May 9 1990 - Kathmandu - Nepal - Journal Entry

Published on May 25, 2023

Kathmandu is a magical city filled with pilgrims traveling to the city's holy shrines and temples of the pantheon of Asian religions. I haven't seen a single church and with good reason. Jesus might have traveled to Kashmir after his crucifixion, but no one here worships him here. Certainly not this atheist, but I am in wonderment, when I stumbled on a procession for the Kumari, the living goddess, in Thamel. These young girls are chosen from the Newari tribe to serve as living vessel for the Hindu goddess Durga until menstruation. The word Kumari means 'virgin' in Nepali. They are revered for their purity, but soldiers disrupted the holy ritual as the government has outlawed the gathering of people, as the citizens clamor for democracy. The TV announcers are accusing the demonstrators of communism and godlessness. So far there is no bloodshed.

I walked to the Thai Air office on the main boulevard shaded by trees harboring thousands of sleeping bat. The ground is splattered with bat dung. I'm glad to be wearing my sneakers.

Last night after drinks at the Yeti Hotel Lance and I walked through dark streets. He was wearing flip-flops and stepped waist deep into an open-air sewer. Up to his waist. I pull him out. Cursing. I help him back to the hotel at a distance. He smells strongly of shit. I hope he doesn't get a disease from this dip in the city's waste waters.

This afternoon Thai Air wasn't able to confirm my flight from Delhi to Paris.

I might have to fly to Munich. It's been over eight years since I was in Germany. I left in December 1982 on an overnight train to Gare du Nord, having ended my working with the pimps at the BSirs nightclub. I wonder what would have happened, if I had stayed in Hamburg.

I would have continued my affair with Stephanie De Leng.

That year I decided after Christmas in America to return to Paris and work at the Bains-Douches. Stephanie wanted me to meet her in Amsterdam. I was too broke to buy a ticket. I crashed at Julie Cole's apartment with the photographer Arthur Gordon and his Doberman. A shabby apartment behind the Gare De L'Est. Stephanie and I later met in New York. The lingerie model had gained weight due to a chronic illness. I thought she was faking the sickness and brutally said so one night. She wrote me a scathing letter and my friend Andy read it.

"What did you do to this woman?"

"I guess I said the wrong thing." I had no sympathy for her and I remember my older lover Linda Imhoff in 1970, as we were laying naked in bed in my Shannon Street apartment, "You're dangerous, because you don't know what you are doing."

I was eighteen at the time.

I'm now thirty-eight. Stephanie could have been the one, but the only way I could get it up was to pretend she was a nun. I had no trouble with the one Patpong go-go girl I took to the Malaysia Hotel a couple of times. I haven't talked to any females in Kathmandu.

And certainly not the Living Goddess or a nun.

30,000 Feet over Burma - May 5, 1990 - Journal Entry

Previously published May 24, 2023

I have a flight to Kathmandu. I wish I could stay in Bangkok, but my money is getting low. I called New York from the Malaysia Hotel lobby. A collect call to Rickie Boy, who complained, “I haven’t had anyone to drink with since you left. The city sucks. The clubs suck. The drug sucks.”

“At least here in the Orient there are life”

“Where are you now?”

“Bangkok, the City of the Angels. A paradise for the wicked,” I recounted visits to Patpong the notorious red-light district. Go-go bars and more go-go bars. “I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world.”

I didn’t mention my head-on crash with a pick-up north of Chiang Mai. I had been killed instantly and just as instantly reincarnated back with this body. Only difference. A broken wrist.

“It does sound like paradise.”

“Yes, but it’s very poor. And they have lepers in the streets. Hiding from the sunlight. Stumps of hands and feet. Gnarled faces.” I tapped my cast. My wrist itched. The plaster cast prevented any scratching.

“Not a pretty picture.”

“No, it is not.” But New York had over 50,000 beggars and madman freed from the closed upstate mental hospitals. The refuse of a nation after decades of wars, poverty, greed, and neglect. There was no saving them nor will Buddha save the desperate souls of Bangkok nor me.

“When are you coming back?”

“I’ll spend time in Paris and London.”

I had no reason to be in America yet. The Knicks had knocked out the Celtics. I had friends in Paris and London. I had worked in both. I could get a job at a nightclub on my fake carte de sejour.

“But I seriously thinking about moving out here. If you want to join me next year, then start saving your pennies. Departure date. Jan. 2, 1991. Although I don’t know, if I can last that long in the USA. I’d love to leave forever.”

