It hardly seems possible, but it’s been three months since we last darkened the doors of Thai immigration. And, as sure as flooding follows thunderstorm, we woke up with the sense of foreboding experienced by a youngish British couple who just know that something is about to go very wrong.

We weren’t to be disappointed. First up, there was confusion about what time we were supposed to be going to the immigration office. We’d originally been told 10am. Our friend Sethi, a volunteer from Belgium, had been told 9am. Scratching our collective European heads, we eventually deduced that this meant ‘after lunch’. Lunch is something of a moveable feast in Thailand, and indeed something of a repeatable feast. It’s not unusual for Thais to devour several ‘snacks’ throughout the course of the Greater Luncheon period. Clarity was eventually achieved when we pinned down Som-O, our illustrious (beleaguered?) HR supremo, who suggested that 12:45 would be our departure time.

As ‘12:45′ can mean anything between 12:45 and 1:44, we were pleasantly surprised when we clambered into the CCD minibus and proceeded down the soi on time. And so began our first outing to the ‘new’ immigration centre for Nonthaburi province. Previously, we’d conducted our dealings with the stampmaster generals in a facility in Bangkok which dealt with such paperwork for several adjacent provinces. Now, though, Nonthaburi has its own centre. In theory, the closer proximity of the centre should be a Good Thing. In practice, it makes absolutely no difference as it is in the middle of nowhere, or more precisely, in the middle of some rice paddy fields. It also has no public transport links, hence the need for the group outing by CCD minibus. It still took us the best part of an hour to get to as well, due to the driver getting nitnoi (a little bit) lost.

We particularly enjoyed the directional sign at the end of the lane leading to the immigration centre. Ellipting ‘Nonthaburi’ and ‘immigration’, they’d coined the portmanteau ‘Nonthaburigration’. Wonderful!

Nonthaburigration is a surprisingly small building, which looks like it might once have been a school. Inside, on our best behaviour, we queued patiently. It wasn’t that busy, probably because no-one else has worked out how to get there. After a mere fifteen minutes, it was our turn. Som-O took care of proceedings for us, which was just as well given that shortly after sitting down, she was standing up again looking very embarrassed. The rules, it transpired, had changed since our last visit. Nonthaburigration requires two photocopies of everything rather than just one.

Spying a photocopier in the same room, your correspondents naturally assumed that this would be the easiest of all problems to resolve. But no, that photocopier was not for public use – not even for a small consideration. So, Som-O went off in the minibus, in search of an accessible copying device. An hour later, she returned – beaming from ear to ear and clutching the required reproductions.

The Nonthaburigration process then continued, with us handing over the required 3800 baht (£70) and the Nonthaburigration officer glancing briefly in our direction to make sure that we vaguely resembled the individuals on the fresh copies of our identity documents. He decided that we did, and proceeded to apply the usual plethora of stamps and squiggles to our passports. Alas, we deduced from Som-O’s body language, there was a problem… though we couldn’t fathom what. Only after we’d all been ‘processed’ and left the Nonthaburigration office, did we discover what the issue was.

What will you be doing on Christmas Day? Going to church? Eating turkey? Pulling crackers? Opening presents? We rather suspect you won’t be travelling to the middle of nowhere (unless you are visiting relatives in Lincolnshire) and queueing up at Nonthaburigration. But according to our newly-applied passport stamps, that’s exactly what we’ll be doing.

Som-O had pleaded with the Nonthaburigration officer to make the ‘report back’ date 24th December instead, but the powers-that-be claimed they ‘might not have time’ to do the necessary checks by then. Christmas Day is, after all, a normal working day in Thailand, and a day makes all the difference. Hmmm.

Good news. Sarah now has some Christian friends in Thailand outside of the mission agency and CCD. Real people to go out with socially with, and have normal non-work-related conversations with, and everything. And it only took six months…

This past weekend, Mrs Giles went on the ECB women’s retreat. ECB is our church in Bangkok, and the retreat was held at a very nice hotel in Hua Hin, which is a 3½-hour drive south from Bangkok, on the east coast. (Map here.) There were about 100 of us, and it was great.

