Bangkok

After just under a day, I am loving Thailand just as much as I thought I would. It's lovely!

We arrived around 11pm last night. The flight was not bad at all; we were in the very purple business class of Thai Airways, and really it went by pretty smoothly; two movies, two meals, a bit of champagne and a bit of a lie down. We were tired by the time we arrived, but not completely wiped out. Sandy made me take some of his herbal sleeping pills before we went to bed and then again at about 3am when we both woke up (which would have been about 8am NZ time). I always reckon herbal anything doesn't work on me, but whether it was psychological or not, I did sleep, and felt reasonable when I got up.

Our hotel, the Banyan Tree, is really perfect. It's very luxurious but in a totally low-key way; there's no glitz, just lovely touches everywhere that make you feel like you're in Thailand and in a beautiful relaxing resort. There's also a serious spa here, which I plan to make use of tomorrow, since this is probably the last bit of luxury we can afford on this trip; I seriously doubt I'll be paying for any massages in euros!

So today we went out for a walk around Bangkok. It's Sunday, so the streets were quiet. It's around 33 degrees and cloudy; a lovely, enveloping heat that melts into you. We wandered through the park near our hotel. We saw family groups having Sunday picnics, set up with everything from electric fans to full tea sets. We watched young guys practising some sort of martial art with long fans, in front of a rotunda where another group were happily ballroom dancing. Outside the park was a row of street vendors cooking up a storm; fantastic smells wafted from their woks and grills. I could not always identify what was on sale, but it all smelled great.

We were on our way to a local market Sandy remembered from when he used to come here. A sweet lady with a yellow parasol on the street, encouraged us to go into the luxurious malls instead. "Indra Market no good", she said. She must have thought we looked like we were in the market for a bit of designer gear. I'd heard about these malls before I left home. My super-stylish hairdresser (she of the best-dressed list) had told me about them. We went into one, the interestingly-named Gaysorn plaza. It was filled with Dior, Gucci, Fendi (they had a lovely collection of furs on display - where do people wear them here?) but completely un-filled with people. It was a dead zone. Still, it was a nice place to sit down for a minute in the cool.

I preferred the Indra market when we got there, even though we weren't really looking to buy anything. I spotted one cool top in a little shop but when we went in and asked if they had one that would fit me, the girl just shook her head. "You're an extra-large here", Sandy said, and it's true. I do feel rather large, white and ungraceful compared to the beautiful Thai people. Everyone in Thailand seems to be incredibly charming and sweet. From the staff of the hotel to the little boys swimming in the river, they smile and say "sawadee ka" in a totally beguiling way.

At the Oriental by the river I ate my first bit of great Thai food in Thailand. It was a pomelo salad that was the perfect blend of Thai flavours - tangy, sweet, salty and sharp. It had pomelo (which is like a milld grapefruit), shreds of chicken meat, dried and fresh prawns, possibly a little egg and a dressing heavy on the fish sauce. It was perfect with the local Singha beer and steamed rice. Sandy had Kaho Phad, pronounced "cow pat", which he thought was hilarious. About half way through the meal I remembered (from watching a Thai couple at the next table) that the Thais never use their forks to put food into their mouths. They consider this completely uncivilised; it's like holding your knife like a pen or something. They use the fork to deposit food on to the spoon, from which they eat. I must remember this tonight. Not that it mattered where we were among the tourists; we seemed to be the only ones eating Thai food anyway. The rest of the Germans, French and Americans were munching sandwhiches and burgers, believe it or not. It staggers me that people would come all that way to a country with one of the world's great cuisines and eat burgers and fries.

After lunch we hopped on a boat and chugged along the Chao Phraya river. Our skipper led us through a parking lot and had us clamber through a hole in the fence to get to his boat; which was moored on the river just below. He took us on a tiki tour of the suburbs on the water, which I found fascinating. Thousands of people live their lives on the river and canals. Many of the buildings seem to be barely holding together, yet they are completely occupied. People were fishing from their doorsteps. And all the time smiling, waving, saying hello. I don't think I would be so graceful with a bunch of pale and sweaty tourists chugging past my back yard all day long. Little boys swimming did flips into the water for us; an old man taking a dip blew me a kiss. We watched monks at a temple feeding large river fish; they looked like very happy trout to me, but our driver couldn't tell me for sure. "The fish know they're safe here", said Sandy, "It's like Lake Taupo for them". I didn't think fish were that clever. Down the canal a bit we saw a group catching a really big fish, so maybe they are not!

We're chiling out at the hotel now. I went and had a swim and a lounge at the pool, and Sandy's been watching some sport. There's incense burning in our room, and soon we'll go downstairs and have drinks. We're feeling pretty good about day one of the big adventure. I think tomorrow might be a bit more of a chill-out day before we get on to the next leg to London.