‘I am the Kiwi whisperer,' I said to my lovely lady travel companion, surveying the hot yellow dunes of the Western Desert like some latter-day and more sun-sensitive Lawrence of Arabia.

‘You are not the Kiwi whisperer,' said my lovely lady travel companion, with a tone that suggested one of the reasons Lawrence never took lady
travel companions, lovely or otherwise, to the desert with him. ‘You're just a damn fool.'

But she's wrong. Maybe not about the second part, but the fact is that no matter where in the world I go, I draw New Zealanders to me the way a lightbulb draws midges, or an empty magazine cover draws Joost and Amor. On game drives, on cruise ships, on the back of an elephant in Northern Thailand, once in a hotair balloon over the swelling red sand-sea of Sossusvlei, if there's a New Zealander named Collin in a hundred-kilometre radius, he will appear at my shoulder and say, in a provoking way: ‘So - you're from South Africa, are you?'
‘Just ignore him!' my l.l.t.c. will implore. ‘So what if he thinks his windbreaker is warmer than yours?'

But it's no good. As though it is beyond our power to resist, in minutes he and I will fall to sophisticated dispute over some vital matter of national pride.

‘We make Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc,' he'll say.
‘We make Pinotage.'
‘No one likes Pinotage.'
‘You do.'
‘No, we don't.'
‘Yes, you do.'

As each new Collin hives into view - and they're all called Collin - we somehow just pick up where the previous one left off.

‘We have the biggest brain-drain problem in the world.'
‘No, we do.'
‘We do!'

It becomes a test of will. One Collin and I stood knee-deep in the freezing Namibian Atlantic in a jaw-clenched endurance trial of national cold tolerance.

In Chiang Mai, I ate spoonfuls of chilli mano-a-mano with another Collin until the sweat ran down our bodies and pooled in our shoes. But worst was in Aswan in southern Egypt, with the silver-blue Nile whispering past like a long, cool memory through the baking hot sands of time.

‘Oh no,' said my lovely lady travel companion as the latest Collin approached. ‘You promised, not again.'
‘Don't worry,' I said. But soon conversation turned, as it often will in a Middle Eastern country, from stomach complaints to drinking. Egyptian liquor laws are mild and tourist-friendly, but there is something in the subject that acts as a spur to certain kinds of idiots abroad.

‘I reckon a Kiwi can hold more than a Saffer,' said Collin thoughtfully. I snorted my derision.
‘No! You promised,' hissed my l.l.t.c.
‘I can beat him!' I hissed back.
‘There is no way,' declared Collin's own companion, ‘you two morons are having a beer-drinking competition in an Islamic country!'
‘No way!' agreed my l.l.t.c. The two ladies exchanged a look of sympathy and shared suffering that transcended nations and cultures.

Collin and I eyeballed each other. ‘Who said anything about beer?'
‘We're out of Immodium!' wailed my l.l.t.c. as Collin and I crouched at the river's edge, eyes locked in mortal combat, and started scooping water into our mouths.
‘I won't need Immodium,' I replied through a mouthful of Nile. ‘He'll need Immodium.'
‘Shut up and drink!' gurgled the current Collin.

Maybe we'd still be there, chugging down untreated Egyptian water, clenching anxiously and praying the other guy would fall first, if a couple of Americans passing on the corniche hadn't paused to watch us in bafflement and say, just loud enough for us to hear: ‘Look at those two! They must be Australians.'

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