On Sunday morning, 19th May, Sabariah (who hadn’t been at the party) rang Peter’s number and woke both of us up. She said she was free to give me a ride to the airport in the afternoon, which was great news. Peter had a canoe trip planned and took off – meanwhile I couldn’t resist another dip into his VHS tape library.

After saying goodbye to Peter on his return, I had a farewell lunch with Wai-Fong in the “Golden Bar” – a Chinese Restaurant in Seria which I remembered well from 1989. Then we headed back to Wai-Fong’s house from where Sabariah and Zaleha later picked me up.

Just under 2 hours later we were in the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan. After a snack in a shopping centre, and checking to see if the girls’ other sister was at her college (she wasn’t) we went past the spectacular Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque which is uncomfortably close to a somewhat squalid and contrasting area – the Kampong Ayer or Water Village.

Then, at the airport, it was time to say farewell to the last of the familiar and welcoming faces that have helped to recharge my batteries in Brunei.

Two pleasant hours after taking off, I was landing back in Singapore and was soon heading down to the old centre of the city were I found a “crash pad” on Bencoolen Road. The room was barely any larger than the previous crash pad, even though it was more expensive.

Next day, 20th May, I headed for the post office to see if there were any letters. A total of 8 items were waiting for me. I found a French-style cafe, to sit and read everything over breakfast. The day was very wet, and I wanted to finish my camera film to get it processed before leaving Singapore, so I snapped some damp street scenes on the way to find the processing lab.

On the flight over from Brunei I was thinking more about what to do now, and what route to take. I’m no nearer deciding anything other than the fact that I feel no reason to head back to the UK until I absolutely have to. Regardless of the route, I will clearly need more money, so I extracted another $1000 worth of travellers cheques from the Amex ATM.

One thing that I have become increasingly aware of is that 6 months of continuous use has resulted in my trekking boots starting to fall apart. I went on a search for a new pair – there seem to be only 2 outdoor equipment shops in Singapore. The first only had horribly gaudy boots, so after picking up my developed films, I went to the other. This second shop was more geared to military clothing, but they had Gore-Tex boots for $120 which was not too bad, so I bought a pair – not really having much choice. It felt good to be in new footwear!

I wandered around the Raffles Hotel area, and looked in a bookshop for guidebooks that might help me decide where to go after reaching Bangkok. I found a new Lonely Planet book called Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, recently published in February 1991. As far as I had heard, these countries had been closed for tourism (and certainly independent travellers) since before the Vietnam war, decades ago.

Initially the book appeared to provide food for thought, but 75% of it was about Vietnam, with conspicuously little about the other 2 countries. It indicated that for all 3 countries you have to be on an organised tour to be allowed a visa, which is in any case very expensive, takes weeks or months to get, and can only be obtained in one of the other 2 Indochina countries… or in Moscow!

There was a lot that was not clear – and phrases abounded such as “..the word on the street suggests that…”, “..some people claim that…” and “theoretically you can…”. It was very off-putting… and yet… what an adventure it might be to attempt to pioneer those 3 countries..!

I had a meal at a Chinese restaurant and then headed back to my “crash pad”, still thinking about Indochina.