Not that America was heaven on earth, however I knew its evils too well.

“Good luck in the Himalayas.” Richie laughed, “I’m stuck with my father and so are you. Your job will waiting here.”

“Thanks.” I kept it short having covered the reason for the call. Back in New York I still had a motorcycle, an apartment, and a job waiting in New York.

I hung up and joined Dawn on a lobby couch. The diminutive go-go girl had been a good companion over the last week. She actually looked sad to see me go. She caressed my cast. I couldn’t feel her touch. I slipped her another 1000 baht. She wai-ed me and said, “You come back. See me. Love you long time.”

I wai-ed her back, wishing she was coming with me. I am a fool.

The ride to the airport through the traffic took an hour. I had another hour and a half until my flight’s departure. I grabbed a Bangkok Post and a Singha beer in the lounge area. The itch was worsening. I couldn’t reach it and downed another Dilaudid. Men were saying good-bye to girlfriends. Some are sad. Other men are greeting their friends. They are happy. This must be the Hello-Goodby Lounge.

The terminal loudspeaker called for all Kathmandu passengers. I finished my beer and proceeded through customs and passport control. None of the officials paid me any mind. I was just another farang or foreigner leaving the Land of Smiles. The Thai Air flight plane took off on time and I left Thailand for the first time. I would be coming back soon.

LATER

Ten klicks below are the arid rice fields of Burma, burnt brown and begged for the monsoons. The rumors of the military’s corruption, forced migrations, massacres, and starvation are not rumors. I had been on the northern Thai-Burma border. Drug lords and Karin rebels fight the junta. No one wins these wars, but there is too much is at stake to surrender. Neither Thailand nor the USA have cut off ties with Myammar. Heroin was why the French and America fought long wars to control the drug trade. They never stood a chance. These countries are not France or America.

I saw one temple in Bangkok.

Wat Patpong. No Buddhas. Only near naked girls dancing above a bar.

Why did I leave?

An hour later I sight the Himalayas to the north. Snow capped peaks stretching for hundreds of miles. I had seen them in National Geographic. Never this close. I had enough money to trek into them and I was dying to see the Himalayas closer than at eight miles high.

LATER

A golf course is next to Kathmandu airport. Soldiers are everywhere. The pro-democracy wave has washed over Asia. Students are calling for the abolishment of the monarchy.

This evening I met Lance. A New York architect. We have hired a trekking team through the hotel. Te most popular trek is the Annapurna circuit. I don’t have enough money for that sixteen hike. We chose Langtang Glacier. Only ten days. I purchase two Kingfisher beers and sit on the roof, watching the sun light up the Himalayas.

Dorge the guide, has arranged trekking permits in less than an hour. He points out the peaks. We have a Nepali cook and Sherpa porters for an early morning departure in two days, which is a good thing, because I hear gunfire. The army is shooting students.

“We were stupid, “says Todd, another trekker from Hawaii. I had told him about Bangkok.

“How so?”

“You should have brought go-go dancers from Pat-Pong.”

“So they can ask, “Where Tee-vee?” No thanks.”

I am here for the mountains.

The highest in the world.

May 21, 1990 - Kathmandu Nepal - journal Entry

The setting sun silouetting the Monkey Temple transports me evokes eternity. This city below the Himalayas was famously one of the great stops of the the Silk Road as well as the Hippie Trail through Asia; Kabul, Goa, Kuta, Koh Saen Road in Bangkok, and Bali. I've been to four of them. I can't find the hash I had bought at the trailhead of Langtang Glacier. Two grams. It has to be hidden in my bag and I'm worried that the flics will find it at Charles de Gaulle aeroport. Douane officers are skilled at finding things, which is not lost, but can not find.

This morning he threw away the clothes, since he was leaving for New York. The architect had been a good travel companion on the trek to the Langtang Glacier. I don't really like reefer, but I do like opiated hash. There is plenty of hash in Paris, but nothing as good as here.

I wonder if anyone in Paris will talk to me. It's been eighteen months since I was last in the City of Light. I called Olivier from the GPO and he replied to my request to crash with him with a warm, "Quais." but almost as if he had something to hide. Like Cindi had returned to LA or he was fucking one of my old girlfriends or he was snorting heroin or didn't have any money. Not a problem since I could always work for Albert at the door of the Balajo.The uncertainty of what awaits in Paris has my mind working overtime. Is NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD my salvation?

Time will tell.

