Victoria Hawkins: My globe-trotting daughter finally rang today. Hurrah. She was holed up in a seven-floor shopping mall (with air con) in the middle of a stultifyingly hot Bangkok.

Victoria Hawkins

MY globe-trotting daughter finally rang today. Hurrah. She was holed up in a seven-floor shopping mall (with air con) in the middle of a stultifyingly hot Bangkok. Oh how I miss her (and the mess) though one of the worst things about it is not the worry - which can be fairly sickening - but the lack of daily chitchat and backchat.

It didn't help that she kept being sick during the first week, so for a while I was poised to buy my ticket and fly out to hold the bowl for my little bird, then I got this email and relaxed. “I'm back in Bangkok at the moment... had a horrible journey back up here, little bit travel sick although not actually sick. I got picked up at 8.30am from the hotel, mini bus to a port, got on a coach, drove to another port, got off the coach, got on the boat, got off the boat, back on to the coach, drove for about 1.5 hours, got off the coach got on some shack of a van, off the van, back on the van, plane, taxi and finally arrived at 6.30! Felt a little sorry for myself last night. Got up early today, got chatting to some Thai bloke about football, he sorted me out a tuk tuk and it drove me around the temples all morning for nothing! They were quite stunning but after about three they all looked the same.”

I think Miss Solo Traveller has got it fairly well taped. Since then, she's taken a night train up to Chang Mai and night trained it back, and is about to head south again to do a scuba-diving course. In the past three weeks she's ridden elephants, been to national parks and boxing matches, been ripped off, laughed and cried a lot, met loads of people from right around the world (including a Canadian woman, my age, who has gone out East to “find herself” post divorce - way to go lady!!) and thus far only spent two days entirely on her tod.

In two weeks' time reinforcements, who she met at work in Ipswich, arrive for a fortnight and shortly after that it's on to Oz. Just the 10 weeks to go, then, and while I thought I'd die of worry and never sleep a wink for three months I'm beginning to think I might make it.