Very far

Bangkok has got to be one of the world's best cities for wandering and absorbing. Relatively safe, huge, loads of things to catch the eye from the minuscule to the massive, and some dazzling sights. It's no wonder people flock here in droves from all corners of the world. This is the longest I'll have stayed here and I'm looking forward to getting to know it better. It's a bit annoying that I'm monitoring some work things before being able to switch off but I'm still semi-relaxing where possible.

I wandered for a few hours around Chinatown. I drank an iced coffee with sweet (condensed) milk, which I've been dreaming about for weeks, and ate sugared buns on a park bench. Tuk tuk drivers admired my facial hair and provided unwelcome advice about which direction I should head ('Chinatown too hot, too busy'). With an insistence on walking (which has got me into sweaty trouble many times) I am not the optimal tourist for transport providers, whose stock response here when I refuse to clamber into their vehicle is 'ooohhh very far'. In perverse logic, when travelling for leisure, I prefer to avoid the wrangling over fares even if it means a walk of three hours. I principally prefer the freedom of making my own way between places, which I shall continue to enjoy until my limbs prevent it.

On the streets I was enraptured by mountains of oiled motorbike parts spilling onto the street, foodstalls so close to pedestrians that they could burn your face, narrow passages between vendors with mopeds zooming down, buckets filled with cassava, green leaves and exotic fruits, neon flashing billboards, honking horns and creaking boat jetties.

I forcibly confined myself to my hotel room all evening to wrap up some work, using the kettle to boil noodles that I bought in a 7/11 store, which are every 100 metres (this is not an exaggeration). A relative sense of accomplishment descended by bedtime. Then jetlag kept me awake until around 5am...