I read about the Yusef Hawkins trail verdict in the Herald Tribune. Joseph Fama was convicted of second-degree murder. White versus black. Race war. I haven't seen any of that out here, although the Nepali army responded to the call for freedom by shooting the protesters and the same had occurred in Bangkok.

Four months ago Andy drove me to JFK on the BQE.

Hopefully tomorrow there's a USA direct phone booth in the New Delhi Airport, so I can call New York. A six-hour lay over awaiting the Air India flight to London then back to Paris. No one will be waiting for me there. I have used New York City to gauge cities on this trip. the best were Penang, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Kathmandu. I was happy to pass fast through Jakarta, Medan, and Singapore.

Returning to the East Village isn't so appealing, but I have to renew my lease in August and pursue a literary career, instead of working on 47th Street slinging diamonds. I'm checking out of this hotel in an hour, having survived the attack of blood-thirsty mosquitoes. I must have killed a thousand last night, even though I taped over the windows and door with masking tape, leaving smears of blood from my smashing them ith a rolled-up Herald-Tribune.

A taxi will take me to the Kathmandu airport.

No more lepers, no more beggars, no cows wandering the streets in a bovine stupor, no distant drumbeats, no monks, no cremations, no raga dirges from the Monkey Temple, no naked fakirs, no communist rallies against the king, no smiling sherpas, no temples of the Dhubar Square, no glancing north to the gleaming snow peaks of the Himalayas, because today belongs to a plane.

Leaving Kathmandu.

May 19, 1990 - Kathmandu Nepal - Journal Entry

Published Jun 16, 2023

A sunny day in Kathmandu. I rose early and climb up to the roof to sunrise over the foothills. I am down to my last $100. If I had money, I would join Todd and fly to Bangokok, instead I'll catch a flight in two days to Paris. My last stop on my first circumnavigation of the world. My great-grandaunt Bert had sailed around the earth on her father's whaling ship in 1868. My uncle Dave had fought on a destroyer Biak in the Pacific War. My Uncle Russ had served in the Occupation of Japan, and my Uncle Jack had battled the Chinese in Korea as a Marine. My travels were strictly peaceful.

I'll try to show NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD TO some producers in Paris through friends, although it needs a serious edit. My typing is excretable. Back in New York I'll try to complete my comedy script THE BEST IS YET TO COME. I've basically been touristing since Bali. I had hoped my comedy about hopeless love would have been completed, but I hadn't prepared for the allure of the Orient; Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Penang, Koh Samui, Koh Phangghan, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, the Golden Triangle, Nepal.

I wish I could travel forever like a letter without an address on an eternity stamp.

Back in New York it will be time to work. To fill the coffers. To schlepp diamonds on 47th Street, while writing THE BEST IS YET TO COME in my spare time this summer.

If the muses are with me.

My writer's block builds a wall on e I'm down to my last c-note.

I am there now.

Curfew has been lifted and people are crowding the streets. Dorzee complained about the slow trekking season. I had tipped him an extra $20. Lance said our guide probably said that every year same as the diamond dealer on 47th Street remarked every Christms season.

Last night I went out drinking with Todd aka Dice. I told him to stay at the Malaysia Hotel in Bangkok, recounting the tale of Charles Sobhraj.

"He murdered travelers all along the hippie trail in the 1970s and stayed at the Malaysia. It's a fun place. Cheap and cheerful. I'll be there next year this time."

"It's a small world."

"And a long life."

"I'll be in Paris." He intended to learn French. I suggested going to the cinemas and reading the subtitles of French movies and sleep with French women

"Les dictionaires couchant. They worked for me."

I can't stay in New York. I was out of control there. Like there's no reason to live, but there is now.

There always was.

The road.

Tibet T-Bone 1995

This road ran between Lhasa and Kathmandu. Twenty miles farther another dirt road diverged to Khailash. The van stopped there and drove off to the Holy Mountain over a thousand kilometers away to the west. I stood at the t-bone intersection and hitchhiked south over the Himalayas to Nepal.

I couldn't have been happier in such desolation whereas I freak out in airports. Safe and sound from the elements.

Another Tibetan driver heading to the border picked me up. trump, indictment, federal charges, The dirt road crested a 5000-meter with the horizon filled by the Himalayas trump, indictment, federal charges, We stopped at a tea shop and ate a bowl of noodles.

I got guardia.

I damn near died.

The next week I spent in a Kathmandu hotel puking out my guts.