Sarah was given the responsibility of being the leader of minibus number five (of ten) for both outward and return journeys. This entailed finding all the right people and issuing them with goody bags, water, and the very-important-must-be-worn-at-all-times name badges, releasing said people at a lunch stop, rounding them up again, all that sort of thing, and keeping the retreat leaders posted on the bus’s whereabouts. Ever the control freak organiser, she quite enjoyed it, and it meant that she got to know some people very quickly.

People like Margarita-from-Mexico, who introduced herself as ‘a drama queen and a troublemaker’. She owns a Mexican restaurant, you know. Here she is in a rare quiet moment.

Later on Friday evening, Sarah met her roommate, Dani. Dani’s from Australia and is studying module three of  a Thai course almost identical to the one the Gileses did (because, so the rumour goes, some teachers from school A absconded and started school B, using the same teaching materials). Sarah and Dani were able to compare notes of despair about the placement of vowels and Mrs Giles shared a delight Dani was about to encounter – the fact that tone markers change, depending on the class of the consonant they’re on. Nice.

Anyway. Dani and Sarah got on very well, finding that they shared a common outlook on life and sense of humour.  This is Dani. She hopes to do nursing either in Thailand or a neighbouring country.

And another new friend, Melanie.

Meanwhile, the retreat content itself was about ‘valleys’ (challenges, disappointments, fed-upnesses, etc) of varying magnitudes and how to deal with/’climb out of’ them, referring to Samson, David, and others. The speaker was Janell Rardon (three adjectives: American, loud, hilarious). To be honest, it was all delivered at such a breakneck pace (and with so many random anecdotal diversions) that your correspondent still needs time to sit down and process it all, but it was good. One highlight was learning about a type of prayer-journalling with words and pictures that was particularly inspiring for a certain writer/scrapbooker.

The food was also Very Pleasing. The advantage of having become re-vegetarian in recent weeks was the vast array of food that was provided at a special table… in addition to having the pick of whatever else on the buffet happened to be vegetarian. Oh yes.

So. Lots of interesting conversations had. Several friends made. And a small group of us who got on particularly well have plans to form a group to get together regularly… starting with a gathering at the Mexican restaurant. Result.

With apologies to the Rolling Stones for the title, we’ve been observing the furore about Nick Griffin’s participation on Question Time with great interest. Politics aside, essentially it’s been a debate about freedom of speech, and how far that can extend. In the UK, the freedom is – by and large – pretty extensive. So when debacles like Trafigura and Carter-Ruck arise, which appear to threaten the very fabric of democracy, one can appreciate the uproar.

Other countries fare less well in terms of freedom of speech. France-based Reporters Sans Frontières compiles an annual list which compares and ranks the level of governmental intereference with the media around the world. ‘Press freedom must be defended everywhere in the world with the same energy and the same insistence,’ the organisation’s secretary-general Jean-François Julliard proclaimed as this year’s report was published recently. And he’s got a point. Readers may care to note that the UK is ranked 20th in the 2009 survey, and then to scan down the list by about 110 places.

For various reasons, we are sometimes not able to write precisely what we might want to on this blog. The agency we’re with works not only in Thailand (which is a ’safe’ country) but also in much more risky places. It takes sensible security precautions to avoid publicly mentioning itself in the same context as the organisations with which it partners. There are other restrictions on the use of words that we take for granted in the West, but can cause real difficulties in working cross-culturally in less receptive areas. All of this can make it cumbersome to explain what we’re on about sometimes, but there are (usually!) good reasons for the delicate choice of language. 

We had a salutory reminder of the perils of being a Christian in some nearby countries this very weekend. For Persecuted Church Sunday, ECB was blacked out. The windows and doors were covered so that daylight couldn’t get in (or, more accurately, so that what was happening inside couldn’t be seen outside). The Bibles were all removed. The usually-exuberant singing was taken down to a whisper, in order that ’spies’ wouldn’t be able to overhear what was going on and inform the authorities. The lighting was subdued so that if there was a raid not everyone would be identified. It was, mercifully, play-acting. But it’s the reality of Christian life in too many countries, as the visiting (and anonymous) speaker from a neighbouring country testified. It’s dangerous.

Here in Thailand, although we are not under threat, there are several topics of discussion that are best avoided. Lèse majesté (criticising the monarchy), for example, is a serious offence, and even the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Bangkok has been accused of an infraction. It’s understandable, therefore, that journalists and editors would moderate what they say and write. We get the majority of our news from BBC News Online, though The Nation and Bangkok Post are also on our reading list.

