Excerpt: Oceans Of Venus

Mark dragged his exhausted self and his luggage through the chaos-fuelled dance party known as Khao San Road. The flight was uneventful, Mark watched half of a heavily edited action film before falling asleep, waking up somewhere over the Philipines for dinner and then waking up again as they made their final approach to Don Muang airport.

Mark found Bangkok to be, on first impressions, a hot humid sticky aromatic (if he wanted to be kind) sprawling fractal mess of elevated freeways and neon and moldy concrete buildings and glittering golden temple rooftops, motor scooters and 7-Elevens. The smell was the most striking, a truly fucked-up mélange of incense and curries and stale water. Along the infamous backpacker strip there staggered and ambled all manner of people, the biggest multicultural mishmash that Mark had ever seen (no mean feat for someone who'd lived in Sydney). Dreadheads and crewcuts, guys in muscle tops that had Same Same printed on the front and But Different on the back. Dusky-skinned Euro babes in bikini tops and hot pants. Hastily cobbled-together stalls of bamboo and plastic that sold drinks you could fuel your car on for about AU$2. Mark had walked about fifteen meters and had been offered marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy and opium, as well as girls and boys. Only some of the vices on the list would've normally tempted him, but it was Christ knew what o'clock and his biorhythms were shot to shit. After 8 hours on an airborne bone-rattler and then a grand prix style taxi run from the airport, all Mark really wanted was to fall into a coma somewhere, preferably in something resembling a bed. But still... if that was the kind of thing one got offered on the street during an evening stroll, perhaps there were too many distractions here as well. He sincerely hoped that it was restricted to Khao San Road, or at least just to Bangkok. He could escape it then.

He was watching a group of Western girls in short skirts walk along when someone grabbed his shoulder and an American voice yelled, "Yo, Brian!"

Mark turned in confusion, which was soon mirrored in the eyes of the guy who'd accosted him.

"Shit, you're not Brian."

"No, I'm Mark. How ya goin'?"

"Australian?"

Mark nodded. "From Sydney."

"Joey," he said, offering his hand. "Phoenix, Arizona, US of A. Shit, man, you're a dead ringer for a guy who was on the Koh Tao dive trip last week."

"Not me," Mark said, hefting his two bags. "Just got here."

"Holy shit, an FNG! You've totally gotta come have a drink with us."

"Well, I think I need to find a room first."

"Plenty of time," Joey said. "Plenty of rooms. Plenty of babes. Or guys, if that's your bag. Come have a celebratory beer, FNG!"

And so it began.