I have been following Mr. X through the Thai back roads all morning because he has promised to show me some gem mines near the Cambodian border. I have known him for only a day, but I somehow feel I can trust him. After all, Santa Claus Gone Bad is still Santa Claus.

Furthermore, I know that Mr. X's real name is Stjepan Jozic, that he is a naturalized Australian citizen originally from Sarajevo and that he is 58 years old and dropped out of normal society 20 years go. The Thai villagers and shopkeepers who know him call him "Papa," and he insists everyone else call him "Mr. X," since nobody can pronounce his real name. He has a patchy beard, a limping gait and a butterfly-shaped scar over his heart. If he owns a pair of shoes, he doesn't wear them in public.

I met him two days ago on Koh Samet island in the Gulf of Thailand, where he subsidizes his Australian welfare pension by running an as-yet uncompleted guesthouse. When I arrived on the island late one night to discover there was no legitimate lodging available, some Swedish backpackers directed me to Mr. X.

"Tonight you are milking the cow," he had told me, showing me a place to unroll my sleeping pad amid the brooms and paint cans of his semi-constructed guesthouse. "That is better than paying for nice hotel."

The next morning over breakfast, he told me he was going to go to the mainland to buy some rough gemstones. I elected to join him less for my interest in gems than for the simple fact that it sounded like an adventure.

"I'm going to explore some gem mines on the Cambodian border," I'd told the Swedes later that morning, feeling a little bit like Indiana Jones.

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