Also, as CCD works closely with staff on the government homes for disabled children, we need to take great care that the things we say cannot be construed as being negative. It’s taken many years to engender positive links and co-operation, and CCD is now a respected provider of welfare services operating in a privileged environment. For the sake of the children living on those wards, it’s just not worth jeopardising that relationship.

During World War II, the British Ministry of Information issued propaganda posters warning that careless talk could cost lives. More than half a century later, there are still places where this maxim rings true.

But don’t let that stop you contacting us – we love to hear from you!

It’s Loy Krathong (ลอยกระทง) in Thailand tonight – the full moon of the twelfth lunar month. People are busily making miniature rafts from slices of bamboo stalks, and decorating them with banana leaves, flowers and candles. When it’s dark, the candles will be lit and they’ll be floated down the river as part of a big party. Here’s some of the Wikipedia explanation of the symbolism.

Apart from venerating the Buddha with light (the candle on the raft), the act of floating away the candle raft is symbolic of letting go of all one’s grudges, anger and defilements, so that one can start life afresh on a better foot. People will also cut their fingernails and hair and add them to the raft as a symbol of letting go of the bad parts of oneself. Many Thai believe that floating a krathong will create good luck, and they do it to honor and thank the Goddess of Water, Phra Mae Khongkha (พระแม่คงคา).

Thankfully, the bulk of the rafts is biodegradable. But I do see a certain irony in ‘washing away your sins’ in the river by filling it with thousands of rafts, however pretty they might look for one evening. Frankly, there is already enough junk in the Chao Phraya. Some people (presumably, those with guilty consciences) add money to the rafts to appease the water goddess. Surely the money would be better spent on a good dredging?

We haven’t yet decided whether to venture down to the river this evening to take photos of the goings-on. We’re curious, have heard what a ‘wonderful carnival atmosphere’ it is, but don’t want to participate in anything that could be misconstrued. If we go, we’ll share the pictures with you tomorrow.

[Check back later for a version of this post with photos - we're having uploading issues at the moment. If you can't wait, see them on Flickr now by clicking here.]

This weekend we celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary.

On Saturday morning we had our first visit to Chatuchak market. It’s a huge market on our side (the north side) of Bangkok. We’ve been looking forward to going for months, but it was even better than we expected.  Clothes, food, furniture, art, music, plants, books, jewellery, massages… there was a huge range of types of stalls.  We emerged with a few T-shirts and a swanny whistle, having consumed some delicious mango and sticky rice, several smoothies and a large chocolate waffle.

From the market, we walked through the park, past the squirrels to the railway ‘museum’. It’s a rather random collection of objects, including two locomotives, three carriages, a shunter, a few goods wagons, a lot of old computers, a drum kit, a VW ambulance van… and some more randomness, some transport-related, some not. Our visit lasted less than fifteen minutes.

From Chatuchak, we got a taxi to the nearby cinema, where we’d hoped to see The Time Traveller’s Wife. It was indeed showing, but alas, only in Thai, rather than the English-with-Thai-subtitles combo we normally enjoy elsewhere. Mai pen rai. We went window shopping in a Japanese shop called Daiso (the equivalent of a pound shop, with all kinds of gadgets you never knew you needed).

With Mr Giles still full as a consequence of copious waffle consumption, we got a taxi to Central (a western-style shopping centre) on Chaengwattana, where Mrs Giles availed herself of the hairdressing services of one establishment while Mr Giles received a slightly brutal foot massage in an adjacent facility. The haircut was great: 250 baht (£5) for the sort of all-singing, all-dancing, all-blowdrying experience for which, in the UK, Mrs Giles would have paid more than she is prepared to publicly admit.

Opposite extremities thus suitably revived, we headed for Sizzler, a restaurant we were introduced to last week by our friends Mike and Bridget. It’s a wonderful place (in fact, a chain of wonderful places). The main attraction is the most amazing all-you-can-eat salad bar in the world, which features salad ingredients, ready-made salads of various types, fruit, soup, pasta and cheese. CHEESE! Cheese is a luxury commodity here and usually pricey, so to have it freely available and to place it on one’s jacket potato is a delight. Mr Giles also had a mushroom-and-cheese-superburger which he proclaimed the best burger he had ever had. Coming from a former McDonald’s manager who retains an alarming amount of brand loyalty, this is High Praise. There is also all-you-can-eat chocolate mousse.

