Bangkok

I was going to begin this blog with a rant about how inefficient is the gleaming new silver and white terminal at the Bangkok international airport, but everybody talks about that, and I didn't want to begin this trip with a big fat moan. Probably bad karma, as well as being a bore.
So....speaking of karma, I'm sitting by the river, under the shade of a bodhi tree, because of course, this tree and the bodhi leaf are potent symbols of buddhism in this country. Fabulous to be warm! And the humidity isn't too bad. Sometimes you feel you wear it like a slightly damp overcoat (somebody else said that, ? Somerset Maugham?) And there's a faintly sweet, slightly off smell about that makes you know you are in the tropics





The Chao Parya river cuts a swathe through the city of Bangkok. Its a wide, very polluted and somewhat smelly, sepia coloured body of water. But it has energy....lots of it. Its a working river, superhighway, actually. I like to watch the life of that river flow by in a constant parade of barges, cargo vessels, ferries - all manner of craft; the noise of the engines and call of the boatboys interspersed with the cries of strange tropical birds.








But enough of Bangkok. Tomorrow I leave for Kuala lumpur.