Germän Sausäge

Well, I made it all the way to Bangkok courtesy of Thai Airways, an entirely uneventful flight punctuated by occasional conversation with the nice Thai lady sitting next to me, who has lived for a long long time in a small village near Dortmund or Essen or some such place and was returning home for the first time in five years.

Bangkok, how should I say, is hotter and stickier than I imagined. I made the mistake on the first day of going out in just a short-sleeved shirt (and trousers etc. of course), which sounds logical but is actually an excellent way of generating interesting and highly visible sweat-patterns. Fortunately I remembered a useful tip from some website, viz wearing some kind of t-shirt or vest under the shirt which soaks up the sweat, while not actually making one any hotter. I sidled into a department store, had one of those culture-shock stress moments trying to guess whether an L size would be big enough or turn out to be a European M size, and trying to work out the payment system (the shop assistants take your cash and the desired goods, run off somewhere and bring you back your change and the purchase in a plastic bag), and surreptitiously donned the t-shirt in the changing room. It fitted, and seemed to do the sweat-absorbing trick, although now my hotel room wardrobe contains a pile of festering white t-shirts. I should go and have them washed, but at hotel prices it's cheaper to buy new T-shirts and I haven't yet found a "normal" cleaners in the vicinity.

If anyone can figure out a way of getting some nice fresh Berlin autumn air here, I'll pay for the postage.

Oh, and I found the packet of crisps in the photo (click for enlargement) in the local Tesco's.