On Sunday, we went to church as usual. It was excellent – one of the best and most unusual sermons ever (you can hear it here - it’s the one on Habakkuk 3:16-19), and the worship band were on form in a big way. Appropriately for our anniversary, we sang one of the songs from our wedding and the words of another were Psalm 121 – one of our readings. God is clever like that.

After church we went to a different branch of Sizzler and ate all we could eat again, and then we went home and appreciated the wondrous technology that is iPlayer. Once Mr Giles had despatched a cockroach from the kitchen and we had mopped the floor following a leaky-roof-in-thunderstorm incident, Mrs Giles made some chocolate brownie muffins (due to the lack of the appropriate receptacle in which to make ordinary brownies). And then we ate some. All very satisfactory.

After the wonders of Rainbow Camp last week, our itchy insect bites are beginning to subside and we’re getting on with some proper work. (Not that Rainbow Camp wasn’t hard work, you understand. It was. Irrefutably.)

No two days are the same at CCD, but this week has involved many of the routine kind of communications-y things that we’re here to do. I spent much of Monday, for instance, tidying up CCD’s donor database. We use a web-based CRM system, which I’d not come across before. It is taking a bit of getting used to but should prove to be a very powerful tool. Sarah, meanwhile, was ploughing through more than 700 photos that we’d taken in Phetchaburi, selecting the best ones and uploading them to the new CCD Flickr site we’ve created. She then began the thankless task of tagging them all with useful searchable terms so that we can find and make use of them at a later stage.

I started to edit the CCD website (www.ccdthailand.org) on Monday too, which was the first time I’d done any real web work since leaving The Salvation Army at the end of May. Fortunately, although the content management system here is different (Joomla!, for those who like to know these things), it does use the same content editor as the Army’s system. It was really good to be working in familiar territory again.

On Tuesday, engagement with the media was the order of the day, writing a press release to send to the English-language press here in Thailand. There are three main national newspapers published in Bangkok – the Bangkok Post, The Nation and the freebie Daily Xpress. We’re keen to encourage each of these publications to report on the difference CCD is making in disabled children’s lives. Rainbow Camp was the biggest camp for disabled children ever held in Thailand, so eminently newsworthy. Add the fact that we had a glowing public endorsement from the Governor of Phetchaburi, and we should have been on to a winner. Alas, the newspapers have not yet taken the bait - but there’s still time. ‘News’ is not necessarily as time-sensitive here as in the West, which can be frustrating to someone used to having the latest BBC News on tap.

Sarah has started to revamp CCD’s main newsletter, with a view to redesigning the layout and improving the editorial content. And today we’ve been redesigning the office layout here too, optimising the available space and making a more comfortable working environment.

During a heavy thunderstorm at lunchtime, we noted that the window next to Sarah’s desk was leaking. A puddle formed on the floor perilously close to where we’d just moved a four-way extension cable to. ’Ah yes – the office always floods when it rains,’ our friend Bridget told us with a sage expression. Attempts to fix said window highlighted a number of issues which would constitute health and safety infractions in the UK. But this is Thailand, so we just found a cardboard box to perch the electrics on instead.

As we continued our respective wordsmithing, the storm reached a crescendo and took the power out. Fortunately, my computer has its own uninterruptible power supply, so I was able to continue unaffected (albeit with a smug expression). Sarah, on the other hand, had to practise the Thai philosophy of jai yen (staying cool) through two separate power cuts which mangled the documents she was working on.

We’re nearing the end of the rainy season and its incumbent disruption now though, and we’re looking forward to the ‘cool’ season. Apparently we can expect temperatures as nippy as the high 20s! Brrrr.

Just before 7 o’clock on Wednesday morning, five coaches full of children, staff and volunteers departed from CCD’s various facilities around Thailand. The destination: Phetchaburi.

