little time in my room as I could during my two-day stay.

Southeast Asians are renowned the world over for their friendliness and optimism-against-the-odds attitude so I was expecting Singaporeans, the only nation on the sub-continent with the cash to make this positive outlook seem justified, to be an extremely cheerful lot. Instead, I found stoney-faced glares and pedestrians who appear to be under the impression that its physically possible to actually walk straight through white people when they get in your way.

After being jostled off the footpath and into the road by the twentieth be-suited, dour little creep in the space of a half an hour I decided a pit-stop was the only thing that would save the next clown from a daylight beat down and me from being sentenced to lashes or hanging or some other delight from Singapore's big book of medieval punishments.

I pulled up a chair at a roadside eatery and was immediately shouted at by some old bint working there. They don't take orders – you queue, point out what you want and then pay. Anyone not born with this knowledge should apparently be abused at full volume in a variety of languages. I selected some slop or other, paid and took my seat while the woman snapped something I'm sure was equivalent to “Not that f**king hard now is it?” in what I think was Malay. I had only been there a few hours but I couldn't help it – I already hated Singapore.

Another roadside job on the opposite side of the street had a couple of people patiently sipping beers so I hoped across to see if I couldn't cheer myself up. I ordered a Tiger – the country's national beer – and nearly choked when I heard the price. 22 Singapore dollars is in the region of 12 Euro. No wonder the other patrons were drinking so slowly.

I decided there was definitely something odd about Geylang Road as the night closed in and I nursed the most expensive beer I'd ever had. There were a lot of good looking women about, but they seemed to be just standing around. The blokes on the other hand, were all on the move. A middle aged guy who looked to be Indian stopped and began chatting with a pale, shy-looking girl of Chinese origin about half his age. She nodded furtively, they headed off together and everything fell into place. The ludicrous number of grotty hotel rooms, the girls standing still, the guys pushing past – Geylang Road was a giant, open-air knocking shop. The streets around Geylang were heaving with what must have been tens of thousands of people as I headed back towards my hotel and the female half were on the game.

I knew before I got to my Hotel 81 that it would have suddenly received a rash of bookings and so it proved – there was actually a queue of couples who clearly had never met before waiting to get checked in.

A guy I used to work for in Bangkok has since relocated to Singapore and I met up with him the following night. He showed me around the city's magnificent harbour area and brought me out for beers in a swanky rooftop bar in old China Town which afforded views of the whole city. He mentioned that prostitution was actually legal in Singapore – status not enjoyed even in raunchy Bangkok. The tourist heart was a far cry from Geylang, but still not a place I could take to. The people were just as pushy and stuck up. If you ever get the chance to go to Singapore I suggest you skip it. Unfortunately, my return flight is already booked.

A visit to Phnom Penh's city dump the day before I was due to fly out didn't turn me off Cambodia and as my flight to Singapore trundled down the runway I was determined to return for something longer than a holiday. In the meantime, I had a couple of days in the Lion City to contend with before I would finally arrive in Perth to begin what would no doubt be a tough, demoralising search for some gainful employment – a resource all but dried up back home.

Phnom Penh's airport is a basic, quaint type of place with light traffic and practically no amenities. Singapore's Changi Airport is a slightly different kettle of cod. Changi, Southeast Asia's busiest, has a swimming pool, gym, saunas, steam rooms, an embarrassing range of shops and restaurants, hundreds of free Internet stations and recliner chairs complete with blankets dotted around the terminals. I didn't want to leave.

The city state of Singapore is the end product of a century of economy-driven multiculturalism in action and there are few if any countries in the world quite as diverse. Native Singaporeans live among massive communities of Malay, Indian, Pakistani and ethnic Chinese. Westerners and Asians of every other hue are also represented in number.

Singapore is Southeast Asia's wealthiest country – a fact evident on the drive from the airport to my hotel. The place is immaculate the point of annoyance. It was amazing to think that it shared a planet with ramshackle Cambodia, let alone a sub-continent. The trees that dot the roadside and motorway meridian are spaced exactly the same distance apart for kilometres on end and the grass they sprout from is as manicured as a K-Club putting green.

Draconian laws mean crime, litter and other nastiness found elsewhere in neighbouring countries are for all intents and purposes non-existent. Squeaky clean Singapore is so displeased by those unsightly brown blobs found on the streets of every other city in the world that it even has a law on its statute banning chewing gum. Arriving with half a pack of Wrigglies Spearmint wont get you banged up but selling the stuff can actually get you sentenced to lashes of a cane across the arse cheeks.

There is however, a dodgy side to Singapore which I ran into through lack of proper forethought and planning. My round trip from Ireland to Australia via Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore meant booking eight different flights as well as least a dozen hotels and guesthouses. Because I only planned to stay Singapore for two days I didn't work too hard to find cheap, cheerful, well-located accommodation – I just consulted Google and picked the cheapest option that wasn't too much of a trek from the city centre. The place I ended up didn't look much like the postcards.

Hotel 81 on Geylang Road proved odd, first of all, because there are eight of them. Eight of the same hotel, built to the same cheapo design, on the one road in the one city. I told my elderly taxi driver how ridiculous this was after I jogged out of the fourth Hotel 81 on Geylang Road which didn't have a room reserved for me, but he wasn't convinced. He felt I should have come equipped with more information than the hotel's name and road. Luckily, the fifth was the one I was after so I paid the guy and cast him out of my life forever.

The girl who checked me in was good looking but with a fake, plastic McSmile that made her look like a breathing manikin. “So”, I said. “Would you believe me if I told you that this is actually the fourth Geylang Road Hotel 81 I've visited today?”

“Yes Sir, there are actually eight Hotel 81s on Geylang Road,” she answered without acknowledging the weirdness of such a marketing strategy.

“How many are there in the rest of the city?”

“Oh, there are none Sir. All of Singapore's Hotel 81s are on this road.”

“That's weird. Don't you think that's weird?” I asked.

“Here is your key Sir – room 718.”

“Well I think it's really weird,” I said as I took the key and picked up my bag. “Something should be done about it actually,” I continued. “Like maybe bulldozing seven of them!”

The lift, halls and corridors of the hotel were all empty – a fact which I felt confirmed that there was indeed a flaw inherent in building eight hotels on the one nondescript street. Things were not to stay this way for long however, and the thinking behind the move would soon become apparent.