'Travel is glamorous only in retrospect,' says Paul Theroux. I liked this sentiment when I first happened across it, but two nights ago it took on a whole new significance.

The scene was set: we were on the thirteen hour night train that runs from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. Leaving at around 6pm, it arrives in the capital at around 7am the next day.

Second-class sleeper is basic, but reasonably comfortable. Everything is spare and a little bit institutional - particularly the grubby, stainless-steel communal toilets which look very, very similar to the facilities at Silverwater Prison.

Having felt vaguely unwell all evening, and tossing and turning on my upper bunk which was rocking alarmingly, I sat bolt upright just before midnight with only one thought in my mind: 'I am about to be hideously and spectacularly ill everywhere.'

Ricochetting out of my bed and grabbing hold of the thin metal stairs that led to the floor, I was trying to guess whether I had time to slip my Tevas on, or whether I would have to race down the aisle to the grotty toilets unshod.

I got the shoes sort of onto my feet, and sprinted down the narrow corridors between rows and rows of bunks, narrowly made it to the bathroom and was violently sick five times in succession.

The swaying of the train made everything worse, and I could only think, 'My God - it's at least seven more hours of this until I can get off.'

Scared to leave the proximity of the toilet, I sat huddled in the little dogbox opposite the handbasins that's reserved for the Conductor (said Conductor had gone off to find a comfier bed for the night).

Coming to find me, a shocked Andrew squeezed into the dogbox as well, and then brought me a towel and clean pants (my pants having suffered rather badly in the whole affair, as the force of the vomiting meant that most of it bounced straight back out of the pan and onto the floor).

Until now, I had thought that being sick into the gutter in the streets of Helsinki as we waited for an airport bus to take us to our plane to Moscow was hideous enough. But now evil had a new name, and I was stuck riding on it.

Like some addled sort of mantra, I kept telling myself, 'Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.'

It made me feel like I wasn't the only person to be projectile vomiting everything she'd eaten in the last twelve hours into a nasty, shit-and-urine-drenched pit while our train bucked around like we were on the high seas.

'Travel is glamorous only in retrospect' made me feel connected, however tenuously, to some long line of people having horrible things happpen to them which they would never, ever take holiday snaps of, and which would thus never, ever be immortalised at home as 'happy travel moments'.

Now, two nights later, I can say that I am back in the land of the living - having eaten dry crackers, rice and some noodles.

I suspect that our New Year's Eve tonight will be rather low-key, involving us staying in and watching TV and some low-quality DVDs in our guesthouse. The fact that anything would a step up from what happened the other night kinda takes the pressure off somewhat - I don't have to worry about having the 'perfect' New Year's Eve, or wonder whether I'm at the 'coolest' venue - anything that doesn't involve projectile vomiting at high-speed is just fine by me.

Oh, and for anyone who wonders what it was that brought me undone so violently and in so spectacular a fashion - it was Western food (a baguette with cold meats) prepared and served in an apparently clean and swanky kitchen. Always the way ...