My next adventure required me to hot foot it to Mae Hong Son - for I had to sort out getting all the party money and donations for Yaung Ni Oo paid into my offshore retirement fund, and do so before I entered the camp – the jungle of irregular return – 41 hours later. This is why my feet were hot - at bus-catching time (6.30am) it's still quite cold.

After a bus ride of comparable bump-and-beauty to the first, I arrive in this smallish (but actually fairly biggish by Thai standards) town, which lies in a forested valley surrounded by mountains and which "lives up to its claim to being the 'Switzerland of Thailand'" (or so my guidebook tells me). Thinking back to when I was there (and having visited Switzerland once when I was a grasshopper's knee), I'd pretty much agree.

Stepping off the bus and hitting the painful heat of the 11 o'clock sun, I saw the usual array of motorbike, tuc-tuc and pick-up taxi drivers looking eagerly in my direction (again being Mr token foreigner on said bus). Striding past with a shake of the head (inside thinking "holy smoke I'm so, like, (Thailand) street") it was time to begin task number one of three: the money.

The first bank, wholly empty, directed me to another. The two exceptionally busy cashiers at this second and completely full bank proceeded to stop serving the long queue (hmmm not quite the right word, people take a ticket and politely sit awaiting their call) before them and turn their attention to me. Wincing with embarrassment I begin the process of paying my traveller's cheques into the correct account: a simple procedure. But I had forgotten about my hair-lopping off of 2001 and the very young-looking hairmonster seen on my passport, the pre-1997 signature that accompanies it and the apparent weakness of my current signature when asked to sign 60 of the chequey things under the hawk-like gaze of some man in a suit. In the end, they bought it, but I walked out with head bowed, a meek smile and a strange guilty feeling like I'd just robbed the place. I found 60 billion baht later that day as I cleaned out the tomato seeds from my bag.

Anyhow, with task one confidently negotiated, task two it was. That meant sorting out a bed for the night - before hitting the town proper to discover the mystery and life hiding within. I was, however, quietly confident of success in this area as I had already memorised the name of the cheapest place in town from my trusty guidebook: 'Paradise Huts'. So, as I sat eating the first westernised snacks of my Thailand campaign (guiltily procured in a fit of hunger from a 7/11), for the rest of the afternoon when the thought of "Eeeek! I've got nowhere to stay tonight!" appeared, I thought to myself 'It's okay because of Paradise Huts''. Sat munching on this bench I noticed some words carved into the pavement stone before me – getting up and walking round to read it said 'American Go To Hell'. Had someone written this crouched just 20cm from my feet while I was happily and obliviously munching my American corn chips bought from an American-owned convenience store and carried in matching American-owned bag? I took a picture of the inscription and, in my Adidas pants and expensive American Tevas, walked off (nervously) down the sidewalk.

With my belly full and task two psychologically overcome ("it's all okay because of Paradise Huts"), task three it was. I had been instructed to stay in Mae Hong Son at least one night and had arrogantly wondered 'what for?' at the time, as if I'd seen everything Thailand had to offer already. But I knew I couldn't return before tomorrow, so had to stay a night, and had to fill this 20 or so hours… and this was task three.

The Switzerland of Thailand: Mae Hong Son

First off when visiting a new place I kind of like to get my bearings – get an overview, then zoom in for the kill at specific highlights (and here I'm not talking about my nightclub pulling techniques, they unfortunately involve little more than random arm and leg jerking). So, at 1.00pm, with the sun at its fiercest, I decide to climb up to the Buddhist temple commonly known in Mae Hong Son as Wat Plai Doi, which overlooks the whole of the town. Armed with two litres of water, twenty tomatoes and fifteen bananas (total cost 15 pence) I begin the zig-zag ascent to the zenith of the town. No-one is about on this route, the noise of the town below slowly wains and the treeline clears as my footsteps plod on and up to the rhythm of my thumping head in the midday heat. Stopping every few bends, the town gradually revealed itself, and from this position of stillness and calm I could look back as spectator over something just minutes before I had been a sweaty, headachy participator in. On the seats at final bend, two lovers were embracing and gazing over the town – self-consciously struggling to control my lack-of-exercise-induced heavy breathing I was past, and happily skipped over the final step. The Wat was higher still, just out of sight over a steep bank but very close – its old bells were clanging and people's voices were clear and true. The ridge I was on must have been the carpark - but no car-parking folks were home. Blooming exhausted I sat in the shade of the bank, and looked over the town, noting its actual smallness, its quietness and the airport slap bang in its middle. Drifting in and out of sleep as I lazed unseen beneath the temple, I began to read the only book I'd chosen to accompany me on this particular trip. The story of a young man who sets out from his childhood home to see the world (or at least Spain) on foot, its themes struck chords with this Ben engrossed in his own new world fumblings – and as I sat watching the hazy stillness of the town below I fell into the world of Laurie Lee. Page seventy-five. He had just arrived in the unknown city of Valladolid and was feeling the "faint sour panic which seems to cling to a place until one has found oneself a bed." But while I too was feeling this bubbling uncertainty, I remembered back to his first night upon foreign shores. The eighteen-year-old had slept in a small hollow out of the winds amidst the rocks of the Spanish coastline, had been attacked by dogs that night, yet had come through it and stood tall the following day. And so it was that Paradise Huts soon became a memory and I confidently decided to sleep rough for the night and allow the wonders (or dogs) of the town come to me: tonight I was free to do as I wanted - for Laurie had been here before.

