Jeff Klein, lanky, six foot five, fair and freckly, is hard to miss even when he’s not strolling down the street in a Southeast Asian capital early in the morning. I had just emerged from my hot cell of a room in a guesthouse on Bangkok’s Khao San Road, my first night in Asia: twin mattress on the floor, no topsheet, oscillating fan, bathroom down the hall with no hot water (who would want it, honestly in this heat), all for just 200 Bhat, or about $6. The bedbugs were complimentary.

I was ticking off the list of things I wanted to do as I stepped over stray dogs and the brooms of shopkeepers cleaning up the bottles and food wrappers after the farang frenzy of friday night on Khao San (I’d arrived at midnight, impaired by jetlag and sweating profoundly with my backpack, searching for my geusthouse and delcining offers for tuk tuk, girly shows, ping pong–ping pong?! Ah, what a place to step into Asia).

So the first thing on my mind that morning was a cup of coffee. Then I needed to find a cleaner quieter room. I also wanted to catch up with my friends Marnie and Brandon who were sleeping someplace nearby, and maybe check email to catch up with the many friends off the ice, who like me had come to Thailand. Jeff Klein was on that list. And suddenly as if by some trick I had conjured him, there he was, walking beside his girlfriend, Rachel. I crossed the road, and smiled, “Why Mister Klein, how are you?”

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