When I was strong enough to leave my room, I walked outside headed to the Yeti Hotel. Something was wrong with the eerie green light and I thought my eyes were fucked up, but the sun had been eclipsed by moon.

I was alive.

No freak out.

Never-changing life in the rain shadow of the monsoon.

Bad Road In Tibet

My visa for China was running out at the end of October 1995. My overland departure to Nepal had been delayed by a massive avalanche smothering Tibet-Nepal Friendship Highway, but the staff at the Snowlands Hotel in Lhasa announced that a rough track had been opened through the fall area and I bought a ticket to Kathmandu. The bus only went as far as Shigatze, where we switched to a van, since the makeshift road couldn't support the weight of a fully loaded van.

We reached the distressed stretch in the afternoon. The driver hadn't exaggerated about the condition of the road and he suggested that we walk across the freshly cleared half-mile path.

"Rock fall. Hit van. Die."

He wasn't joking.

Some of the stones were bigger than a house, although a few tourists complained about the walk.

I ignored their whining and hurried to the other side of the fall. The rest joined me a minute later, but a German tourist lingered, shooting pictures of the impressive chasm with his Leica.

Someone shouted and we looked up the steep slope. A gigantic rock had shaken loose the grip of the scree and was starting to tumble gathering speed. The tourist was in its path. We yelled to him, but he was focusing the lenses on the Himalayas.

"My husband," cried a middle-aged woman. "Hilf ihm."

Like what?" I asked, for he was too faraway from safety to help him.

"Something," pleaded a German woman.

"There is nothing to do." The Tibetan guide shook his head. The man's fate was in the hands of the Gods, but we continued to shout.

He finally heard us and waved with a smile.

We pointed at the bounding boulder and he realized the danger, running to the right. The rock bounced in that direction. He juked to the left and the boulder followed suit. The tourist froze in his tracks, as the stone bounced in the air.

His wife screamed.

Her husband was destined for death far from Germany, except the boulder landed twenty feet before him and caromed over his head to smash down the slope to the river below.

The German woman sobbed with relief, as her husband rejoined her. All the Tibetans touched him for good luck. The man laughed foolishly, knowing in another path of existence he was dead.

The van traversed the dirt track and the driver muttered to the guide about stupid tourists.

They understood the power of the mountains and fear fate.

We reached the Nepalese border at sunset. The van dropped us at a hotel. I stayed at a different one than the Germans, because he had used up his life's allotment for luck and being around him wasn't a risk for anyone other than the foolhardy. The Tibetans felt the same way and we drank beer, toasting the stars and heavens and the Himalayas.

With respect.

Because they deserved it.

NOTHING BETTER THAN PIZZA by Peter Nolan Smith

Back in 1995 I left the USA after the death of my younger brother. My plan was to visit the holiest places in Asia. I was a non-believer, but believed this pilgrimage would help Michael's soul in eternity.

By late August I had reached in old Yunnan city of Lijiang in Southern China. My hotel room had a view of the Jade Snow Dragon Mountain farther up the valley. Most travelers visited the old stone city with its traditional Naxhi influences and then headed off to hike the Tiger Leaping Gorge on the Yangtze River.

I skipped the hike down the swollen gorge. It was rainy season and the footing was treacherous on the dirt paths.

Returning backpackers reveled each other with the legend of a lone Israeli hiker who fell from the trail and broke his leg. His cries for help were drowned out by the rushing rapids and he died of starvation within 20 feet of the trail. The story sounded like a myth, since the nationality, sex, age, and year changed with each telling.

Still I refused many offers from passing tourists to join their trek.

I was happy in Lijiang and became friendly with two Frenchmen laying fiber optic cables between Lijiang and Dali, another tourist destination to the south. They asked why I was here. I explained how my younger brother had died of AIDS. We drank beer to Michael's memory. They said that they had been working on the project for a half-year without a break.

I suggested a day's holiday.

"And go where?" Jacques had traveled most of the roads of Sichuan.

"Chengdu is twelve hours away." Yves had recently driven back and forth to pick up a transformer. "The roads through the mountains were scary and the food is the same as here."

"My guide book says there is a ski slope on the Snow Jade Dragon Mountain, but none of the locals know anything about it."

"Pas vrai? Le ski ici?" Yves laughed in my face.

"Maybe they have a chalet with fondue."

"Fondue. Je reve du fondu," Jacques whimpered with an often dreamed desire. "Could it be possible?"

"Only one way to find out. We can drive there."

