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Bangkok is not an attractive city. I don’t mean that to sound rude, but you’d be hard pushed to find a panorama suitable for a postcard. Little scenes, stunning temples, individual buildings – yes. But there’s no great skyline and no chance of awestruck rich people taking sightseeing helicopter flights over the river.

The city is massive and yet still ludicrously crammed together. It’s like someone got a big bag of skyscrapers, motorways, blocks of flats, shops, houses, restaurants and everything else and poured them into a box. And then added more. There’s no discernable centre, no one area for visitors to wander around, so everything you might want to see needs a taxi, tuk-tuk or skytrain ride. And being Bangkok, this will take you an hour longer than you think. The traffic is legendary and easily the worst I’ve ever seen. If a snapshot was viewed from above it would be hard to tell which vehicle was in which lane, or where it was headed. Cars jostle for space, filling every inch, and then motorbikes and tuk-tuks weave inbetween. One kilometre can take you half an hour.

Tuk-tuks are fastest and the locals’ preferred choice, but tourists get quoted twice the fare so a taxi is the best option. No-one walks in Bangkok, the heat and humidity get you within a block, with the smog not far behind.

So you might think I didn’t like it. But you’d be wrong. It’s hard to say I loved it, capital cities are too big and impersonal to love but it’s a welcoming and enjoyable city. In most countries the combination of heat, smog and traffic frays tempers, but not in Thailand. The Thai sense of patience and civility wins out to make it a friendly and curteous place. Hawkers and shop keepers don’t shout out at you and then mutter choice local obscenities if you ignore them, and I rarely heard a car horn and never a raised voice.

Jim Thompson’s house is a triangle of serenity in the downtown skyscraper district, hidden down a narrow lane under the concrete skytrain. Jim Thompson was an American ex-pat who was solely responsible for creating the export market for Thai silk, turning a dying cottage craft into a multi-million dollar industry. So he’s a bit of a hero here. His house is made up of 200 year old dark teak houses transported down river from Ayutthia, with all the correct Buddhist features for warding off evil. The rooms are impeccibly decorated and furnished with antique (and fake but beautiful) pieces from around the country. The buildings border a small garden that is the epitome of Asian calm. Our demure and impeccably polite guide was kind enough to point out my large ears, a sure sign under Buddhism of a long life.

It’s wonderful to see such care and love put into a home. It’s a humbling and relaxing afternoon that should be on every visitor’s itinerary.

Likewise, a trip on a long-tail boats around the khlongs (canals) on the opposite side of the river sends you to another, rather nicer, world away from the buzz of the city. I had a picture in my mind of Thailand, and the wooden houses running right up to and occassionally over the water didn’t disappoint. The 90 minute trip had to be dragged out somewhat, due to our refusal to get off at the floating market, which didn’t appear to be floating at all and seemed mostly to peddle tat. But it was much cooler and rather pleasant, drifting along the khlongs, passing temples where you could feed bread to huge, black lucky fish.

No trip to Bangkok would be complete without visiting the Grand Palace: a glittering, gaudy, almost tacky multi-coloured mirror tile and gold riot of Thai temple, and the most revered site in the country. It’s home to the Emerald Buddha, a 60cm tall sculpture found in a crack in the ground (apparently) when Thailand was founded. As a result it’s hugely important to both Buddhists and the deeply proud Thai people.

The temple is sited in a courtyard of stunning frescos of Thai and Buddhist mythology with stunning gold leaf detail the seems to be in a state of constant restoration to keep it gleaming.

The importance of the site to both Thais and tourists is clear from the huge number of pilgrims and photographers forming a scrum in the stupendously hot courtyard.

Personally, I preferred Wat Po across the road. It’s quieter, cooler and much more peaceful with similar intricately decorated temples and brightly coloured conical chedis. Inside one temple is a statue of the Reclining Buddha. I’m told it’s famous, but I was unprepared and didn’t even think about what to expect. It’s massive. Seriously massive. About 45 metres long and 10 metres high in glossy, gleaming gold. It’s a really, really massive Buddha. From now on, it’s the benchmark for Buddha size, smaller ranging from big to large, bigger being gigantic.

Sadly, the spread-out nature of the city and the less than frenetic pace of traffic meant there were things we didn’t quite have time for. But Bangkok is good fun, if a little daunting.

You should also be aware that motorbikes weave around the cars in traffic doing what we might call ‘undertaking’, which would be most unexpected in the UK. For example, if the taxi you’re in has stopped, a motorbike might still nip up between you and the kerb and so if you should open the door this might well cause an accident, which would be entirely your fault. And if this should happen you might need a handy member of the Tourist Police to mediate while you negotiate to pay off the injured driver and his broken bike. I estimate such a pay off to be around £65, which is cheaper than involving the real police or getting lynched by an angry mob. The only lighter moment in such a situation might come if the motorbike driver had already lost a finger or two, causing you to at first glance believe with horror that you had just done something terrible.

I should also mention Patpong, the notorious red light and gogo bar area that is one of the most depressing sights on Earth, with dead-eyed whores gyrating while lonely bastards look on. We didn’t pop into any of the bars, but did get offered rather seedy ‘menus’ of what the girls would do. Pussy Ping Pong and Cigarette Smoking were present and incorrect. But does anyone know what “Change Water” might be? I dread to think…

Our day trip out of Bangkok took us on a 90 minute train journey north, to the old Thai capital of Ayutthaya. Built on an island formed by three rivers, the city was made up of dozens of temples and palaces so decorated with gold that in its 17th and 18th century heyday it was said to dazzle from 3 miles away.

