Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans

Awoke today to find my arms covered in bites, like mosquito bites, but lots of them, and itchy as hell. There were over sixty bites on my left arm, around thirty on my already swollen right arm (after having been stung in Kota Bahru). Rubbed some skin cream on them to try to relieve the itching, but that only seemed to make them worse.

Today was supposed to be my day for a Thai massage, but I couldn't go to the massage parlour looking like I was in the first stage of leprosy. I had arranged to meet someone for lunch at Patpong, so while I was there I bought some cream at a pharmacy, explaining that I thought the bites were from mosquitoes. The young chap at the counter gave me a cream in a tube, but the information on the tube and on the attached leaflet was all in Thai. He assured me it was OK, so I rubbed it on and hoped for the best.

Of course, this new development put my plans for travelling to the coast on hold, at least for the immediate future.

To try to put this out of my mind I went for a long walk in the direction of the river, then visited the antique shops in the River City Market, where I had lunch. The waitress, an attractive 27-year-old from Northern Thailand, kept up a constant patter all the time I was there. She had a sister in Spain and I felt she was trying hard to hook a Western man herself. However, it wasn't going to be me...

There's a great view over the river from this restaurant. Immediately facing was the Sofitel, which was completed but never opened, having slipped about 5 degrees from the vertical. It stands there, all 30-odd stories, forlorn.

I walked towards Chinatown, attempting to visit a buddhist temple along the way, but I was chased off by a monk with two German Shepherd guard dogs. They must have had something valuable in that temple.

I suppose it's difficult to know when you've actually arrived in Chinatown, but to make sure there's no doubt they have erected a huge ceremonial Chinese gate in the middle of a traffic roundabout. The streets were choked with traffic and the footpaths were choked with vendors, foodstalls, shoppers, human debris. The air was thick with traffic fumes and smoke from the many food stalls, and it was damn hot. As I gulped down bottle after bottle of soft drinks my arms took on a purplish hue. I took a taxi back to the hotel.

That evening my arms were not only looking a lot worse, but the itching was driving me round the bend! I went to get a second opinion from a pharmacist near the hotel. This guy knew his stuff, and explained that the cream I was using (with cortisone) was no good for bites, and that I needed anti-histamine cream. I would have to wash the first cream off as best I could and rub on the proper cream, which I did, hoping that I hadn't picked up some weird tropical disease.

The chap at the hotel, where I asked for a mosquito spray, said he doubted the bites were from mosquitoes (there were simply too many of them), but from bed bugs. This was corroborated by the pharmacist the following morning, but denied by a number of travellers who had experiences of bed bugs, as they said bed bugs bite in a straight line, whereas mine were all over the place. Ants were suggested. Most (including the locals) just backed off and said: "Ugh, never saw anything like that before". I felt like an old leper who'd lost his bell.

This was the beginning of my misfortunes in Bangkok. To paraphrase Bob Dylan on "Love and Theft":

"The only thing, that I done wrong,
Was stay in Bangkok City, a day too long"