Finally made it to Sydney after a long, long flight.  Screaming baby behind me for nine hours, which meant that I didn’t get much sleep.  Delightful parents who thought that a business-class seat made a much nicer changing table than the changing table in the bathroom.  Particularly delightful since they decided to release their little darling’s stink bomb just before dinner was served.  Thank goodness they don’t have ejector seats on commercial flights.  I was sorely tempted to pull the handle.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the photo here shows a baggage tag.  Yes, I succumbed.  Due to the new security regulations in India, you can only carry on a single item of less than 8kg.  So my cunning plan of spending 11 days in Asia with only hand luggage was thwarted, meaning I had to wait 20 minutes for my bags to come off the belt in Sydney.

I obviously don’t match the description of an agricultural smuggler, so I was waved through customs, agriculture, and quarantine and straight into a taxi to the hotel.

Despite quite a lot of time traveling the globe, I’m still not a whiz with time zones.  So it didn’t come as a total surprise to receive a phone call at 11pm while enjoying a beer in the hotel bar – my bi-weekly call with one of my colleagues.  We’d very carefully arranged the call to be after I’d finished my business day in Mumbai.  I’d calculated the hour just fine.  I’d screwed up the day.  Luckily he’s also got pan-Asian responsibility, and is understanding of mix-ups like these.

Slept like a log last night, and woke up today feeling refreshed.  It’s warm and sunny today, and I’m headed out like Tommy Tourist, in a tee-shirt (okay, who are we kidding…a polo shirt) and camera in tow.

A few last shots from Bangkok during the daylight. I had a room on the top floor of the hotel — seemed a shame to waste the view.

Bangkok skyline

Bangkok skyline, with the Chao Phraya river in the background

I always enjoy staying in hotels in Asia. Great food, good service, and generally speaking, beautiful décor.

I sent my laundry out yesterday. Like the last time I was in Bangkok, it all came back individually shrink-wrapped, with neat little cardboard bowties attached to each of my shirts.

Hotel laundry, shrink-wrapped and complete with cardboard bowties

I have given up trying to be ecologically-friendly in Asia. There’s no way I can change an entire continent. They like their packaging, they like their plastic, they don’t recycle anything (at least, not that I can tell) – hey, that’s just part of life here.

I also managed to have some great room service. After God knows how many disappoint $25 hamburgers I’ve eaten in my travels across the US and Europe, having a tray of really delicious food sent up is a real treat.

Room service, Asian-style. Beats a soggy, greasy burger any day.

My virtual golf was not an overwhelming success. It’s tougher work than it looks, and my performance on the course suggests that I might want to reduce my handicap a little before they’ll let me onto the real Old Course.

I’m off to Calcutta this evening – and a new adventure begins!

I’ve been working in Paris too long. Time to return to the origins of this website and report something more exotic than my exploits in Clichy for a change. Time for a report from Thailand.

Two days and two massages into my latest trip to Bangkok, and I remember all the reasons I love Thailand. Great food, great service, friendly people, and warm weather.

I flew on Thai airlines from Zurich on Saturday afternoon. The flight was perfect. My colleague made the rookie mistake of ordering the western meal (filet mignon – always sounds great but ends up dry as boot leather when cooked in an airline oven) and looked on jealously as my pork curry came out – it tasted and smelled even better than it looked. After dinner, I settled in for some sleep, and managed to squeeze in eight hours of good sleep before being woken for breakfast about an hour before landing.

We arrived at 5:30am Sunday morning. Our driver was waiting and we were at the hotel about thirty minutes later. We dropped off our bags, took an hour to have some breakfast and grab a shower, then headed out to explore the city. We started with a little shopping, then had Japanese for lunch – and ordered so much food that they needed to bring a second table (Gina, if you’re reading this, you’ll recognize the situation from our Japanese meals in Singapore!). When the food is this cheap and this good, it’s hard to resist.

I passed the afternoon with a little snooze, a few hours by the pool, and a massage – just about the perfect way to pass an afternoon in Thailand in my book. Another of our colleagues arrived on the evening flight, and we all headed out to dinner at Ruen Mallika, a Thai place I’ve eaten in before and still one of the best that I’ve eaten in Thailand.

Despite asking the waitress to warn us if we over-ordered, we…you guessed it…over-ordered. Fish cakes, spring rolls, tom yum goom with prawns that were as big as lobsters, then red duck curry, more jumbo prawns in garlic, fried heart of palm, chili beef salad, fried morning glory, rice, noodles, and more. Moral of the story: never order when you’re hungry. I had taken charge of the ordering, but I had two willing assistants cheering me on from the sidelines… “Ohh, let’s have one of those, too!” Delicious fresh mango to finish it all off, and the ubiquitous Singha beer. (Apparently, it’s the formaldehyde that gives it the unique taste.)

It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it…

Today was a quiet day. Slept well overnight, had a late start, then a little more shopping, more pool, and more food. Took a few hours out of my afternoon to visit our office in Bangkok where I’ll be running workshops for the next few days, then off for another massage.

We’re just about to head out to the Seafood Market for dinner – you choose it, they kill it, they cook it, you eat it. My kinda dinner.

Not quite sure how I managed to land this job, but it’s not a bad way to make a living…