It is not often, in this age of cyber-connectivity, that I find a real hand-written letter in my post office box. So it was with some trepidation that I fingered my way into a well-sealed mauve envelope. It was addressed in an elegant if spidery hand, with what could only have been an ancient calligraphy pen. No sooner had I pulled the mauve sheets from their cosy sachet, than a whiff of lavender scent caught my nose and a pall of impending doom settled over me. My great-aunt, the letter informed me, was to pay me a visit while on a world tour.

I had last seen my great-aunt, Mrs Agnes Hemingway, when I was in my early teens and she was in a spry, if batty, late middle age. Despite sharing a name with that redoubtable world traveller and author, I could hardly imagine my great-aunt running with the bulls in Pamplona. As far as I knew, she still considered the Isle of Wight a foreign country, so why this now elderly lady should wish to embark upon a world tour was difficult to fathom. I did vaguely recall mention, on the family grapevine, of my great-aunt’s much-beloved cat concluding a long and painful struggle to sit closer to the fire. Was it possible that this bereavement had pushed the septuagenarian into long-distance mourning?

The timing of her visit could not have been worse, for I found myself very happily busy with work just then, and my great-aunt had failed to take into consideration just how long a real letter takes to filter through the international postal services. It was with troubled brow that I awaited her arrival two days later, at Phuket Airport’s inconvenience booth (so called because any request made of the staff seems to cause them considerable inconvenience). As much as I welcome the occasional visit from kith and kin, what does one do with an elderly great-aunt for a month? If I was lucky she would be a wrinkly sun-worshipper, and I would be able to dump her at the beach all day – the fate of several reddened houseguests to date. However, this was the height of the low season, and I feared my great-aunt would suffer the same fate as one poor couple whom we accidentally left tanning on Nai Harn Beach during one early "green season." It was not until quite some time into the howling monsoon that I realized we were missing a pair for dinner.

"My dear boy," my great-aunt commanded, breaking my reverie as she boomed through the sliding doors and into the arrival hall, pecking me on the cheek with the handle of her umbrella. "Not as sunny as I was expecting, good job I brought this." And with a flourish of canvas, the massive pink shade exploded, nearly unfooting the porter tagging behind with an inconceivable quantity of luggage.

Leaving my great-aunt momentarily at the mercy of the taxi-sharks, I went to fetch my impoverished car, wondering if the axles would handle a sea trunk tied to the roof. I returned to find the taxi-sharks cowering and a second porter arrived with yet more bags. It was then that it began rain.

It turned out to be an inauspicious start to a thoroughly inauspicious first week. Our one successful foray out in a brief break in the downpours had been to the mighty mega-stores, where my great-aunt discovered a seemingly limitless supply of migraine-patterned batik "smocks", for want of a better word. The more extreme the hues, the lower the price; and once my great-aunt had worked out the exchange rate she lapsed into a feeding frenzy to make Harrods proud.

It was as my great-aunt brandished a clutch of by far the most hideous of all the smocks – with the words, "and these will be perfect for the girls at the Post Office!" – that I realized I was in an ideal position to observe how the Thai government’s campaign to attract older visitors worked at a grassroots level. One thing they have right is that older people do love to shop, as my great-aunt was adequately proving. However, what the older generation want is not quite what the tourism officials think. For instance, my great-aunt breezed passed the racks of ornately-sculpted indigenous wooden doodads, mused for a moment over the lacquerware, then spent nearly a month’s wages on discount stationery (if you calculate the conversion accurately, my great-aunt claims, sticky labels are 10p cheaper here, even though they’re imported). I was only just able to convince her that the airline would not let her take two 10-gallon drums of washing powder as hand luggage.

When we did finally make it to the beach, my great-aunt was less amused. "A little too much sand," she explained on the ride home, after a thin-lipped two hours brought mercifully short by an obliging cloudburst. She had wanted to swim, had even brought her portable bathing machine. However, once she ascertained that there were no lifeguards on the beach, the bathing machine was promptly packed away. "There’s no point in swimming without lifeguards," she said matter-of-factly. "After all, with whom would one flirt?"

