I'm in the middle of BFN, Thailand. As per Robin's suggestion, I'm on a Super Deluxe Magestic VIP 24 seater bus to Bangkok. We're 2.5 hours into the 12 hours journey (I should have flown) and have stopped for a 20 min break at some bus terminal surrounded by nothing.

As I exited the bus, I found myself blinking away the sleep along with a multitude of other travellers, streaming out of a fleet of buses. The crowd began to move toward a restaurant, and I follow...I follow because I am a lemming.

There's a market area next to the restaurant where a lady is barking something through a megaphone. The crowd suddenly shifts toward her simutaneously, like a school of fish evading a scuba diver. This time I hung back because it looked as though they were being seated in a very expensive VIP area. And though I have the ticket, a VIP I am not.

I wandered into the store and bought a bag of jelly fruit strips, which tasted exactly like pink, yellow and green. Artificial to the last. While munching on the strips, I took a seat on the curb to wait out the rest of the 20 minute break with the bus drivers. They all looked at me through their cigarette smoke, but said nothing. I considered for a second, offering them some of my candy, but they didn't seem like the type to accept. So they continued to smoke and look at me, while I sat in silence.