"Non, let's bicycle." Each of us had rented a bike to travel around Lijiang. It was a fairly flat town.

"On Sunday?"

'Pour-quoi pas?" Yves and Jacques had off both days of the weekend.

"Weather permitting." The Snow Jade Dragon Mountain related to the Himalayas. Storms brewed in the high peaks at all times of the year, but Sunday morning the clouds had cleared on the summit and the three of us met for a quick breakfast of rice and eggs.

"On y va."

Yves was very fit and was soon out of sight, while Jacques and I pedaled leisurely up the gradually ascending road with the wind in our faces.

The Snow Jade Dragon Mountain gleamed in the sun. We reached the top of the pass in three hours. At the base of the mountain a badly weathered billboard announced our arrival at the ski slope, which was actually was a chute for toboggans. Skiing in Yunnan had been a lie, but that came as no surprise, since the Chinese adapted many western trends to their culture without shame.

Yves waited at a restaurant serving rice and noodles in a chicken broth. The Chinese tourists happily slurped at the warm food. Jacques oared noodles from the bowl to his mouth.

"So much for the Jean-Claude Killy ski resort."

"At least they have beer." Yves had built up a good thirst after the long bike ride.

After several beers the Frenchmen and I descended on dirt trails through ancient villages and our conversation turned to food.

"The food here is better than most of China," I said, but after a month's stay in Lijiang I had punched two extra holes in my belt.

"I am starving't on noodles and rice." Jacques came from Nice and sighed, "I am dying for bouillabaisse and a bottle of vin blanc."

Yves countered by extolling the oysters of his native Normandy, while I praised Lobster Newburg from Boston's Durgin Park.

"Oysters, bouillabaisse, Lobster Newburg." Jacques spat on the ground. "China has none of that."

"They don't even have simple foods like a baguette and cheese." Yves licked at his lips with a dry tongue.

"There's no cheese in China or baguettes, but there is a pizza shop in Kathmandu."

"Kathmandu? That is a thousand miles away." Jacques frowned at this choice. "We will not be going that way."

"But I will and I'll write to tell you all about it, because there is no better food in the world than pizza. My younger brother and I ate pizza at Villa Rosa in Wollaston once a month. I hoped that they served it on the other side of life.

"Peut-etre." Yves wasn't a true believer in pizza, but Jacques said, "J'adore le pizza."

"Moi aussi."

A month later I bid fare-well to the Frenchmen. They were stuck in Lijiang for another half-year.

"Write us about the pizza. We will be waiting." Yves wished me well.

"Better yet, mail us one. Stall pizza can't be any worse than noodles." Jacques was serious and gave me $20.

A day later I traveled north to Chengdu, where I caught a flight to Tibet.

I stayed in Lhasa two months.

Everyday I set fire to aromatic fir branches and circled the Jokhang Temple every day counter-clockwise and clockwise. I taught English to rinoches or reincarnated monks and workers. I told them about my dead brother. They graciously offered to pray for Michael. I wrote a letter to the Frenchman telling them that the food in Lhasa was even worst than that of Lijiang.

"Burnt hairy yak meat and rancid butter tea loaded with salt. Next week I'm heading to Kathmandu for pizza." My visa for China terminated in seven days.

I hitchhiked on the Sino-Nepal Friendship Highway across the bone-dry plateau to the Himalayas. A tourist van picked me up in Gyantze. The highway wound along the Bum-Chu River. The only signs of civilization were the Chinese checkpoints. After Tingri the road climbed 16,900 feet to the Yakrushong La. The snowy peaks stretched from east to west without a break. The pass was higher than any mountain in Europe. It was almost impossible to breathe.

The driver stopped at a caravansary.

Noodles and broth.

The inn's walls were carpeted by fat flies. I ate nothing. Even the beer looked dangerous.

That evening we arrived at the border of Nepal and booked a cheap room in a cheap hotel in Zhamgnmu. The filthy dining room served rice and noodles. I drank beer from the bottle.

In the morning caught a mini-van bound for Kathmandu. I refused all food on the road. Pizza was on my mind. We reached Nepal's capitol within five hours. I checked into the Yeti Hotel. The cheapest room was $20. I asked about pizza. The desk clerk gave me directions to the restaurant and a rickshaw conveyed me to Fire and Ice located in a new building close to the Royal Palace. The clientele was divided between rich Nepalis and homesick westerners. I ordered a small l'Americano with pepperoni and a large bottle of Kingfisher beer. The waiter brought a glass filled with ice. Ice could be deadly, but I had survived yak meat in Tibet.

