We arrived in Bangkok quite early in the afternoon after leaving Siem Riep at about 9:30. We’re staying in the humungous Holiday Inn hotel in the business district of Silom for two nights before heading back to the UK.

It didn’t take us long after arriving here to hit the streets in search of a replacement ring for Emma (after our unfortunate “quality control” issue). After visiting a few stores immediately adjacent area, we were rescued from a potential road mishap by one of the locals, who enthusiastically advised us that the best place to get jewellery from was the Gems And Jewellery Trade Centre Company, a store that “actual Thai people went to to buy jewellery”.

A little bit suspicious but game for a challenge, we were ushered to the nearest Tuk Tuk, whose driver rushed us there at breakneck speed - the pollution rushing though our hair and our ears deafened by the souped up lawnmower motor pumping away under our seat. It took us all of 10 minutes to reach our destination, weaving through side streets and back alleys to avoid the traffic.

We made it in one piece, and after perusing the wares it didn’t take us very long to find something that Emma wanted; a uniquely (and tastefully) shaped ruby encrusted with a small diamond in the middle. Finally! we’d found something that a) Emma liked and b) wasn’t going to fall apart at the drop of a hat. But that wasn’t the end of the story - the ever resourceful salesperson whipped out a second ring, identical to the first except with sapphires instead of rubies. Now, the clever thing about it was, they were “designed to be sold as a pair” (or as a trio with an emerald ring). He popped the two rings on Emma’s finger and the ensemble was complete - of course, we couldn’t possibly buy one without the other now. After agreeing a price, the rings went away for adjustment and it seem to take an age, during which time the salesman tried to offload some matching earrings and other such niceties.

We hit the streets again, this time taking a cab to the MKB shopping mall - an enormous shopping arcade in Central is apparently the trendy place for young people to shop, had everything from all the usual clothing stores to studios filled with artists copying photographs to order.

We took our inaugural trip on the BTS Sky Train, an overground MRT-style train back to the hotel, where the only thing left to do was to eat dinner and get a good night’s sleep.