I first went backpacking in 1989. The Berlin Wall was about to crumble, Margaret Thatcher seemed invincible and Nelson Mandela was confined to a tiny cell.
I'm in a tiny cell, now, although, in fairness, I have chosen to be. I'm spending 24 hours in the Bangkok neighbourhood where my infatuation with travel began. My room has bars on the windows, a tatty mattress and the heady aroma of marijuana mixed with mosquito coils. I don't need to stay in such a shabby guesthouse but nostalgia can make you do odd things.
A sign in the lobby promises free hot water, which elevates my lodgings to mid-range in this corner of the Thai capital. Another sign warns that 'guests will be responsible for all kinds of damage'. The establishment hasn't made it into Lonely Planet's current Thailand edition.
For almost 30 years, Khao San ('milled rice') Road has served as transit lounge and decompression chamber for a never-ending procession of mainly young globetrotters. It first appeared in guidebooks more than a quarter of a century ago, thanks to its proximity to Rattanakosin, Bangkok's historic district. Word of mouth spread and the 400-metre thoroughfare evolved into a backpacker's bottleneck that reinvents itself more often than Madonna.
Khao San Road is a pit stop for backpackers in need of logistical support, a spot of pampering and some R&R before the next foray along the banana-pancake trail. Its travel agents organise visas while photo labs burn your digital snaps onto disc. Laundries do what they can with a backpack full of filthy clothes, leaving owners free to top up their henna tattoos and get a 2,000-kilometre service on their hair braids. E-mails are sent; phone calls are made ('send more cash please, mum') and bars show the latest movies around the clock. If you can't find what you 'need' on The Road, then you probably don't need it.