Where the air is rareified

One night in Bangkok and the worlds your Oyster - or so Benny and Bjorn from Abba wrote for that crappy Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. For Eddie and me it was the LAST night in Bangkok and indeed the LAST night of the trip - arghhh!


So we thought we would go out in Style, with a capital S.

State Tower Bangkok - all 63 floors of it. They thought they would put a restaurant up there, like many a tall building in the world likes to do, but the folks at State Tower didn't stop there, there are no revolving bits, no carpeted floors and what the hell, no roof or walls either! Sirocco restaurant is the worlds highest Al Fresco restaurant.

You zoom away from the smog and other earthly cares in a lift that barely feels like it is moving, ears popping all the way. You step outside and are greeted by the sight of a huge golden dome and a golden staircase that takes you on a vertiginous decent into the dining area and bar. The glass bar juts out over the edge of the roof, and it also changes colour every few minutes just to complete the total over the topness of the place.

Dinner itself was a bit blah and the wine was outrageously overpriced but we threw caution to the wind gulped down more than our fair share and pranced about up there for hours - brilliant.

When we finally floated back down to earth, into a cab and back towards Khao San Rd who did we spy in the street - Mr Thailand! Mr Thailand is a crazy Thai guy who likes to wear full white military regalia, including Pith helmet and rides a rickshaw covered in disco balls and flowers, he has a massive stereo that pumps out crazy thai trance music and he takes you peddling through the streets saluted the gawping passersby.

Because we are such regular customers and it was our last night Mr Thailand pulled out all stops - we disappeared off the regular route, rode down a highway and materialised in a local thai night market where he proceeded to ride us up and down the streets for over an hour. The local police ran out to stop the traffic for us, little kids were dancing, a bunch of teenagers started breakdancing, shopgirls were covering their mouths and giggling, people were taking photos and even the group of soldiers standing near the Kings residence cracked up giggling and waving as Ed, Mr Thailand and I sailed past doing our best royal waves and salutes. By the end my face was aching from laughing so much and I was falling asleep in the rickshaw, but what a way to go.