My friend is suffering from a headache and has gone to bed with the air-conditioning set to freezing (this despite the fact that she will complain about the cold of the thirty plus degree Thai winter's day) and I've left my book behind so that we can bring the small pack, so I sit in the bar and drink beer I don't really want. At about eleven I hit the hay where I lie awake listening to the night sounds of the insects and lizards and the grunts and moans of the couple in the next room until sleep finally overtakes me at around four a.m.

The next day we head back home and take it pretty slowly through the parkland while we take in the scenery. The road is following the bank of a river complete with rapids and small falls and it's great, mile after mile of ever-changing, consistently fascinating and completely untarnished countryside. My joy is sharply arrested, however, just out of Hot (which is again) when a bee finds its way into my helmet and stings me inside the ear.

I stop the bike far faster than I think possible and pull my helmet off. I'm trying to make my friend understand what is going on but the word bee is not at this point in her English vocabulary so she stares at me blankly. By the time she figures it out and removes the sting my ear feels pretty full of the poison and, although I've already had a Thai bee sting me on my hand and found it quite mild compared to the New Zealand bee, I'm a little concerned as I still have most of a day of riding in the heat ahead of me.

I've had some pretty bad reactions to bee stings before so I figure it's a good idea to be cautious about this one, especially as I can feel the poison working its way down the side of my neck, so it's off to the local doctor and my next dilemma: My English Thai dictionary doesn't have the word antihistamine in it (why would it) so I have to explain to the Doctor that I have been stung by a bee.

He looks at me like I am mad. After all it's just a bee! He tells me he can speak English but doesn't seem to understand. I show him the word allergic in my dictionary but this doesn't help. He gibbers on for a while, all the time like I am mad then out of the blue says in perfect English 'So you are allergic?' 'ARGH!' I think, but nod and smile. He gives me some pills which I find out the next day are Paracetamol. We carry on but for the rest of the day I feel ill.