Arriving after dark in December 1973, I stepped into a steamy air thick with tropical smells — rotting vegetation, open drains, the sweet-sour atmosphere of the city that could be caught even from the steps of the plane.

Those scents became part of my abiding memory of Thailand, and in the four years that followed I would look forward to them each time as the plane door opened at Don Muang airport. I had no idea, of course, that I would stay so long, but then again,  I would have stayed longer but for a love affair that broke my heart.

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 style. 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 with my money almost gone. But I felt alive.

I was searching for the Atlanta Hotel, a once-prestigious address — Churchill had stayed there after the war — now a down-at-heel backpacker haunt. A German 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’. It was my first word of Thai. I thought the ‘soi’ led there, but being not sure and seeing a girl on a balcony, I called out, “Atlanta Hotel?”

In broken English and with a gesture as soft as the atmosphere of the 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, after coming overland from Ireland through many countries where females were kept shrouded or out of sight, I saw it as a lucky omen. I tingled for the future.

More writings on my 4/years working in Thailand and one on a return visit many years later