1 An eye-opening welcome to Bangkok!

The first thing that you notice when you arrive into a tropical country is the heat. The automatic doors of the airport slide open, and you walk into a warmth that envelops you like you have just stepped into a bath. Not that I was complaining.

The next thing that we noticed was that the taxi that we were going to travel in had no seatbelts… the taxi driver apologised politely about that, but I was soon to realise that the road laws in Thailand are not quite as stringent as they are in the UK or Australia. On the road from the airport into Bangkok, our taxi driver did a u-turn on a motorway, crossed a little dirt road and continued onward through the traffic, avoiding cows and other animals that walked autonomously along the side of the road. Here in the outskirts of the city, car parks and farms exist side by side.

We rode along the motorway towards the centre. Looking out the window of the taxi the view was dominated by characterless high rise apartment blocks, then suddenly a golden Buddhist temple would wink at you from between the buildings and disappears back into the greyness. These temples appeared and vanished as we zoomed along the motorway, like flowers growing out of a concrete footpath.

The taxi took us to our first destination - the Rose Hotel in Bangkok located in an area called Patpong. Patpong seemed, on paper, to be a lovely area- it had plenty of nice hotels in the vicinity, so it must be reasonably classy... right? Ten days and 300km later, in the midst of a monsoon downpour, we were informed, to our slight embarrassment, that Patpong is in fact the red light district of Bangkok.

So while Harriet had a nap in the hotel, I went out and explored the slums of the city. As I walked down the main street, it wasn’t long before several men were coming up to me offering me all sorts of experiences. In all honesty, I was looking for a Sauna, so I asked if one of these men could direct me to one. Excitedly the man led me upstairs to a room containing several young Thai girls with towels, telling me that this was a spa. I said that I didn’t think that this was what I was after, and made a very quick exit, running back to the safety of the hotel, with several Thai men trying to harangue me the entire way back.

Harriet awoke to see me with a very flustered look on my face, and I think that I said something like “I didn’t think Bangkok was THAT bad!”

So Harriet and I went out to have a look around together. I thought that having Harriet on my arm would deter the "salesmen", but it actually had no effect at all. We found out that if you ignore them, they follow you, if you show any sign of indecision, they follow you, however if you firmly say "no", they will leave you be. They are salesmen after all, and do not work for sales they can't make.

This discovery left Harriet and I free to explore the area, but we didn't really need much convincing to sit down and enjoy some cuisine. We found ourselves a lovely little restaurant not far from the hotel where we enjoyed some flavoursome and inexpensive Thai food. A welcome respite from a hectic introduction to Thailand.