My first real insertion into Asia happened in 1995. After 25 odd years of genuflecting to Western Europe as the van and repository of all culture, I booked tickets to go to Thailand. I went there again 2 years later and I thought at the time that I might be a frequent visitor. But Japan got in the way, happily as it turned out. The first decade of the new century was the Japanese decade for me and since that time, there has been a short Chinese interregnum.

But I have come back in a circuitous manner to Thailand, ostensibly through having married a Thai national, she being my darling wife Ann. Together we will go to Thailand in June and I hope I will get to see the places that are important to her and the people she loves. For me, now, culture in Asia holds far more allure than where my roots were had, no disrespect meant to either Europe or Britain. I haven't abandoned the latter, just embraced the former.

A couple of pics from earlier journeys to Thailand.