This was the beginning of the twelfth annual Rainbow Friendship Camp - the biggest yet – with 300 attending from Rainbow House, the government homes which CCD has access to, children and families who attend CCD’s community-based rehabilitation projects and others from a nearby special school. We were responsible for looking after a little boy called Mayom for the duration, so we busied ourselves with keeping him amused for the journey (and preventing him from falling out of the coach’s open windows).

Three-and-a-half hours later (thankfully with all the children still intact) the coaches pulled in to the local government offices in Phetchaburi city for an appointment with the Governor of the province. Marquees had been set up for us as we waited, and we feasted on rice, omelettes, nuts and ice cream. The Governor has been very supportive of Rainbow Camp, and commented favourably about CCD’s work as he gave a speech to the assembled dignitaries and officially declared the camp open.

Mayom enjoyed his few minutes of fame as he happily nestled between the Governor and the Executive Director of CCD as they cut the ceremonial ribbon. We then paraded through the streets of Phetchaburi, all clad in our special bright blue Rainbow Camp T-shirts. It made an impressive sight – great for awareness-raising – and caused not insignificant traffic chaos. Our police escorts were very entertained by the whole thing, though, and offered the lucky few an opportunity to rest their legs!

The walk was around 3km long, but Sarah and I probably clocked up at least double that as we ran back and forth taking publicity photos at strategic locations.

The coaches then took us on the final leg of the journey to our campsite right on the beach. The children, who were by now almost beside themselves with excitement, swarmed off to find their rooms. The accommodation was basic – a combination of dormitories with mattresses on the floor, a few smaller rooms for the staff, and a number of the families in tents. For the kids, however, they wouldn’t really have minded if they were sleeping on bare concrete – the important thing was the sea. As you will imagine, it wasn’t long before a sizable proportion of them were paddling, swimming, splashing, playing and dive-bombing in the water. Some were just amazed by the ocean – it was an entirely new experience, and they wanted to see it, smell it, touch it, listen to it and even taste it. It made no difference whether the child was able-bodied or usually wheelchair-bound – if they wanted to get in there, we all pitched in to make it happen. And that was very much the theme of the camp: giving opportunities to disabled children and their families.

The programme was extensive, with late nights and early mornings – and it was extremely hard work for all the staff and volunteers. After dinner on the Wednesday night, there was a time of worship followed by some games, followed by the release of some Thai hot air balloons (health and safety devotees: look away now). And then it was back in to the coaches for a visit to the cinema – another new experience for many.

Thursday included a really engaging series of workshops – four different craft activities which everyone could get involved in. Candle-making was one of the most imaginative – the children being able to create their own arrangement of coloured sand (Isle of Wight-style) and seashells, before having molten wax poured over the top and a wick inserted. Painting fans and pencil pots was another favourite, with vast amounts of creativity in evidence. Out of necessity, several of the young people used their feet or mouth to control the paintbrushes. This was humbling to witness, but hugely encouraging at the same time. There is no reason why any of these children should not be able to do anything that they want to do – it just requires a little bit of ingenuity.

Some frenetic team games, parachute games, a tug-of-war on the beach, another swimming session, some karaoke and an afternoon nap later, and it was time for another group time with songs, Bible reading and prayer. As dusk fell, local members of the Phetchaburi community arrived to set up a market-style arena. The children were duly issued with vouchers for food, drinks, gifts, and the like. This was another unusual opportunity for a large number of them – choosing when and what they eat is a novelty for those who live in an institutional setting. The locals were so generous, donating their time and products for free and taking time to speak to each child who visited their stall. There was even a clothing ’shop’, where second-hand T-shirts, shorts and skirts had been collected up from the townsfolk and the children could choose whatever they wanted in exchange for one of their vouchers. The festival went on well into the night, with energetic dancing, loud music and fireworks. The joy evident in the children’s smiles was staggering: Mayom beamed from ear to ear when I told him that he could choose his favourite colour balloon, and I had to fight back the tears. (Showing emotion in Thai culture is a definite no-no.)

As the camp concluded on Friday morning, a final act of friendship saw everybody shaking hands with everybody else. It put the Anglican practice of ’sharing the peace’ in the shade, going on for a good half-hour. Many of the parents who attended with their children were visibly moved by the kindness and camaraderie demonstrated, and were especially grateful to the farang members of the team for coming to Thailand to help their children. It was, again, hard to keep the tears at bay.

