You're catching some rays on the beach in Manzanillo. The low tangerine shafts of sunlight trickle across the purple Pacific as you wipe the pina colada foam from your lips. It's your last day. Monday, it's back behind the desk at Shrapnel-Wesson Bros., the brokerage people, in beautiful downtown Gary, Indiana. You lament the week ahead, as you notice the young Mexican kid approach your towel. Another souvenir or massage parlor tout. Jeez, they get these kids young, you think. Instead of balsawood dolphins, hammocks or whorehouse flyers, the kid pulls from his pocket a bag of weed. You do a double take. Sensimilla, the kid says. Twenty bucks. What the hell, you say. It's your last day. You're grabbed from behind. Someone's got your hair. Your face gets stuffed into the sand. Then a boot in the left ear. Christ, that hurt! Thirty minutes later, you're pissing against a stained cement wall. Your left eye has swollen over. You've signed a confession.

What the hell. It's your last day.

There are an average of 6000 Americans arrested in 90 different countries each year according to the State Department. About 1500 are doing time in foreign jails. The majority (about 70 percent) of the cases are drug-related. Mexico and Jamaica are responsible for the bulk of the drug-related incarcerations, filing 72 percent of all drug charges against Americans traveling abroad.

The top five destinations for Americans seeking free room and board are Mexico, Germany, Canada, Jamaica and Great Britain. Last year, Mexico had 525 gringos on ice and had arrested 768 that year. Fifty-five of those weren't happy campers and filed complaints of mistreatment. The Mexican judicial system is based on Roman and Napoleonic law and presumes a person accused of a crime is guilty until proven innocent. There is no trial by jury. Trial under the Mexican system is a prolonged process based largely on documents examined on a fixed date in court by prosecution and defense counsel. Sentencing usually takes six to 10 months. Bail can be granted after sentencing if the sentence is less than five years. Pretrial bail exists but is never granted when the possible sentence is greater than five years.

Even those folks have it good. In places like Malaysia and Singapore, move dope and die. Zero tolerance. Deal dope and you'll get the rope. Getting beaten up in a Mexican jail may be inconvenient, but at least the federales are trying to teach you a lesson, one you might learn from in later life. In Southeast Asia, there is no later life.

Here are a few survival tips (at the risk of sounding like your mother) for those who don't want to die as a skinny, frazzled, psychotic wimp in a Pakistani jail:

Have nothing to do with drugs or the drug culture.

Those pleasant men in pressed uniforms are employed for a single purpose, to find your drugs. Once they've found them, make no mistake, you will be busted. Once you're tried (if you ever are), you will be going away for a long time. And then it will take a lot of money to get you out. A lot of it. And you'll look different, too. Not good.

Do not take anything illegal through customs, or anything that doesn't belong to you.

Do not be an unwitting mule and carry a package for a friend. Do not think you can sneak a few joints through. Customs officers live by two words: How much? How much is it going to cost you to get out of this mess? How much time are you going to do? How much will it cost to repatriate your remains?

Be careful with unmarked drugs.

Combining drugs or putting prescription drugs into reminder boxes may create questions of legality. Your personal appearance, the quantity of the drugs and the general demeanor of your inquisitor will determine if you are let off.

Avoid driving.

Car accidents are a great way to go to jail. In many countries, the Napoleonic code of justice is utilized. In other words, by law, you are guilty until proven innocent. For instance, if someone smacks into your car in Mexico, you'll go to jail. No witnesses and it may be a long time. Hire a driver and you're off the hook.

Be judicious in your enthusiasm to photograph military or government facilities.

Soldiers in Africa love camera equipment. If you want it back, you'll have to pay a fine. In most of the former Soviet republics, you will be arrested for taking pictures of army bases or airports. We have spent plenty of time fast-talking our way out of jail simply for carrying cameras in countries that demand you have national and regional permits to carry them.

Get the right kind of help.

The U.S. embassy will not lift a finger to get you out of jail. They may assist you, but if you have broken the law in that country, you are expected to do the time. Many countries will assume you are guilty and hold you until trial. It may take an extraordinary amount of time for your case to go to trial, and you may even be required to pay your room and board while in jail. Hire a local lawyer and explore all options for your release, including bribes and being smuggled out. Communicate your case to friends, and tell them to contact journalists in the local and national media. If you really did something stupid and you don't have any money, be prepared for the worst.

