On arriving in Bangkok I was expecting an interrogation to get visas and paperwork sorted, followed by a harrowing run through customs with sniffer dogs, bag searches and if we were particularly unlucky, nasty men with rubber gloves. Maybe my ideas were heavily influenced by a combination of the movie “Bangkok Hilton”, and news coverage of Australians in South East Asian countries that had been on trial for drug smuggling just before I left the country.

The reality was very different – instead of this there was a normal looking airport counter with a customs official checking visas, and a digital camera that took photo of everyone entering. Proceeding through the “nothing to declare” doorway was more of a surprise though. It was literally just a doorway out into Bangkok, with nobody at all checking belongings, and definitely no sniffer dogs.

Outside the doorway, we were greeted by a scrum of locals. This sight that would be soon all too familiar when exiting any sort of voyage – whether by plane, train, bus or boat. The locals were trying to sell transport, accommodation and probably all manner of other things along the way.

Although the flight from Sydney had been fairly short, 11pm at night wasn’t a great time to be arriving in a foreign city for first time travelers.

The sobering reality once we’d walked through the airport gate was that Bangkok was big, hot and smelly. The prospect of 7 hours at the old airport wasn’t really that enticing. Inevitably the first deviation to our plan came after about 20 minutes. We decided that it would be good to kill some time by venturing out into the unknown and seeing a glimpse of the Bangkok nightlife.

After finding a baggage storage compartment for our backpacks and stepping out we were engulfed by the hot, sticky stench of Bangkok. Once in a taxi my emotions were a mixture of adrenalin, fear and the certain knowledge that we had no idea where we were going.

In the front of the taxi, my friend had been somehow managed to communicate that we wanted to go into town for a drink. It was enough to get us going in any case. In the back of the taxi, it became more and more clear that we were heading into a totally alien city, with no idea whether we’d make it back, whether we were heading to a bar for a drink, or whether we were heading somewhere to be robbed.

At some point our taxi driver decided to go faster. As a result he sped up so that we were now driving at about 100km/h and weaving through about 3 lanes of traffic. Most of the other traffic seemed to be made up of pickup trucks with covered trays, quite often heavily overloaded with what appeared to be coconuts. These were also travelling faster than I thought would be a safe speed. In the back of the taxi, I began searching for seatbelts, only to find that the buckles had been removed.

Somewhere along the way, our cabbie started talking on a mobile phone in Thai. By this time I was convinced that we were being taken away to be met by a bunch of local muggers in a dark back alley. After descending into the streets from the motorway and travelling through the glitzy neon lights for a bit, we ended up turning into a dark unlit back alley that looked exactly as I’d been imagining.

After turning another corner, the ambush turned out to be in the form of a very seedy looking bar with pink neon lights and a number of equally seedy looking people hanging around outside. From the reaction of the driver and door staff, we didn’t really feel we had much choice but to go in for a drink. Inside was something that clearly wasn’t what we understood by the word “bar”. Along one wall about 30 Thai girls were seated and looking a mix between expectant and bored. All had white circles with numbers.

My friend had the good sense to make sure that we were seated near the doorway on barstools with no other seats nearby. The scary looking hostess who was trying to usher us towards lounges didn’t seem overly pleased by the choice. After ordering a round of beers we both started to relax a bit. As the night wore on, my mood fluctuated between edgy and ectatic, “One Night in Bangkok” was played at least 3 times. Obviously it was a local favourite.

Eventually other westerners started coming in to the bar. We started talking to another Australian who had been on our flight from Sydney. After some conversation about how strange and exploitative the whole situation was, the hostess started introducing him to a range of Thai girls. Eventually he settled on a particularly young looking girl and left. So much for the conversation we’d been having.

After a few more beers we eventually decided to go back to the airport in a taxi. The taxi driver we spoke to tried to negotiate a higher return price than we’d paid on the way out but settled on the same fare back. It was only after about five minutes into the trip that I realised that we had the same driver from earlier, who had waited over 3 hours outside the bar. The smile on his face after we paid him told us that it had been worth his wait. Perhaps our negotiation skills weren’t as good as we’d initially thought!