I was already running out of good ideas. The museum at Phuket Town’s Thavorn Hotel raised a few "oohs" from her, but our day at the Butterfly Farm could easily have turned into a total disaster, were it not for the owner’s very understanding nature and the fact that most of the butterflies would have died in a couple of weeks anyway. And then I had no choice but to send my great-aunt on safari.

It was with queasy anticipation that I approached the balcony, convinced that the concept of riding an elephant would leave the elderly lady appalled. Despite the occasional spurts of agility, my great-aunt seemed far from continuously stable. The pink umbrella, when not decapitating Korean tour guides, was as much support as fashion statement. I was, therefore, much surprised by my great-aunt’s response.

"Will I be able to have my picture taken?" The gleam in her eye banishing any further doubts.

"If you wish it, you may have many pictures taken," I smiled down benevolently. This was to be my first day free of my great-aunt – my first chance in over a week to get some work done. If necessary, I’d buy them the camera.

When it came to handing over my great-aunt to the guide at the safari camp, mind you, I again started to have doubts. I had taken this trip once myself – one of those do-everything-conceivable-in-a-stupidly-short-time affairs. I’d checked my great-aunt in for the works – everything from buffalo carts to papaya salad recipes, and of course, an elephant trek. As she disappeared behind the bamboo gates I wondered if I would see her alive again.

The guide was very pleased to see me when I arrived to collect my elderly relative from the beachside restaurant where the safari guests were enjoying a well-deserved sunset dinner. Some of the guests didn’t look terribly happy, and I was sure I saw one wearing a neck brace and sling. This did not bode well, but before the guide could begin to explain, my great-aunt descended.

"Dear boy! You missed a wonderful day. It was all quite exciting. I can’t wait to tell the girls I had a Thai massage from an elephant. That should surprise even them."

Taking the guide by the arm as if old friends, my great-aunt wheeled us over towards one of the tables. "You know, Poo, that really is quite a difficult first step onto the elephant’s whatnot … Palanquin thingy. Not that it bothered me," she said as we approached the man in the neck brace. "Bothered Richard a bit though, didn’t it, Ann." Ann was the rather meek looking woman sharing the table with the neck brace, whom I assumed was Richard.

"I think it was the height," Ann said in meek defence of her significant other.

"Well, we didn’t have any problems, did we Ann?" my great-aunt retorted, unsinkably jolly. "But, the funniest thing, when I turned around to shout my encouragement to Richard, something I said set the elephant off and we just trundled away. That Mah Hoot chap gave chase but, well with all the rain, he got stuck in a big muddy hole and couldn’t catch us."

"Because your great-aunt’s elephant had started," Ann bounced, a little excited to get in on the story, "my elephant thought it was time to go as well. Just as Richard got up the nerve to j …" she tailed off in an embarrassed titter. Richard looked up and nodded rather resignedly.

"Then Miss Ann elephant stand on stuck mahout." Poo added, just to clear things up.

Though there was time to get her picture taken on a buffalo before the ambulance arrived, the rest of my great-aunt’s day had been spent at Bangkok Phuket Hospital – where they make an excellent cup of tea, she told me later – waiting with Ann while Richard’s jaw was wired and the mahout recovered from a crushed pride. And so another interesting piece of research was gathered: hospitals are of paramount interest to older people, but it’s the quality of the cafeteria that makes the difference.

"Great-aunt," I asked on the way home. "What happened to you after the mahout sank?"

"Oh, we just kept going," she said vaguely, smiling out through the passenger window at a tuk-tuk driver and mouthing, "Hello, I’m Alexander’s great-aunt," while pointing exaggeratedly at me. Grudgingly, I smiled and waved. The tuk-tuk driver looked confused, pointed at his tuk-tuk and said, "Tuk-tuk?" Fortunately, the lights changed and I was able to make my escape.