Hi there, as i write i'm sitting in my girlfriends father's house in the far west of Ireland, the rain woke me this morning just to punctuate my return home, this is where i grew up, where i feel truly at home where my soul flies, but after living and working in the east for the past number of years its more than a little strange to be home.

The following was written about a year ago on a bus journey between the Cambodian border and Bangkok, its a little parochial and was intended for a local magazine. Its rough as a bears bum, and should be taken as is.

The extent of our journey took in Siberian China and continued by land and sea through southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and back through east and western Europe by hitch hiking.  No planes, planning or science was used in this trip and it was all the better for it.

Thank you for your time and energy, I hope you don't fall asleep before the end. Be good take care... Michael Conlon... 27... hairy... photographer...

I can’t figure out quite what the large lump on the side of his foot is, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. Like most old men from this part of the world, he has seen too much and worked too hard to really care. He’s just sitting back, speaking when he has to, chewing on teeth-reddening beetle nuts, which give his grin a wild and cannibal nature. The hum of the engine lulls us all, most here have just been through the hardships and wonders of the Cambodian travel experience.

As for me, I’ve been up since 5am and I’m on the return trip to Bangkok after the tedious and futile monthly visa renewal at the border . A journey through a no-mans land of Thai and Cambodian government casinos and ragged begging children.

Another shining example of the pen-pushing, red-taped bribery that runs and regulates the world, but at least the Asians are up front and open about it. A Thai friend of mine who missed home, returned from a good wage in Boston and now works 15 hour shifts for 40 Euros. With little money, he has few prospects of marriage. As they say in Thailand “no money, no honey.”

Besides all the young ladies are spending their time with the masses of beer-swilling retirees, who flock here to find love in later life, but who am I to judge, we could all be back here some day, disillusioned and looking for a little lady to launder our leather pants. I guess we’re all just living with hope and the help of God.

But Thailand is more than the sum of it’s vice ridden reputation. Bangkok is the steaming, grimy heart, a constant drip to the senses, the New York of Asia, Tacky but classy like an aged beauty queen. A city of unending traffic-jams, suits, boots, fools and elephants, lady-boys and expensive lunches, if your looking for it now and you have the money, ladies and gentlemen, come to Bangkok. Early morning monks in saffron robes, walk the streets holding silver bowls looking for alms. Catholic churches, toll out the Angelus while streets away Muslim preachers cry from the Minarets.

Nothing phases the Thai people – light hearts and bright faces. I’ve seen the poorest people give up their bread for strangers, with a genuine belief that their goodness will come back to them. I guess Bob Dylan was right in saying “when you ‘aint got nothin’ you got nothin' to loose.”

That old man in the front of the bus is asleep now, it’s 5:15 on a Sunday in November and the sun outside is baking the stones like an over-cautious mother, never taking her eye off a child. I still can’t get my head around this constant burning heat.

Outside, people harvest lush, shoulder-high meadows, the edges of which sway with long bog-cottons while hump-backed oxen grow fat from constant feeding. The markets teem with life, over 8,000 stalls at the one nearest my house. From grandmothers to grapefruits, you’ll find it there. The colours, scents and shouts mix in golden sunlight, lifting the soul and lightening the senses. I love it but it takes some getting used to. I’m Irish and not built for this heat. We only get a few hot days a year, the closest I’ve ever come to winter sunshine was when my sister rented a sunbed in December to get a tan for Christmas, and why not….

All this though, is in sharp contrast to my home of 12 months ago – Harbin, north-eastern China, sandwiched, at minus 40 degrees, on a barren plain, between Vladivostok and Outer Mongolia. The very place my 6th class teacher said I’d end up if I didn’t do my homework. Well Mrs. Brogan, I made it and irony of ironies, you sent your son Enda to read me the news during my stay.

Picture this, you're sitting down in your top of the range, 1950’s style, communist apartment, tucking into a nice bowl of fish head and noodle soup. Outside is so cold, your eyelids stick to your eyes and without that second pair of long-johns, your hopes of fatherhood would be far from healthy. You turn on your TV to take your mind off thoughts of Guinness and Sunday dinners, and there it is - the voice of your former head teachers son. After repeated checking of your food for mind bending Chinese spices, you figure it’s a dream from homesickness and decide a sleep is in order. But there it is again the very next morning, the unmistakable sound of Knockmore. I never saw his face, as he worked in voice overs, but it added a surreal twist to my stay and reminded me that you never know who’s listening.

I’d like to say he kept me well informed but expecting the truth from the Chinese, state run media is like expecting a fish to dance. SARS was spoken of on Chinese television weeks after the rest of the world had reported its’ dangers. Only then coming clean due to pressure caused by the death of a Swedish doctor. All the while claiming SARS was imported rather than a home grown virus. The populations' eyes have been blinkered. Put it this way, the Chinese public only learned of the moon landings in 1980.