From the air Assossa looks like a dismal and singularly uninteresting town, but typically African with its corrugated iron rooftops reflecting the sun's glare. The flight from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, has taken almost two and a half hours and is about to deposit me on the border with Sudan-where I am heading to join the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) on their latest spring offensive against the Islamic government of Khartoum.

For the previous week in Addis Ababa I engaged in a series of meetings with the local representative of the SPLA to work out a series of rendezvous points along the border. Theoretically, providing I can slip past the Ethiopian army on the border, my crossing is all arranged. I will be meeting SPLA guerrillas at one of three places on the other side of the border. There is only one border, temporarily closed, to cross.

On landing, Assossa is as depressing on the ground as it looked from the air. There are no taxis, nor any other type of transport, a soldier informs me while eyeing me curiously. It is an inauspicious start. Plans A and B have automatically flown out the window. Only Plan C is left. I mull it over as I check into a hotel, only distracted momentarily when the reception takes one look at me and immediately doubles the price on the grounds that I am a foreigner. It is, I muse, a pity I can't give him something nice in return...like forged money which, with a bit of luck, would see him in prison for a few years (preferably after I am long gone). But then we can't have everything. And, aside from the lack of electricity and running water, the hotel is actually quite nice.

Sitting on the bed I pull out a military map of the border area and with a Silva compass begin to work out the bearings. Plan C is a night march across the border, which is roughly 25 km as the crow flies. I plan on being able to leave the town at 3 a.m. This would give me four hours until I have to find a spot where I can rest for the day before completing my march across the border the following night. In the meantime I wander around town: first to find out if there are any buses going to Addis the following morning. There is one at 7 a.m. and I'll have to pay on the bus, a helpful official at the rundown bus station informs me. I say I'll probably be on it unless I decide to fly or manage to hitch a lift, which is the fiction I maintain to anyone who asks how long I'll be in town, in the hope that nobody will miss me in the morning. If they do I can only hope that no one wants to take any responsibility for my disappearance.

For the remainder of the day I wander around town looking for the best place to leave in the morning and checking for any military observation posts in the near vicinity of the town. But despite the large number of soldiers who, for Africa at least, look at least semicompetent-never a good sign, there appears to be nothing, except most of the local population, that will hinder my progress. I troop back to the hotel to wait for darkness. Awakened by a knock on the door, I find the receptionist wanting my passport for the benefit of one of the local boys in blue. I refuse to surrender it and say he's already taken all my details.

A couple of hours later he returns and is more insistent. My passport, he promises, will be returned in a couple of hours. He swears on everything he can think of and like a fool I believe him.

My passport, when it eventually arrives the following morning, is accompanied by five rather scruffy individuals in military uniforms. One of them speaks understandable English and wants to ask me some questions. He tells me to pack my bags and come with them. Feeling somewhat resigned, I comply, and we all pile into a Russian-made military jeep. Heading out of town, we take the road that leads north to the Sudanese border and the town of Kurmuk, which had been my destination. I am momentarily cheerful at the prospect of getting closer to my destination, even if the chances of reaching it are rapidly receding. We pull off the road a few miles out of town into a military camp. As we drive through I notice nine 105 mm field guns and hundreds of boxes of shells-fairly normal stuff for a military camp on the border.

Coming to a stop we climb out and I am taken to a room that obviously serves as someone's sleeping quarters. I make myself comfortable on the mattress while the translator explains that they simply want to ask a few questions. The interpreter sits next to me while the trio sitting on ammunition boxes opposite do their best to imitate the Spanish Inquisition. Thankfully it's a poor imitation. Notes are taken on a scrap of paper-only after a pen that works can be found. For half an hour the questions come, anything but thick and fast. The most important questions inquire about my family tree. After giving my name I am asked for my father's name. I give it. Then comes the turn of my grandfather. "He's dead,"I say. The interpreter's English breaks down a little here and he passes on "hesdead," as my grandfather's name. "No, he is dead," I repeat. English is obviously not the translator's strongest point, as he now thinks I am correcting his pronunciation and repeats "hesdead" more clearly for the benefit of the three wise men opposite. "Listen you fucking moron, he's dead OK!" I repeat while drawing a finger across my throat. They want to know his name anyway and with a sigh of exasperation, I give it.

After much muttering it's time to pile into the jeep for another cruise around town. This time, however, it appears that they are looking for a more senior officer to deal with my case. He is found, eventually, in a local bar playing cards. He takes one look at me and declares that my presence, so close to the border, is illegal. I try to counter this by arguing, quite truthfully, that no one told me it was illegal and that if it was, why did the official state airlines, Ethiopian Airways, sell me a ticket. An infallible line of argument, I think.