Reluctantly, after a final lunch together, everyone re-boarded the coaches to return home. The journey was noticeably quieter than the outward trip, with many of the kids so exhausted that they just slept. Mayom dozed for some of the time, and was pensive for the remainder. But as he pulled his little wheely bag back up the slope to Rainbow House, he turned and gave me a big grin. Then he gave the cutest of waves and blew me a kiss. Awww!

 

It wasn’t an easy few days (we have 50 insect bites between the two of us, and had to cope with alien concepts such as nappies and jellyfish stings), but it was incredibly rewarding. Rainbow Camp 13? Bring it on.

(More photos are online here and here, if you have a few minutes to spare…)

This is Min, who we visited yesterday. She lives in a small, pretty village in Nonthaburi province.

She’s about 20 months old and has cerebral palsy. Her mum is single, and only 16 years old herself – and, like many teenagers, often disappears ‘out’. Her grandmother is the sole breadwinner of the family, so most of the time Min is looked after by her 82-year-old great-grandmother who is frail and unable to lift her. The family all live together in their one very basic room, with its broken roof that has been repaired with cardboard. They don’t have access to clean water, and the only toilets are shared with neighbours.

For much of her life, Min has been confined to a small hammock. Lack of understanding about her disability means that she has been ‘hidden away’ from the community and rarely sees the light of day. She’s been fed mainly on condensed milk, hasn’t learnt to crawl and her speech has not yet developed through lack of stimulation.

A couple of weeks ago, Min became ill and so had to be taken to the doctor in a nearby health station. CCD has a community-based rehabilitation project in the area which has developed a good relationship with this clinic. Two CCD staff have since been visiting Min twice a week.

They offer advice on how to cope with Min’s disability and provide practical help in strengthening Min’s muscles through appropriate exercise and massage. They also provide much-needed reassurance and a listening ear for Min’s great-grandmother. The CCD physical therapists are working to enable Min to sit by herself and to crawl.

It’s a desperately sad situation, repeated many, many times across Thailand. But Min’s infectious smile when she receives the attention she deserves seems to suggest that it doesn’t take much to make a real difference. And that’s why we’re here.

Tomorrow, we’re off to the seaside with 300 children or thereabouts on a CCD camp! Mercifully, we’ve been tasked with looking after just one - a little lad called Mayom who ‘likes to talk’, we’re told. For many of the kids, it will be the first time they see the sea, so it should be an exciting and memorable time. We won’t have web access for a few days, but we’ll try to Tweet and will report back at the weekend.

Never work with children and animals, they say. So, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that our first proper day at CCD involved 150 primary school pupils, a dove and a duck.

One of the quirkier activities that CCD runs is Rainbow Magic - a traditional performance of illusions and conjuring tricks – performed by some of the older children in CCD’s care. Learning the tricks helps the performers develop their manual dexterity and builds their confidence and social skills. Today, the show was on the road – to perform in front of a demanding audience of 2- to 7-year-olds at the Australian International School in Bangkok. Our boss had suggested that we join them for the morning, so that we could enjoy the show and meet the staff at the school (which has been very supportive of CCD’s work).

We arrived at Rainbow House at 8:15, to observe the final rehearsals and to help load the equipment into the minibus. During this process, there was a slight spillage of sweets – a vital constituent part of one of the acts. As if by magic (ahem!), a dozen children appeared from nowhere in order to ‘help’ tidy them up. They were, of course, suitably rewarded.

Ironically, the journey into the Australian International School retraced pretty much the same route that we’d been trudging to language school for the past few months – just when we thought we had finished. It took a good 90 minutes to get there, but we arrived in plenty of time for curtains up at 11am.

The stars of the show today, Lek and Ebb, looked dapper in their jazzy waistcoats and spangly trousers. The young audience were enthralled by the various sleights-of-hand, shrieking with delight as colourful handkerchiefs seemed to knot and unknot themselves seemingly defying the laws of nature. One particularly clever illusion involved ‘pumping water’ from the manifold body parts of a rather bemused member of the audience. It was effectively done – I must confess to having been baffled by the way that the aforementioned dove apparently emerged from a blown-up balloon. And quite how the duck managed to get on stage unnoticed, I haven’t yet fathomed. Definitely a crowd-pleaser though – Mr Duck was much in demand after the performance, with countless children wanting to stroke its head.

