BY MARIUS MURDOCH

I suspected that Bangkok would be a shock to the senses, and damaged senses they were when I stumbled out of the airport into the hot night, still heavily hungover from New Year's Eve in my hometown, Brisbane. After two weeks there visiting my family in the suburbs, where the silence was only broken by the occasional lawnmower, the city streets felt fraught but refreshingly alive. Downtown was intense and exotic: the street stalls selling fruits I'd never seen before, the hurly-burly of cars and tuk tuks, even the stench of pollution. I was reminded of Woody Allen's quip, when asked why he liked living in the city, that you should never trust air you can't see. Using his logic Bangkok might have the most trustworthy atmosphere of any city in the world.

It was my brother who sagely suggested our first port of call be Patpong Road. In short, I've never been to a place that makes sex seem so unappealling. But things improved significantly when we continued to clubs further along Silom Road, and when I finally collapsed in my apartment, listening to the traffic outside, I couldn't help feeling I'd come to a fascinating and fun place. Since then I've had a chance to look around by myself (despite making the time-consuming mistake of going shopping with a Thai woman at CentralWorld). Bangkok seems to be what every big city should be; completely multifarious, full of contradictions, a world in itself. This is a city that has half the population of my country, and yet, far from being intimidating, Bangkok feels warm and relaxed, vivid without the dysfunctionality of many cities its size. I've come from a dead-end city to one of endless streets, from a backwater to the open ocean, a sleepy provincial capital to an insomniac city. I couldn't be more pleased.