We flew out of Hong Kong on Emirates, the business class service was excellent as usual and the lounge was good, nice showers, plenty of food and free wifi and although my favourite airline is Virgin (just have to love the fully flat bed !) Emirates is a close second so we arrived at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport pampered and well rested at about 130am in the morning.

After all of the taxi drivers so far being graduates of the bank robber getaway driver’s advanced school of driving we opted for an airport limo and got a very calm drive to our hotel, a brand new five star called the Grand Millennium where we were promptly checked in and then portered to our rooms.

Upon waking I took a look out of the window and on first impression it reminded me of pictures of Panama / insert random South American country here / as it seems to be a mix of poor low rise housing and then big hotels and newer residential apartment buildings, but still the overall flavour is poor.

This was confirmed when I took a 3 hour drive around the city, the traffic was the worst I’ve seen, not so much crazy driving as elsewhere as the traffic hardly moves at all so there’s not that much scope to get up to 50 miles per hour and weave across lanes but it does happen at night a bit more. I did the usual tourist spots like the palaces, temples etc. and my driver was telling me a bit about Bangkok and then he asked if I wanted “laydee place” when I said no he looked surprised, it seems virtually every single male that comes here only for girls by the sounds of it.

Later in the evening the four of us went over to a club, the driver asked if we wanted girls yet again (am guessing there’s some kickback scenario) when we said no he looked at us like we must not be straight and went very quiet, it seems Bangkok is sex trade central which is a complete contrast to Thai culture in general so it’s a bit of a city of two separate halves where you have the tourist attractions and then the sex trade.                     
We took a cab over to Nana plaza on the way over to the Peninsula hotel for dinner, I’m not sure how well cab drivers are paid compared to the rest but a 25 minute ride was about £1.20, We arrived at Nana plaza and I have to say it is the filthiest place I’ve ever seen, you couldn’t imagine how rank it is, it actually stank like a pig farm I once worked on but this was full of women dressed as school girls or barely even dressed at all, all being pawed over by European guys, this went on for 3 floors and got worse as you went higher, I felt like a needed a shower just walking around there, I have no desire to return to Bangkok unless it’s to some remote non tourist area as this place is just plain wrong.

As with the rest of Asia there is plenty of development going on here, a new rail link to the city is being built from the recently finished world class Suvarnabhumi airport, new hotels and residential blocks are going up and the advertising hoardings have plenty of new apartments for sale plastered on them at fairly reasonable rates, although I couldn’t live here even if I was given one !

One thing that did stand out is the sheer volume of shops selling all manner of goods, the place is thriving albeit just above the poverty line, the average wage is about 8000 baht from the sounds of it, which is about £150 per month so necessity breeds innovation and pavements become open air markets selling all manor of products and fake designer goods.

Innovation wins the day again in the form of motorcycle couriers carrying all manner of things from rolls of carpet, huge boxes, microwaves, televisions, gas bottles (suicidal or what !) some carry very large loads yet still drive like they are speedway riders, there are also motorcycle taxis which will ferry you from A to B and leave you with that bungee jump/sky dive type high feeling after arriving alive, which is a bonus bearing in mind some 30-80 people a day die on the roads in Bangkok and after seeing how people ride bikes I can see why.

Last night a motorcycle came past with two parents and two children aged about 3-4 on it.. the little boy at the front was falling asleep, both parents had helmets on yet the children didn’t and the bike came past us weaving in and out of traffic at about 40 miles per hour, there’s no way I would have ridden a bike here myself never mind with kids on it, although I guess it’s perfectly normal here.

This dark side of this city makes it by far the worst city I’ve ever been to and I can’t wait to leave back to Shanghai, I don’t see myself returning to Bangkok ever again and certainly see nothing to recommend it to anyone unless they are going just for carnal reasons, in which case they’ll be spoiled for choice.