A little while ago I wrote a post about my dealings with "that" magazine in Bangkok. Interestingly, a couple of other people came forward and shared their experiences with the magazine and there seemed to be a trend. I therefore can’t help but think that there are countless other magazines out there, past and present, that, let's say, don't have the most efficient system for dealing with freelancers.

This really bugs me and it’s why I’ve learnt to pick and chose who I write for. Thailand is full of magazines, with new ones seemingly starting every day. Many of them aren’t run by career media professionals. Some are started up as hobbies while others, it appears, are mere social tools that make for fabulous launch and anniversary shindigs, darling.

If you are planning to work as a freelance writer in Thailand, beware. Only write for publications you are certain will pay you, and don’t mix friendship and business.

I remember being taken in by the chap who ran Hype magazine in Bangkok. I wrote pretty much all the content for several issues and was told my money was “on the way”. It never was, of course, and the magazine ceased publishing soon after. After a while you get sick of the fobbing off and the excuses.

The same thing happened to me with One-Two-Go magazine, the in-flight rag of the airline. The magazine was previously edited by my buddy Alasdair Forbes as part of Image Asia publishing, but after being sold to another company, it all went a little downhill.

It would have been better if the new editor in chief had just been straight with me from the start instead of promising me that I would be paid. Needless to say, I wasn’t paid.

I’m a writer. If I’m hired to write something then I expect to be paid. I couldn’t care less about what financial troubles a magazine is having. The people running that magazine know exactly what kind of situation their publication is in. Right from the beginning, they know full well if there is a chance they won’t be able to pay their freelancers.

This is the trouble, because freelancers are given little consideration by some of the shadier publishers out there. Of course, I never get this trouble writing for any of the wires or the more professional publications I work for, but I wasn’t always in this position.

This is why I like the idea of their being a group of publishers in Thailand who get together and agree to adhere to a set of standards. If a publication is below par then that publisher would not be part of the group, and therefore the many freelancers in Thailand have at least a vague idea of who they can trust.

This is a track by Mistabishi on Hospital Records. It's called From Memory. It's my favourite track of 2009, although the video is rubbish.

I wrote this post while listening to Night Terror by Laura Marling, so for the sake of providing a soundtrack to my words, the video is below so you can perhaps get an idea of the kind of mood I was in.

I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been living away from England. It’s about five years or so I think. This is the second time I’ve returned home in that time, but my visit has been dogged by an inescapable sadness. It’s an odd feeling and one that I’ve tried to repress to some corner of my mind. Yet whenever I stop for a moment and look at the sky or watch my foot splashing in a puddle, it’s there.

Perhaps it’s just that I’m a year older and have still yet to figure out my place in the world. What it may come down to most is people; people I grew up with, people I went to university with, people I worked with, people I stayed out all night with, people I met in one of the corners of my world.

Coming back to England, it hit me how I’ve never been able to make the same kind of friends as I did in my home country. No matter where I go, be it Thailand, Indonesia, Timor-Leste or some other place, I’ve always felt this strange unease with people.

Admittedly I felt this same way in England towards people I didn’t know, but for all the people I was uncomfortable with, there were more that I had some kind of connection with. And now those people are scattered around England, around the world, grown up and somehow less mystical in my eyes. We aren’t children any more, so where does that leave us?

The five years I spent living in Sheffield were mostly carefree and exciting. When I was in Sheffield last week I got a sense of that feeling again and it was fulfilling.

There were fewer people that I wanted to see than last time and I didn’t manage to meet with everyone I had planned to. Some people I didn’t even tell I was coming back. I had this vision of just walking around and bumping into people from my past. It didn’t really happen. It used to be that my circle of friends was rather condensed, all within walking distance, but time has caused people to drift, literally and figuratively.

Part of me wanted to stay in Sheffield. I think I’m a very different person in that place and with those people than elsewhere. Again, it’s mostly because of the people, or at least my feelings towards the people.

After Sheffield I went to my hometown, Bath, where I caught up with old school friends. I felt a little more distant from them than the time we met last Christmas. For whatever reason, I was expecting something more, although I still can’t figure out what. Again, it seems everyone has grown up and is getting on with things.

It’s natural to compare yourself with the people you grew up with, to imagine yourself in their shoes and see how they might fit. For me, the type of person I am, I don’t think I could have stayed and lived in England. I also don’t believe that I will ever go back to live there.

People often ask me why I left, and all I can think is to ask them why they haven’t. This drifting away of friends and growing up would still have happened if I’d stayed home, only it would have been all the more unhappy because I would have felt trapped.

The freedom of living somewhere as amazing as Southeast Asia is something I wouldn’t trade for the world. It’s the place where I feel most at home, even if it isn’t really home.

I didn’t really enjoy talking about Timor-Leste while I was in England. People only ever ask the same few questions and I never know what to say. People seem generally confused about Timor-Leste, just as I would be if I had a friend who lived in Honduras or somewhere similar. I tend to give up explaining what kind of place Timor-Letse is and just say something like “It’s very hot”. The conversation usually moves on swiftly.

