Maldon to London
September 3rd 1995
My mum was driving up to London on the Sunday morning and it seemed like a good opportunity to begin my journey to the mainland. I had to go to London for a couple of days first, to get things sorted out and, anyway, it was on the way to Dover and the ferry to France.
I spent that afternoon and the next day with some friends i hadn't seen for a while, but i didn't manage to catch up with Veronica, one of my oldest friends, who would have left for Laos by the time i got back to Britain. I'd been hoping to get away on either Monday or Tuesday, but it began to seem certain that it wouldn't happen till at least Wednesday now.
I spent the next evening with Veronica and began to think seriously about going to visit her in Laos on the way from India to Australia. I could fly with Thai airlines and stop off in India and Bangkok. Although i didn't much like Bangkok, and would have avoided going there again if i could, Veronica was going to be working in Viang Chan, the capital of Laos, which is quite easy to get to from there - and hard to get to from anywhere else. She was going to be working on setting up a training course for English teachers, related to environmentally friendly forestry, which sounded like an interesting project and seemed to give me an unmissable opportunity to not only spend time with her, but to see a bit of Laos from the comfortable position of knowing someone in that country, and also to maybe learn something about the state of the forests in that part of southeast Asia. I had time to think about it before i had to decide whether to go or not, but it looked like the chances were good that i would. Both you and i will find out if i do it or not, before the end of this book!
I stayed in Brixton that night, as it would be handy for Victoria and the bus to Dover in the morning.