Don’t get me wrong, these people are far from stupid. They’re kind, respectful and hard-working. But through years of the Communist Party heel being put to their necks, they are, in general, a subservient and sheep-like nation.

In a country this vast, finding your place in the ant hill can be a valuable means of survival. Life is cheap here, the death penalty is handed out for any amount of tenuous reasons from spiritual beliefs to embezzlement. It’s a hand gun slug to the back of the neck and the family is sent the bill for the bullet. Freedom of speech is nonexistent, people stop conversations if you venture too far into history, religion or politics.

‘China is changing,’ is the constant mantra on state television, which makes me wonder, if they're so proud of their recent history why are they trying to change it so much. The ideals of communism are laudable i.e. a classless society of equals, a world without want, where goods and labour are shared for the greater good of society but unfortunately, the nature of man's greed prevents this heaven from being achieved.

China's late ‘great’ leader, Chairman Mao and his revolutionaries over threw the capitalist system to create a China of equal men. But within years of attaining power, they had themselves become versions of the men they formally despised. They grew fat behind the Red flag of socialism while their population starved. Years of successive famine brought about by pipedreams and bad management left the country on its’ knees within its’ self imposed confinement.

Cold war propaganda and motivational schemes were carried out to the strains of songs of revolution. Paranoia was a constant with nothing or no one trusted. It was highly thought of to inform on the wrong-doings of a family member to those in command. And then there were the countrywide operations like the killing of the four evils: rats, flies, sparrows and locusts with the resulting imbalance in the eco-system, causing crops to fail and a lack of bird life, eerily noticeable in its absence. Countless millions died and the government propaganda blamed the west. To this day, children still refer to foreigners as ‘dawei’ meaning ‘foreign devil.’

Everywhere you look, the communist insignia stares back at you, a constant reminder that ‘Big Brother’ really is watching. China in truth is a class based society. The divide of rich and poor is, if anything, greater than in the west. The vast majority are ‘workers’ i.e. Manuallabourers. The very people hailed as the back bone of the new Republic, are now looked down upon from the bright lights of newly founded upper class.

There is no social welfare. To give the appearance of full employment people are given menial jobs. Businesses’ are grossly over-staffed - anything to give the impression of a booming economy. 200-300 men and women hacking ice-covered intersections at 4am in minus 40 degrees is nothing strange. Packed street corners of frozen unemployed, shuffle in ex-army trench coats, waiting for an hours work so they can eat. So much for the glorious Peoples’ Republic. The only ones truly free here are the top brass ‘Yes-men’ of this perpetual dictatorship.

But you know, looking on from the outside is an enlightened perspective. It's easy to condescend, throwing western democratic ideals around, missing the fact that these people are just trying to survive. They have much in common with you and I in so far as they have no real say in the running of their country, and it's who, not what you know that really counts. On the up side however. China also adheres to the universal truth that it's the common people and not the government that make the country.

People like Andong, a wooden-legged, wide-eyed legend of a bar owner, who lived near my house. He hated beer but sold it by the litre, an old local brand fittingly named HAPI. That and Chinese rice wine called bijou, a clear white spirit more commonly known in Ireland as Poteen. It 75% alcohol and far from being illegal. It is , let there be no mistake, mind bending, eye twitching, bottom clenching stuff, that could run your car and cure a calf of pneumonia.

A glass is taken with every meal, it's rubbed in, washed in and mixed with food and as far as I can see it's doing no harm at all. In fact it compliments some of the local cuisine quite well. Silk worms still wriggling, for instance, wouldn't go down half as well without it's fortifying goodness, nor for that matter would the barbequed bulls testicles, chicken heads or donkey hearts.

At first eating out is quite an eye opener, mind you at minus 40 any kind of stimulation can be a life saver. In a city of 12 million people, with only about 60 English speaking foreigners, becoming one with the local foods and customs happens naturally. People go out of their way to befriend you, invite you to their homes and make you feel welcome.

As a photographer, this provides a constant source of inspiration. At home people get paranoid of photographs being taken, whereas here, they stop and ask me to take their photos as though their image being free to travel is freedom in its' self.

Their friendliness also comes from the strangeness of seeing someone from the west. On meeting with some so called 'peasant' teachers, they became so emotional and wonder struck that they began to cry with nerves. Old men came up to me on the street and pulled the hair on my arms. When I show them my chest hair they shake their heads and call their friends over for a look, not in an ignorant or insulting way but more out of genuine wonderment, like a small child with a bright new toy.

I relate to how these men feel, there's nothing more wonderful than the excitement and anticipation of something new, something fresh.

Like the first sight of a newborn or your first day at school, your first kiss or the day you get married. These are the moments we wait for, the connecting points of our lives, our memories, the moments we merely exist between.

Traveling gives you these moments in abundance. Through Vietnam, Cambodia, China and Thailand, I've had my fair share. It's not always easy and it's not always safe but it's an education that money can't buy and books can't teach. For me, there's no place quite as serene as Ireland  on a fine August evening but I've found a few close seconds.