So far, so good, and now to get into the city at least two miles somewhere down the road. The trams were packed full – not a hope there. So we tried hitch-hiking, and by great good luck at the first attempt stopped a Dane in a four-seater car. He spoke fluent English and we told him we wanted to see Bangkok. ‘Get in, then,’ he said, ‘I’ll show it you. I’m just returning from holiday, but I’ll just drop in at the office to let them known I’m back, and then I’m at your service.’ Back from a holiday!

He was a very good fellow, that Dane! He took us all over and round the city in his car. We rode down the modern new central avenue that led into the heart of the city past the four giant horns of concrete in traditional Thai architectural fashion that were a monument to something or other, and he told us how, when in the middle of building the blocks of flats on either side, steel had ceased coming into Bangkok. Some ingenious contractors had hit on the idea of concrete reinforced with bamboo, and of course most of those blocks just sagged and fell down! We saw the House of Assembly, the really exquisite King’s Palace and we passed along roads through spacious parks that could favourably compare with the Mall. Along nearly every road, and criss-crossing in all directions, were canals full of giant white and pink lotus flowers and traversed by the little wooden bridges at every few tens of yards. The streets were full, the shops open everywhere and it all looked thoroughly cheerful. And as for the Thai girls with their straight backs, lovely figures and gay dresses, well . . . we liked Bangkok very much.

We then touristed and went to see the Wat Poh and the Wat Pra Keo, the two adjoining Buddhist Temples and the most famous in Thailand, one of which was sacred to the giant ‘Reclining Buddha’, and the other to the ‘Emerald Buddha’. Our Dane spoke rapid Thai, and when we found an open door in the massive stone wall that surrounded the place, he spoke to one of the yellow-robed priests who consented to become our guide when he’d got rid of his shopping basket and fetched the keys. This priest was a very calm, cheerful fellow, spotlessly clean and with a quick and easily amused intelligence.