(Daniel) Having spent an amazing and relaxing four days living on the beach, Nii and I packed away the tent and trailer ready to return to Bangkok and attend the Visa application interview that we had booked.

I think it was here on the far southern coast of a tropical island off Thailand, that the ants moved in.  I had noticed a lot of them about the tent, and had even discovered a nest of them under the pillow!  What I didn’t realise was juts how many Ants we had adopted.  Millions, and in three different tyoes, broken up in nto a multitude of tribes and groups.

As the weeks go on we will come to know that the ants have bases, in the trailer, the engine bay, the rear chassis rails and the tool drawer.  These are the largest installations, although there are always raiding parties and sole scouts on the lookout in any inch of the vehicle.

At first I fought with the ants, using Raid and Deet I carried out slaughter sessions on large groups.  However, these never noticeably dented their numbers.  One day , as I was about to try again to kill the invaders, I realised something, that far from cause problems, the ants actually solve them.  They clean after me by eating anything that gets spilt, they fight off other insects that might enter the vehicle, and so long as you give them some co-operation with regards to access rights, they really aren’t much of a pain. 

I noticed while in in Malaysia that I had tiny ants living in the laptop, again I had to accept their presence and live with them.   

Back in Koh Chang, Nii and had I spent a night in a lovely bungalows owned by the islands only Land Rover driver.  He was amazed by the Wolf, and happily agreed to store it while Nii and I took the ferry and then a bus to return to Bangkok tomorrow.

In the morning, with the vehicle locked and our bags packed with papers for our interview, the two of us got a lift with the resort owner to the pier where we boarded a boat to the mainland.  On the other side we boarded a bus which took us straight to Bangkok. 

As strange thing happened at the final stop in Bangkok.  I remember it so well that I feel I have to recount the story. 

A group of police had set up an ambush at the bus station.  I had gone to leave the bus with Nii and everyone else, but had dropped some things as I stood up. I stooped to pick them up.  Meanwhile a tourist and his female Thai companion got off the bus ahead of me, they were immediately pounced on and taken away to be searched. 

The bus driver who hadn’t noticed me still in the back, drove around the corner before spotting me and stopping again.  I suddenly had a terrible thought, perhaps the police had been waiting for us?  I was the only other tourist on the bus, and had left my vehicle in the hands of strangers in a guesthouse on an island 200miles away.  Could this have been an attempt to frame me and steal the vehicle?  If so it had been quashed by the karma ripple that made me drop my stuff on the way off the bus.

It sounds like paranoia now, but this is a good example of the way I have come to think.  I have been on constant alert for planned or opportunist theft, danger, corruption and desperation.  This way of thinking has become normal and a part of me now, but it is interesting to see the lateral depths that a suspicious mind will go to in the hands of a fervent imagination! 

Nii came round the busy corner to find me musing on the possibility of my danger sensors having been right.  We travelled together on the BTS to the same hotel we had used just over a week ago.  In the room we worked hard to collate all the papers and information required for the visa application.  Our entire case had been based on Nii’s family, her attachment to Thailand through land ownership and her intentions to continue her work with me on the Expedition.

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