A half hour later the pizza came with a knife and fork.

I stared at the plate for several seconds. The pizza looked nothing like the pie from the Villa Rosa.

"Is there anything wrong, sir?" The waiter must have seen my expression of disappointment on the faces of other pizza lovers.

"Nothing at all."

The pizza was nan covered with clouts of goat Nepali cheese topped by a thick ketchup sauce. The pepperoni sweated on the heated pizza. I lowered my head to the plate. It smelled like pizza and I picked up a piece. My first bite told the truth. This was Nepal and there wasn't any better pizza within several thousand miles. I took a bite.

"How do you like the pizza, sir?" asked the waiter.

"It's the best this side of the Himalayas." I ate every crumb. My younger brother must have been laughing from the other side and I asked the waiter, "Can I have two to go and packed them really well."

"Yes, sir."

I got to the Kathmandu Post Office ten minutes before closing.

The clerk secured the pizzas in a shipping box and I wrote the Frenchmen, "I love pizza."

And the pizza in Kathmandu certainly tasted better than yak meat, then again anything tasted good when you're hungry.

Three days later I was stricken with giardia. My intestines had been poisoned by bacteria. The source of infection couldn't have been the pizza and I blamed the ice for the beer.

It was the usual suspect in the Orient.

For a week I suffered from diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, loss of appetite, passage of gas from more than one orifice, and horrible weakness. My planned trip to Annapurna was postponed by the illness. The hotel staff was very helpful. They dealt with stomach ailments on a daily basis and knew of one cure.

Tea and toast for seven days.

Once I was better, I put myself on the scales at the hotel.

175 pounds.

I had lost nearly fifteen pounds.

And my first real meal was pizza l'Americano at the Fire and Ice.

Plus three Kingfisher beers.

No ice.

Nothing was better than pizza and my younger brother, Michael, knew that too.

Both in this life and the Here-After.

Hotel Sòk-gà-bpròk

My friends in the finance sector travel 4-star. I once stayed at the Hotel Imperial in Biarritz with a French movie actress. The King Farouk suite was 5-star. I know the height of luxury. My travels around the world have been on a budget. Luckily my resources allow the minimum of comfort, however sometimes the best room in town is worst than a Bowery flophouse.

My good friend Dice and I exited the Langtang Glacier in Nepal dreaming of a good meal and a hot bath. Our Sherpa guide, Porterhouse, had been extolling the merits of the Yeti Lodge at the trail head. We trudged to the entrance, our eyes squinting in the Himalayan sunshine. I couldn't see through the dining room windows.

"It's moving." Dice whispered in disbelief.

"Not it. They." The interior of the glass was covered by a billion flies. I turned to our guide and said, "You said this place was clean. It's filthy. Not Yeti. Metoh Hotel."

"Before Metoh. Very Dirty." Porterhouse laughed at our sensitivity. "Now clean. Metoh too. But more clean than before."

Dice, Porterhouse, our porters, and I boarded the next bus to Kathmandu. An eight-hour ride on treacherous road. That evening we drank whiskey in a bar overlooking the parade of hippies. Porterhouse regarded them as metoh. Kathmandu was dirty too. Only the mountains were clean, whereas the Nepalese call the Sherpas 'thulo' or dirty. t Our two-week trek that the high mountain people struggle to keep clean in a very hostile environment more than an Englishman on holiday, so I remember the Yeti Lodge fondly, although dirty hotels abound all over the world and two resorts in Thailand top the 2010 edition of TripAdvisor's list of the dirtiest hotels in Asia; Phi Phi Don Chukit Resort and First Hotel Bangkok,

"Cockroaches...smelly.......yuk! Never ever stay here unless...well no...never ever stay here!!!" One disgruntled holiday-maker wrote of the former and another added, "Ruined our holidays, Disgusting place, terrible service".

First Hotel Bangkok was 2009's dirtiest hotel in Asia, but has dropped to # 8 on the strength of seven other hotel dropping below even their low standards of hospitality.

Better luck next year.

ps the Thai word for dirty is sòk-gà-bpròk.

And one more thing I doubt the staff of www.tripadvisor.com a branch of Expedia have ever stayed at the Grace Hotel.

That's gracious living at its worst.

And then there was Dirty Den's on Soi 6 in Pattaya.

Filthy and sordid.

I loved it.