Budget travellers should be welcomed

ON my bookshelf, there is a Lonely Planet Thailand “travel survival kit” written by American Joe Cum­mings, who travelled extensively as a backpacker (note the word “backpacker”) throughout South-East Asia.

He learned to speak Thai, and wrote several editions of the Thailand guidebook for Lonely Planet. He settled down in Chiang Mai before finally moving to Bangkok. My Thailand guidebook was published in 1996 and is long outdated, but I am reluctant to throw it away.