The Cambodians and Burmese in turn ransacked the city, and now what remains are said to be the magical and beautiful ruins of temples dotted right across a fairly mundane and rather unattractive modern town. I say “said to be” because despite spending a day there I have yet to see them.

The guidebook suggests three ways to explore the city:

1. By guided tour from Bangkok. The expensive option and you’re likely to be herded around with a bunch of Australians, and no-one wants that.

2. By tuk-tuk from the station. On reflection the best option, if you’re in town do this.

3. By bicycle. This sounded fun!

A short walk from the station and we found a place to hire bikes for the princely sum of 40 Baht – just 80 of your earth pence for a day. No gears but a very handy basket.

After negotiating the bikes onto a passenger boat to cross the river into the city, we were off! The plan was to cycle down the main street, stopping off for a drink and a snack and to consult the map to plan a route. The main street didn’t turn up anywhere that looked half decent (all were empty – a bad sign) and suddenly we were cycling down a busy, two lane road through the middle of town with only the vaguest idea of the direction we should be going in and a vaguer sense of where we were…

I should say that cycling around Ayutthaya is easy. The drivers are curteous and give you plenty of space, even in the two dual carriageways that bisect the city. Finding temples, however, is not easy.

We headed to the far side town and into a park that apparently had various ruins, and after an hours pleasant trundling we happened across two crumbling 17th century brick wats, both very nice, both with nice buddha images and neither of any particular importance or real merit to the traveller. It was time to consult the map, find out the main sites and plan a route.

But could we find the biggest, best preserved and most impressive? Could we bum. We followed the main ring road, turned right over the canal and found instead a lovely but very new wat. We went back a little and followed the canal, and found another resolutely un-ruined wat. We retraced oursteps back along the canal and – lo! – a road sign for wat we were seeking! It said straight on. Straight on was a T-junction, left to the new wat and right back over the canal. We knew it was this side of the canal, so went back to the new wat and carried on past, onto a road leading through houses and out of town. The strange looks the locals were giving us indicated that wat-ever was this way was not the wat what we wanted.

We headed back over the canal but it was after 2pm. We’d been cycling for about 3 hours in 35 degree heat and we were flagging. And so we decided to go back to town, grab lunch, return the bikes and then see about getting a tuk-tuk. Rather than hauling the bikes onto the boat again, we decided to ride them back over a bridge further down river. We huffed a rather long way up the rather steep incline of the bridge, little realising that the dual-carriageway that runs over the river quickly becomes a motorway on the other side.

I know I said cycling was easy and felt very safe but I doubt that stretches to the Thai motorway system. Luckily, it does stretch to going the wrong way up the slip road.

By 3pm, with our train back at 4.25pm, we didn’t fancy taking a tuk-tuk back out into town.

So, if you do go to Ayutthaya please take some photos for us. And get a tuk-tuk.

Picking up some water at the local 7-Eleven here in Bangkok presented a whole new world of delicious treats. Sheets of chilli seaweed(?), a packet of fish based protein snacks, a whole rack of slowly rotating, deathly looking hot dogs (with cheese already inside) and a shelf full of pre-packed sandwiches and cakes that make your local newsagent’s selection look like Gordon Ramsey’s lunchbox.

Being me, I was drawn to the cakes. One in particular was the Thai Custard Bun. I LOVE custard! The lurid green packet looked ok, though the depiction of a bowl of green goo less so. But for 6 Baht (about 12p), you really can’t leave it on the shelf.

Opening the packet let forth a heady, sweet and yeasty aroma of cheap bread. Cutting into my bun of delight revealed the bread to be soft and airy with a filling of Thai custard the colour of lime peel. The consistency was more akin to a paste than a custard but it certainly didn’t look as bad as, well… as bad as it tasted actually.

That’s unfair of me. It doesn’t taste bad. Just sweet. Cloyingly, sickly sweet. A sweetness that fills your skull and sticks to your pallette. Remarkably, the worst bit wasn’t the custard, it was the bread. The custard itself appeared to be nut-based, either almond or pistachio, I couldn’t quite tell over the all-pervading sweetness.

I’m afraid the bun went largely uneaten. Maybe the purple swiss roll will be better.

We already know our rail system is owned and run by a bunch of theiving bastards who’d fine a dying pensioner if their corpse landed in first class, but this takes the piss…

I have Brighton to London annual gold card. But I wanted to go from London to Eastbourne instead so bought a single extension ticket for £12.55. This wasn’t a special offer or supersaveadvanceapexmegasaver ticket with 361 separate terms and conditions attached. No, just a walk-up single off-peak fare which I happened to buy the day before my journey to save queuing in London during rush hour.

Then it turned out I didn’t want to go from London to Eastbourne at all. I would be starting out in Brighton.

So, when buying my Brighton to Eastbourne ticket, I asked for a refund on the unused ticket. Yes, of course I could have a refund but there’d be a £10 ‘admin fee’.

TEN POUNDS!

It’s not like they’d lose out by not being able to resell the journey. There isn’t a limited number of tickets for sale, and don’t I know it when we’re crammed in like illegally transported pigs to the overcrowded slaughter.

They made ten quid pure profit on not providing a service on a journey I didn’t take.

To be fair, they do attempt to create a few quids worth of admin by taking various details and filling in forms, but that just means they took a tenner of my money as well as 12 minutes of my time.

I have high hopes for the future of our planet after this week’s talks in Copenhagen.

The last time there was such a gathering around an issue of vital importance, world leaders managed to Make Poverty History.

Our future is assured.