It seems that we came to Bangkok along time ago and all I remember is heat and insane Tuk Tuk drivers playing chicken with the taxis and four by fours.
Our return trip, before flying back to the UK, was very different.
Three months of ever increasing recklessness borne of necessity and gradual acclimatisation has bred in us a wilfull disregard for personal safety.
Eaten something a bit rancid? Done that.
Drunk the tap water? Yep.
Ridden a moped against the flow of a three lane highway at night? Easy.
Remained seated in a Bangkok cinema while a celluloid effigy of The King is reverred by the standing audience? Uhmmmm....no, actually. Not at all, in fact.
Thailand is modern. You don't even get electrocuted when trying to plug in your adapter, even if you made some minor adjustments with a pen knife when it wouldn't quite fit the socket.
But they seem to love their King. Even Elvis (and they really love him) comes a very, very distant second. Not standing at the cinema as a two minute film of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej's exploits plays to a rousing choral rendition of the national anthem, is like going to church with no clothes on. You just wouldn't do it.
Maybe there are goons hiding behind the curtain, waiting to drag non conformers off to the projection room for a quiet word. I didn't see them lurking though.
Maybe the power of group conformity is too strong.
Or maybe the Thai people genuinely believe that a slightly frail and be-spectacled man with a receding hairline and an interest in wildlife photography is a hair's breadth from The Divine.
I don't know.
But I stood and for a moment I might have believed.
Our return trip, before flying back to the UK, was very different.
Three months of ever increasing recklessness borne of necessity and gradual acclimatisation has bred in us a wilfull disregard for personal safety.
Eaten something a bit rancid? Done that.
Drunk the tap water? Yep.
Ridden a moped against the flow of a three lane highway at night? Easy.
Remained seated in a Bangkok cinema while a celluloid effigy of The King is reverred by the standing audience? Uhmmmm....no, actually. Not at all, in fact.
Thailand is modern. You don't even get electrocuted when trying to plug in your adapter, even if you made some minor adjustments with a pen knife when it wouldn't quite fit the socket.
But they seem to love their King. Even Elvis (and they really love him) comes a very, very distant second. Not standing at the cinema as a two minute film of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej's exploits plays to a rousing choral rendition of the national anthem, is like going to church with no clothes on. You just wouldn't do it.
Maybe there are goons hiding behind the curtain, waiting to drag non conformers off to the projection room for a quiet word. I didn't see them lurking though.
Maybe the power of group conformity is too strong.
Or maybe the Thai people genuinely believe that a slightly frail and be-spectacled man with a receding hairline and an interest in wildlife photography is a hair's breadth from The Divine.
I don't know.
But I stood and for a moment I might have believed.
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