But being away from Timor-Leste for a few weeks has been refreshing. I was becoming rather bored. Conversation seemed to be based entirely on various forms of statistics and I was finding it difficult living in my house.

Oddly enough, my housemates have decided to leave Timor-Leste, so when I do go back, I will have to find somewhere else to live, which is something I am not looking forward to. It would be like beginning all over again, when I could be beginning somewhere else entirely.

So that’s my life in a nutshell set to Laura Marling. I’m still struggling to really figure people out, especially when the things they are passionate about seem so odd to me. Things like telephones and furniture are the most puzzling. I'm now somewhere in France visiting my mother and brother. There's no sadness here, just a lot of trees.

Timor-Leste’s opposition Fretilin party today called for parliament to back proposed legislation that would force all government officeholders to declare their financial interests.

Fretilin lawmaker Jose Teixeira said it was unfair that a “small layer of Timorese society” benefit from the government’s spending decisions while many more live in poverty.

He cited as evidence the decision by lawmaker to back Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao over the release of Indonesian former militia leader Maternus Bere, who was indicted by the UN for his role in a string of crimes against humanity in Timor-Leste, including a brutal massacre in the southern city of Suai in 1999.

“Many people suspect that a number of politicians, including Ministers and MPs, have a conflict of interest, because they felt that their pecuniary interests in Indonesia may be put in jeopardy unless they were more accommodating on the Bere issue,” said Teixeira in a statement.

Gusmao’s government last month survived a no-confidence motion tabled by Fretilin lawmakers and allies over the release of Bere. Fretilin had threatened to pull its lawmakers out of parliament if the motion was not passed.

“This public suspicion of large bank accounts and apartments in Jakarta, Bali and Surabaya is not healthy for our young democracy,” added Teixeira.

Bere’s release has triggered a wave of international condemnation.

Michèle Montas, spokesperson for the UN’s Secretary-General, reiterated the UN’s stance that “there should be no impunity, especially for serious crimes, including crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide…”

Amnesty International slammed the release and said in a statement that “[Bere’s] transfer to West Timor robs the victims of justice, as it occurred before his case had even been prosecuted by an independent court in a fair trial”.

Bere was arrested by Timorese police on August 9 after crossing the border to visit family, but was on August 30 ordered by Gusmao to be released from prison in Dili into the care of the Indonesian embassy.

He was taken across the border into neighbouring West Timor on October 30 after a secretive few weeks in the Indonesian embassy in Dili.

Speaking for myself, I don't know how many government officeholders have financial interests in Indonesia and neither do I know how substantial these interests are. If they are as big as Fretilin suggests, then this is perhaps an issue that deserves more attention.

It would make sense for their to be a law that government officeholders, including lawmakers, should declare their assets, as in many other countries. It would certainly go some way to showing at least some effort is being made to tackle corruption, although I think the link with Bere's release is tenuous given present information. I'm open to being corrected on this matter though.

I’m not particularly keen on the whole “travelling” thing. There’s something I don’t enjoy about the feeling of being in a place and having no idea where to go or what to do. When I see backpackers traipsing around with their guidebooks in hand and huge bags slung over their shoulders, I feel sorry for them because they may as well have a sign floating above them that says, “I need help, I don’t know where I’m going.”

So for those reasons, I try and avoid any form of excursion or trip or sightseeing outing organized by a tour group. Call it irrational, ridiculous pathetic — sure — but that’s how I feel. I do make exceptions, of course, like when I went to Viqueque and stayed at my friend’s eco-lodge.

Anyway, I was in the far-northern part of Bali this week, in a place called Lovina, next to Singaraja. It’s a quiet place with few tourists, although in Lovina there’s a little spot full of guesthouses and bars and people offering “transport!” and “bakso!”

Somehow, I’d let myself be persuaded to go on a dolphin hunt. The idea was that we’d get up at 5.30 am, go on a boat and see some dolphins. I wasn’t enthralled about the idea. Nothing against dolphins, but I just don’t find them particularly exciting.

It was, however, worth paying the six bucks to go out in the boat and just feel the sea breeze. The only problem was that there were about 30 other boats full of people with similar ideas. It was most bizarre. There were all these outrigger boats and each time there was a dolphin sighting, all the boats would speed over to them same place.

It’s true that dolphins are exceptionally smart. Those little porpoises have made a game out of leading a bunch of idiots around the sea for an hour every morning. The dolphins have it sorted: they show up at the surface for a few seconds, wait for the frenzy to begin and then go off and hide for 10 minutes while everyone frantically tries to get their cameras out to take pictures.

It was a really sad spectacle. We saw more boats than dolphins. It became rather exhausting after a while and I eventually forgot all about the dolphins and started daydreaming about nothing in particular.

We were back on shore by 9 am and hounded by locals trying to sell us small wooden dolphins. I’d recommend paying someone to go out on a boat, but forget about the dolphins and just cruise around for a bit.

Incidentally, it only takes a couple of hours to get from the Kuta area to Singaraja, right at the top of Bali. It’s a pleasant ride of about 90 kilometres and we did it on a moped.

Oh, and there were some dolphins…