My guidebook informed me of the most romantic spot in the town, down by the lake – and how the mist magically rises off it in the early morning. As I clamboured down from the Wat, sat munching lunch in a roadside Thai café, and finally found my way to the town's watery centerpiece, I had already made up my mind. I was to sleep rough by the lake, wake early to gaze at the morning mists, and smuggle myself out of town on the first morning bus. It still being light, I took up my place on a grassy verge and let the evening close in around this Mae Hong Son vagabond. The town's dusk still brought much to drink in though – with the lake serving as the light to draw in the evening's life, its surrounding road was soon bustling with tourists, locals and stallholders trading hilltribe crafts and clothes to the soundtrack of 'Hotel Calafornia' blasted into being by a cabaret serenading the assembled diners and passers-by with collections of timeless(?) Thai-style soft-rock classics. I sat reading, watching and observing the tangerine scene, the moon casting an ever-stronger hold over the palm-tree lined silhouettes across the lake as the sun descended from up on high. Directly before me across the lake (and beneath the rising moon) the commanding Burmese Wat, previously disappearing from view as daylight disappeared, spluttered into night life - its diagonals cloacked in some half-wondrous, half-tacky neon hue.

The Lake (sadly Ben forgets to take picture of the shining golden wat just out of view)

A little too perfect? Sure. Reality soon came thudding home: (1) it got very, very cold on that grassy bank; (2) the vagabond realised it would be a good four hours until those 'timeless' blocks of cheddar rock turned themselves off; (3) the eleven remaining tomatoes were squashed in the bottom of my bag, seeds infiltrating every item within; (4) the dogs were starting to come out to play, and began to take an interest in this out of place lakeside hobo; (5) people were beginning to recognise me as I once too often toured the lake and night markets of the town, waiting for the soul of the evening to drag itself home to bed and present me with the opportunity for concealment I wished for.

Two hours later I spotted what would be my hotel that night – a strange stage-like construction of oil drums and bamboo in the northeastern corner of the lake. Attempting to wash, brush teeth and prepare myself for the mad dash underneath this structure, I waited for the all clear. For another two hours extremely tall European couples romantically (and somewhat robotically) strolled round the lake, groups of Thai teenagers circled its waters round and round on noisy mopeds, the odd local sat obviously watching my every move from benches stuck in the shadows.

As midnight approached my chance finally came and I was gone. Mad dash over, a six foot two bulk was now concealed beneath the oddball structure. I did what I needed to do, tied my bag to my wrist, and wrapped myself in my mosquito net ready for sleep – Laurie's blood pumping through my veins. I was Maguiver: brave, unseen, unheard and unknown. That is, until the pack of local stray dogs replaced the cabaret for the night, with their howls and strains of lakeside bemoaning keeping my tired eyes from drifting as they had been so easily able to do in the heat of the day. Added to their clamour was the feet of countless passersby, the lights of the encircling motorbikes. I was a sitting duck and the life around me was sure to take notice.

But a few hours later I was awake and it was morning: shades of eery black were now more welcoming grey and blue. I felt like crap. But, determined to see what I was here for (the mist and the lake) I rushed to pack my net and lept out from beneath my home to the path by the lake. A lake, that is, with no god damn mist. Today it seemed the mist - practically guaranteed by the guidebook - must have been mystifying some other place and delighting the morning of a different Maguiver. Hrumph.

Still, the rush of adventure was still pumping through me, and I felt a huge surge of satisfaction as I stretched off the night of private silliness in sight of a few morning runners doing the same. Looking back, I began to cackle and giggle as I headed through the morning market for the bus out of town. Task three was over, and I knew the twinkling memory of the night of secret sleep was mine forever to keep.

Ben's secret lakeside hideaway. No, not the bush on the right. I slept under that thing in the middle. No, not the path.