Things I like about Thailand

1. The taxis. All the taxis here are painted in the brightest dayglo colours of purple, orange, red, blue and pink. There must be a special taxi-painting factory here somewhere getting them tricked up. It's brilliantly easy to find a cab, and you can choose one in your favourite colour, or to match your outfit.

2. The colour yellow. It is the anniversary of the king's reign this year; 50 years on the throne. To celebrate the Thai people have draped their public buildings in yellow flags and banners, and everywhere people are wearing vivid yellow shirts. Today being Monday, almost everyone is wearing a yellow shirt. On Fridays, we are told, they wear blue for the queen. Luckily yellow suits most Thai people, with their lovely honeyed skin. I'd get in on the act myself except yellow makes me look seriously ill.

3. The temple cats. If I was to come back as a cat, I would love to live in a temple in Thailand. I would lie around all day on hot marble, and dine on Buddhist temple cuisine (I would be one of the world's few vegetarian cats). I'm not sure what exactly I would be eating, but from what I saw it looked better than a lot of the Thai takeaways in Auckland.

4. Lemongrass tea. This is my new favourite beverage. I may like it even more than wine, especially iced, as they serve it here at the Banyan Tree. The Phukhet beer we had at lunch today runs a close second.

5. The food, or course, especially the salads. We ate at a large Thai fine dining establishment today, the Baan Khanitha. Before the main meal the waiter brought a dish of round leaves, which I tried to get the name of; I've written down "caochun" but I'm pretty sure this is not right. With the leaves were small dishes of dried shrimps, shallots, chilli, peanuts, toasted coconut and a spicy peanut sauce. He showed us how to make a little parcel with the leaf and fill it with a little of each thing before eating it in one bite. It was incredibly tasty. We ate a salad of carrot and green papaya with seafood in it which was tangy, crunchy, zingy and completely delicious. Also a stir-fried sea bass with tamarind sauce, mushrooms and cashew nuts, and a dish of stir-fried soft-shell crab with crispy-fried basil leaves. I was exhilarated after the meal, on a chilli high but also in the good mood I only get form eating a totally satisfying meal. There was nothing to do but come back to the hotel for a "special" siesta. I hope this will be the start of a trend for this trip!