Murray Head didn't know half of it*

I was nervous before arriving in Bangkok, as I didn't expect to like it. From what I've seen of the city, it's:

• Very crowded and noisy and chaotic
• Has fewer skyscrapers than I'd expect for a population this size
• Has terrible air pollution (we're in black boggies territory)

To add to that:

• The tuk-tuk drivers seem to have a pavlovian reaction to a white face - they see one and immediately scream "tuk-tuk" despite the fact that a) they've just seen you say no to three other drivers, and b) you're only 2 feet away from them, so bellowing the words as loud as possible isn't strictly necessary.

And yet....

Waste not, want not

I'm starting to warm to Bangkok all the same.

Today I finished the day sitting in a small park by the river, drinking an iced cocoa, surrounded by locals chatting with their friends or reading newspapers. After the national anthem was played at 6pm, an open air aerobics class suddenly appeared in the middle of the park: dozens of Thai grandmas exercising to Western pop music.

Lettuce farm palace

How can you not like a town that has 4 foot long monitor lizards wandering around in the city parks?

Where little old ladies stop to toss bread to the turtles in the duck ponds (or turtle ponds, I guess that should be).

Where old broken pottery is used to decorate temples?

Where your rice comes in the shape of a teddy bear?

It's teddylicious

* Yep, that's a One Night in Bangkok reference.