At the end of the hour-long set, the school presented us with a sizeable cash donation and a generous quantity of nappies, soaps, lotions and food which had been given by parents at a recent fayre. With not-very-much-notice at all, I found myself being asked to ’say a few words about CCD’. I suspect my finale was something of a damp squib, given that I had no livestock to produce from behind my ear, so I kept it brief. Leave them wanting more, as they say in showbiz.

Some readers will already be aware of our shadowy secret identities. But it’s time to come clean.

For several years now, we’ve been furtively assessing the customer service afforded by retail outlets as diverse as hotels and high street stationery stores. For those of you who may be under the illusion that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, let us assure you – there is! In fact, it’s better than free because mystery shoppers get paid for describing their undercover discoveries as well as being reimbursed for the purchases that are required. We’ve had some memorable experiences along the way – being entirely forgotten about while assessing the service in a branch of a popular pizza chain, for instance. Somehow, bad service doesn’t seem quite as annoying when one is pondering which adjectives would be most appropriate to use in the resultant report.

My last assignment in the UK was for a well known purveyor of sandwiches, on the Walworth Road in London. But man does not live on bread alone, so today we’ve undertaken our first Thai mystery shopping experience. In a Christian bookshop in Bangkok. An anonymous big cheese had tasked us with investigating how a particular branch was performing, and we were keen to visit anyway. Win-win! (Lest the aforementioned big cheese become alarmed, we should clarify that this was an unpaid assignment – although chocolate is always welcome.)

It took some time to hone our perceptive skills, as we initially walked straight past the shop in question - despite its not-inconsiderably prominent signage. But having been set straight by a conveniently-positioned doorman, who generously walked us to the door (probably assuming that we were actually blind), we entered in.

One of the usual metrics for assignments such as this is to time how long it takes to be greeted. So we were impressed that within a couple of seconds of setting foot inside, we’d been wai-ed by a member of staff. Good start.

We then looked around the shop as a normal customer would do, noting that the ground floor contained primarily Thai-language literature. It was clean, well stocked and generally well-organised, and after a couple of minutes of browsing the friendly chappy in charge helpfully pointed out that the English books were upstairs.

As we ascended the stairs, the shop assistant followed behind in order to turn a fan on for us. Then we were left to our own devices, which gave us a good opportunity to take a few covert photographs and have a good look at the books on sale. Yes, there were a few dusty and slightly bedraggled tomes hanging around (including, much to our delight, an out-of-print title we’ve been looking for everywhere), but we were pleasantly surprised to find a goodly quantity of relatively new releases too.

The next task was to take a few photos of the ground floor environment, a process made more complicated by the presence of the sales assistant. So, being masters of espionage, distraction tactics were duly employed: I took an unpriced Thai-English Bible up the counter to ask the assistant how much it was and to keep him busy whilst Sarah adopted the role of paparazzi.

Be impressed, dear reader – I managed to converse with said employee entirely in Thai for a duration of time sufficient to enable Sarah to complete her task. And a jolly nice chap he was too. He knew the price of the unlabelled item without needing to look it up, and also identified some similar bilingual Bibles for me which were available at a slightly cheaper price.

Job done, we completed the transaction – purchasing the bilingual Bible, a glossary of Christian words with their Thai translations, and a copy of Wild at Heart. We also bought a contemporary English version of the Bible for a friend on our Thai language course who we’ve been having some interesting conversations with in the last couple of days.

We retreated to Starbucks to reflect on our findings. Brilliantly, they’ve chosen to go ‘100% ethical’ in their supply chain, which is most encouraging. Whilst there, we received further good news courtesy of a phone call from CCD. Our ‘permission to stay’ in the country was due to expire tomorrow, and there was much confusion as to when exactly we should report to immigration, further exacerbated by the fact that the immigration department is on the cusp of moving offices.

In order to avoid catastrophe (deportation/imprisonment, etc), the entirely wonderful Bridget had spent the majority of the day at the government offices on our behalf – an unenviable task. Much to everyone’s relief, at just after 4pm, we received word that our ‘permission to stay’ had been renewed. So, we’re legal again! Hurrah!