A little wooden café was there, brilliantly lit by a single bare electric light bulb. Benches, stone tables and a counter and till as in any other café we noticed, and waiting for us just inside were the chiefs of the Paper Factory in snowy white shirts and trousers and holding out their hands to receive us, almost pushing us into our seats round the table. We were introduced to Mr Pyrothe, the Number One; to Mr Sowana, the Chief Chemist; to all the departmental heads; and to Mr Aroong, who ran the café. Mrs Aroong, pretty and very young, had a marvellous plump baby on her hip, in usual Thai fashion, and when she wished to use both her hands, she dumped the baby down on top of the ice-chest, and there it sat gazing meditatively at us and trying to chew peanuts.

That was a memorable meal. There was a plate of delicate little slices of red beef; an enormous green salad with soya sauce and some Thai salad dressing; there were fried prawn fritters; there were spicy packets of rice and curry tied up in banana leaf parcels; and for drink they started with a very warming local brandy, and then out came our old friend the lao. We sat and ate and they piled our plates up, and the restaurant was packed with grinning, cheery faces, urging us to fill our bellies. Just near the café stood a huge tree that shadowed the benches and tables outside, and by the light of the lamp it seemed as if half Kamburi was there to watch us, with innumerable, brown, round-bellied naked infants watching us with big eyes, the boldest coming up to the table and whispering a cautious ‘Sawat dee!’ One of them, a tough little boy of about three, sat on a friendly knee and put down a mouthful of lao and two hard-boiled eggs in a minute. Running round the tables were the inevitable prick-eared ‘pi’-dogs, eager to pick up scraps, snarling and whining at each other and wondering what all the noise was about.