As you may have noticed from the title, I've arrived. Sorry for not keeping you as up to date as I promised, but I have been fairly busy over the last few days, as you can imagine.

Ayutthaya is a town in central Thailand, a one hour train ride north of Bangkok. The plan has been to come here immediately from the airport to avoid venturing into Bangkok on our first day in Thailand, and to soak up some Thai atmosphere in a smaller, more laid-back place. After forty-eight hours here, I feel ready to move on, so we'll be taking the overnight sleeper train to Chiang Mai, Thailand's second city, at 9pm tonight.

Apart from an Irishman Chris and I met last night, who was on Thailand's other coast only a few miles away when the tsunami struck, nobody has mentioned the tsunami - although, to be fair, if they'd mentioned it in Thai I probably wouldn't have noticed. This may sound cold and unsympathetic, but to be honest, I've hardly even thought about it. It's interesting how once you step outside of the immediate reach of Western media, if only for a short time, how these things become less important to you everyday life. Incidentally, central Thailand is totally undamaged.

I was sitting in a cafe in a traditional Thai teak house overlooking one of Ayutthaya's many ruined temples having a late lunch of pad thai today when I realised it was time to go to work on a Wednesday morning in January in England. The world is bigger than the age of globalisation might lead you to believe.

More news, this time from Thailand's mountainous north, coming ery soon.