Pass the port

Bangkok, Thailand
I am once again a legitimate British Citizen, with a shiny new (biometric...oooh, check that) passport to prove it and I am a valid visitor to Thailand with a replacement visa. No longer do I have to skulk about lacking credentials feeling like some form of refugee or illegal immigrant, knowing I couldn't leave the country if I wanted to. Living in fear of being stopped by the police for some random check (as happened!) or guesthouse staff asking to see my passport. Feels good. Better than I ever imagined it could have before I lost that essential bit of travel kit.

Actually when I say I have a new passport, I actually don't have it. It's at the Myanmar Embassy to get a visa for a trip I'm going to make there this week (sounds like it made the trip to the embassy of its own accord). But if I did have it, I'd take a picture of it and let you see how spangly and delightful it really is.

My advice to you is really quite simple and bloody obvious: hang onto that burgundy (or whatever colour it may happen to be) document as if your life depended on it. It just might do and it's a crashing bore trying to get another one.

Instead, here's a picture of the replacement for the bag I had stolen (hech hem...lost). Weirdly enough I chanced across the exact same model in the Siam Centre in Bangkok and it felt like destiny to replace like with like...and guess what...it's chocolate brown with an orange lining so there was no question about not getting it really.

Perhaps I shouldn't broadcast my overt act of consumerism given my previous post. And the bag's made by Nike, perhaps in some Chinese sweat shop where 13 year old kids work 18 hours a day, are discouraged from taking any days off and get paid the princely sum of seven dollars a month. [Eyes downcast in shame; pass the hair shirt.]