He doesn't see my point of view.

After he issues a rapid string of instructions in Amharic to my escort, I soon find myself en route back to the military camp. I ask what's happening... "You'll be staying a while until your case is resolved," the interpreter informs me. Er, and how long will that be, I casually ask. "Maybe a month," comes the reply. How about a quick telephone call? "No, you're an illegal." Cigarettes? "OK." At least I've got cigarettes: the outlook could be worse.

Arriving back at the base the three wise men, whom I guess to be from military intelligence, a misnomer though it may be, scuttle into a building leaving me in the hands of a succession of different guards, some of whom speak English. I manage to bribe one to make a telephone call to a journalist I know in Addis Ababa. The second I palm the twenty dollars into his hand, (a good two weeks wages), he launches into a denunciation of the dishonesty of the Ethiopian army-no doubt in an attempt to make me confident I can rely upon his absolute integrity and reliability. I suddenly feel that I have almost certainly wasted my money. He is, as we Shakespeare scholars say, protesting a tad too much. With the return of the Three Wise Men I am driven to another part of the camp and installed in a small room with a bed in the corner. Taking out my penknife I carve a `1' into the wall and lie down on the bed.

Allowed to sit outside the following day I pass the hours listening to my walkman and watching the humdrum of the daily camp life. The camp has no perimeter fencing and to stave off utter boredom I make fictional escape plans. The few soldiers who try and talk to me are promptly told to get lost by my personal guard sitting ten yards away with an AK-47 in his lap.

The food the guard brings me is a disaster. I wake up at around 2 a.m. in the sure knowledge that I have about 30 seconds to get to the toilet before disaster strikes. Being locked up, I bang on the door to attract the guard's attention. There is no reply. In desperation I force open the wooden window shutters and poke my head through the window, peer into the darkness and try to scan the buildings around me for any sign of my guard. But he has obviously gone temporarily AWOL. It is, of course, a gross dereliction of duty-but I'm not complaining. As cautiously as I can, I climb out the window before sprinting to the toilet. It's overcast and moonless. No doubt if I was Rambo or Jean Claude van Damme, this would be the moment where I steal the jeep, race out of the camp throwing grenades-which would be handily available-at the few sentries who try to stop me and hightail it to the border and further adventures. But I'm not Rambo, there probably aren't any keys in the jeep, and quite frankly my concerns are more immediate. The toilet would be repulsive to a rat, but in my distressed state, I'm not a rat.

Back at my quarters I light a candle and smoke a cigarette. The light attracts the guard who should have been on duty, and within seconds there's a soldier shoving his face through the window almost shouting in Amharic. I understand the tone, if not the content, and he obviously wants to know what I think I'm doing dressed in the middle of the night, looking as if I am about to escape. Running anywhere (with the possible exception of the toilet) is the last thing on my mind-as I explain to the other soldiers when they promptly turn up at the sound of my guard's raised voice.

After three days my interpreter finally reappears with the Three Wise Men to inform me that my case is being "considered" and to take away a fairly standard map, which they find in my belongings. I have a mental image of a bare room somewhere with a telephone that doesn't work and a variety of officials scratching their heads, drinking tea and wondering what to do about me. There have been no more questions since my initial, somewhat half-hearted, interrogation.

Now, though, the restrictions around me seem to have been lifted, and my cell is the center of attraction with soldiers stopping to ask me what I am doing in the camp and offering me cigarettes. My guard has been changed and my new guard, Abdul, is young and talkative. At 21 he has been in the army since age 16 and somehow speaks better English than any of his superiors. "Don't worry," he reassures me, "You have absolutely nothing to worry about, we are brothers." Nice though this is to hear, I can't quite see on what evidence he is able to base this optimistic judgment; and as for being brothers, well...he still has the AK-47, however kind he is. He does, however, let me exercise: and for five minutes in the morning and evening I am allowed to stretch my legs and jog the 20 yards or so between the barracks where I am being held, before being most cordially invited to resume my seat.

On the fourth day I get my answer while enjoying a late nap-there isn't much else to do. The Three Wise Men and an assortment of commanders crowd into my room, with smiles and grins all-around and inform me that I'm about to be released. After a hasty shave I'm driven to the grass runway and left to wait for the plane.

-Roddy Scott