Arriving after dark in December 1973, I stepped into steamy air thick with tropical smells — rotting vegetation, open drains, the sweet-sour breath of the city. Those scents became part of my abiding memory of Thailand, and in later years I would look forward to them each time the plane door opened at Don Muang airport.

That first night I left the terminal and found a local bus. After a few halting exchanges – I had no Thai, I managed to board the rattling vehicle into the centre of the city. I wandered with my rucksack on my back, watching Thais strolling at 11 p.m., intrigued by their soft voices, their gentle gestures, the way they window-shopped with an easy grace. There have been only a few countries where I knew instantly I could live; Thailand was one of them.

One of the things that still surprises me after all these years is how I ended up in Thailand. I left Ireland in early June, with a rucksack on my back and not much money going to Greece, maybe a little further – depending how my money went. I knew absolutely nothing about Thailand. Six months later I found myself in Bangkok through a series of chance encounters and my money almost gone. But I felt alive.

I was searching for the Atlantic Hotel, a once-prestigious address — Churchill had stayed there after the war — now a down-at-heel backpacker haunt. A traveller in India had given me the name. The same one who sleeping alongside me on the floor of a Sikh temple in Calcutta, suggested I might find a teaching job in Thailand – something I failed to do in Calcutta. My accent wasn’t ‘right’.

I turned into a dimly lit side street – the first time I had heard the word ‘soi’. My first word of Thai. I thought might lead there, and seeing a girl on a balcony, I called out, “Atlantic Hotel?”

In broken English, with a gesture as soft as the tropical evening, she made me understand it was on the parallel street. Then, laying her cheek on the back of her joined hands, she mimed sleep and invited me to stay. She looked beautiful in the half-darkness, but I was far too shy — or too afraid — to accept.

Still, it was an auspicious beginning, and I tingled for the future.