Staying Alive

No eggs, no nuts, no problem. JACQUELINE MALEY uses extreme caution and her best Thai to order dinner.

- Jacqueline Maley

These days my people gather on internet forums. They swap tips on the best brand of antihistamine, and discuss how to ice hives. They talk rashes and reactions. They assure each other everything will be okay, even though they know the world brims with risk, and this is especially true in Thailand, where the locals sneak peanuts into everything and sprinkle peanut dust on the breeze.

If you have a nut allergy, as I do, travelling to Thailand is the autoimmune equivalent of a haemophiliac walking on broken glass.

The Thais also love eggs, and I’m allergic to those, too.

I did a backpacking tour of South East Asia in 1995. The internet wasn’t so much a thing in 1995, which means no internet forums where my tentatively adventurous – but often itchy – brethren could gather to share information on what to do if you feel your throat closing over after gaily eating a satay stick in Chiang Mai. There was nowhere to confer on the polite way to behave at a dinner where you’re offered pad Thai, a dish whose existence I struggle not to take personally, so well designed it is to kill me.