We’ve arrived safely in Bangkok and it’s now the morning of our 2nd day here.

Neither John nor I have been back to Bangkok since we visited on the way to meet Fergus in Europe for Christmas in Dec 2009.

Strangely (and through no intentional planning) we checked into our current accomodation and realised we were looking directly down upon the hotel we stayed at 9+ years ago…

Sadly the pollution here has got markedly worse since our last visit – so much so that a few days prior to arriving the government announced they were closing schools for a number of days as the air pollution was deemed too high a risk for children to be out in.

Air Quality is measured through a range called Particle Pollution (PM) which measures the mixture of solids and liquid droplets floating in the air. By way of example air quality that’s acceptable for humans to breath is rated up to 50pm on this range – Bangkok last week was rated at 180pm in a number of areas.

We should be thankful that somehow despite the remaining Coal Fired Power stations – Australia ranks consistently in the top 10 countries in the world for Air Quality (probably due to our size relative to those pollution sources) imagine our Air Quality with them closed completely!

Yesterday we wandered around the streets exploring the city until we succumbed to the heat, humidity and dust and went to see a movie. (A new movie with Julie Roberts called Ben is Back – it was actually pretty watchable).

Both here and in Manila our movies started with the national anthem for each respective country – of course we stood along with the rest of the cinema in respect of this – but it was an unusual way to start a movie…

In terms of production value the video homage to the King of Thailand definitely has the Phillipines beat – it’s certainly an impressive production…

The current Thai King actually moved to Australia in 1970 to finish high school and attended Kings School in Parramatta (where he played in the local soccer team).

After finishing school in Sydney he then went on to train at the Military College in Duntroon in Canberra (whilst also completing a degree at the University of NSW). He then left the Army in 1975 and moved to train with the Australian Special Air services in Perth before finally returning to Thailand and joining the Thai Armed Forces in 1976.

In Thailand the royal family is highly revered – you see many displays around the city marking respect to them – for example directly across from our hotel there is a giant image of the King of Thailand attached to the side of a building.

Finally to update;

John’s tonsillitis is in its death throes with just a lingering cough left (though given the Air Quality issues noted above it’s likely to be with him a few more weeks).

I’m officially 50% done with my lip cancer treatment – sufficed to say I’ll be pleased to get through the balance of the treatment and return to having a lip that doesn’t look like it’s been in a fight with a pitbull. The treatment whilst hopefully effective is certainly aggressive.