My first thought when I see the extent of the hair horror is: my God, I look like a Republican. My hair’s been blowdried within an inch of its life, but then again, so has Andrew’s. Come to think of it, we are sporting identical 'dos when viewed from behind; it’s all just one huge glossy mass of helmet-head. Not funny. All we need now are matching lavender-blue twin-sets, pearls and sensible pumps …

However, at least I’ve assuaged my very longstanding desire to go into a funky Asian hair salon of some description. I don’t know why, but I love the sheer kookiness of it all – the posters of the doe-eyed young mavens with shimmer eyeshadow and the streaked hair, all looking like languid but vacant-eyed Canto popstars. It’s inexplicable, but true, and the fascination has been building.

Having looked longingly at these places in Sydney’s Chinatown, I take one look at Neo Salon in Bangkok (replete with flashing red neon sign saying ‘Neo! Neo! Neo!) and decide: this is even better! In the giddy excitement of it all, I convince Andrew that a trim would do his hair good as well.

Settling back into the plush leatherette of the shampoo chair, I enter a kind of hell, presided over by a Thai Mistress of Pain. The fact that she has the world’s longest, shiniest, sharpest fingernails does not deter her from ‘massaging’ my scalp – in fact, she seems convinced that these talons are the tools of her trade. This painful encounter continues for such an eternity that I actually have to ask her to stop (the unspoken reason being I’m scared that my scalp is bleeding). This pisses her off royally, and she finishes my shampoo off in the most desultory manner. All this while, she entreats me repeatedly to buy ‘vitamin hair treat-nent’. The vial is small, bright blue and labelled ‘serum’. It looks like it’s come from Patpong Night Market. I decline.

My actual haircut is done by a funky, cuddly bear of a Thai man. He has super-short hair dyed a motley steel blond, wears a tight black T along with a decidedly camp manner and little Buddha amulet slung around his neck. Despite having escaped talon-lady at the shampoo stage, Andrew is now having problems of his own. I look over to hear him say, ‘I like it long. Could you just tidy it up?’ His pint-sized hairdresser enthusiastically agrees, ‘Yes! Yes! You like highlights!!’ ‘No, not highlights, … um, tidy,’ he begins again.

My guy was more interested in quizzing me about ‘how many Australian animals have pouches?’ than in the mechanics of my hair. Oh God – I feel like I failed primary school. I realise I have no idea how many animals have pouches or not. I mumble something about joeys and then baby koalas. He looks sceptical. Then I do it – I actually hear myself say, ‘the monotreme is unique to Australia, the two animals in this group are the echidna and the platypus.’ Then it all grinds to a crushing halt – do these freaking animals have pouches?? I have no idea whatsoever.

‘But Koalas is a bear,’ he burbles on as he razors away at my hair absent-minededly ‘so they do not have pouches!’ I try lamely to explain that they’re not really bears, which also falls flat. He looks at me askance and then tells me that ‘I always talk to my friend on the phone and I say, “Why so many animals in Australia have pouches?” My friend say, “it might be the weather …”’ Here he pauses triumphantly before crying, ‘I say to him “It can’t be the weather or else the people would be having pouches also!”’

Okay … this is better ground, I decide. ‘But how do you know we don’t have pouches?’ I tease. He laughs harder than ever before looking over at Andrew and saying to his tummy, ‘I think your boyfriend is having a pouch!!’ Cheeky!

All this while, he hasn’t used his scissors on me at all. Working entirely with a razorblade he’s pulling on each strand and then razoring up it diagonally like he’s slicing a baguette.

And then it’s done and he’s off – and torture-lady returns to perform The Blowdry, a feat of artisanship that takes longer than the actual haircut. Anyone looking on could have been forgiven for thinking that the amount of energy expended indicated that the poor woman was battling to straighten out my afro, as opposed to the fine, straight hair I actually have. In turn, every single strand of hair was gripped around a huge round brush and pulled right out from my head at a 90 degree angle whilst having the atomically-powered blowdrier trained on it. Et voila! Helmet-head in just a few easy steps.

And there you have it – the story of how my partner and I ended up with the hair of the American aristocracy for the day (or at least for a few hours until the heat and the humidity defeated the blowdry and made us look human once more).

Three weeks on ...

There are two postscripts to this story:

1. We both look fine now that our hair has fought back valiantly. I am obsessed with my razored-up hair (it goes nicely crazy and sticks out everywhere, which makes me happy) and am considering indulging my passion for funked-up Asian salons more often.

2. A few days ago, we passed by Neo and I craned to see my man. He was nowhere to be found – and then our eyes met. He was waving excitedly at me from under a chin-length sea of black spiral-perm that sprang from his head, Medusa-like. I gave him the thumbs up and he returned it. I’m sort of thinking I might need a trim again sometime soon.