You know how you can get cheap clothing with mis-spelt English words pretty much ubiquitously at stores and markets throughout Asia? When I was at kindergarten, I remembered this pair of peach-coloured jelly sandals with the letters: “P” “K” “W” written on the strap running down the middle. I spent an illogical amount of time in Asian squat position staring at those letters and wondering how to read them. I don’t know why, but I had automatically assumed that the language was English. How did English sound? What noises would an English speaker make when they see “PKW”? I tried to involve my kindergarten friends in finding answers to these questions, but they told me to go away.

Most of the other 3-letter combinations that I was exposed to at an early age were airport codes. I think I’ve told you in a previous blog post that because of my grandfather’s air force connections, I went to a kindergarten associated with the local air base. The military air base was right next to the civilian airport. And so after picking me up on his bicycle from kindergarten every afternoon, Dad would pedal us both to the departure lounge of the airport to watch planes take off.

I am told that the airport I grew up visiting on bicycle, the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, is now a busy global hub, home of China Southern Airlines. Back in the day, it was still international, but the sight of an international plane was infrequent enough to cause excitement. (And I suppose I was also a fairly excitable child.) There was only one flight a week to certain international destinations, and so every day felt a little bit different. I loved scanning the big departure board to see if there were planes to SIN, KUL and even further afield … FRA made me do a happy dance. Sometimes when flights were late, we’d wait and wait at the airport until it finally took off. My poor mother waiting for us at home accepted flight delays as an excuse for being late for dinner.

Another of these 3-letter airport codes was BKK. That was also a good one. I have continued to feel incredibly fortunate that Bangkok, previously only accessible through my childhood imagination, is a place I’ve now visited twice in the last couple of years.

This year, I went to Bangkok during a heatwave. It went up to 39 degrees during the daytime, which was not pleasant with the humidity (in Australia, I’d probably tolerate up to about 43 degrees. Many of you know that I love hot weather). Luckily, I went back to follow up with the dental work that I had first started last year. And so most of the time, I was actually freezing cold lying still for hours in the dental chair in the over-zealously air-conditioned clinic.

In those conditions, I would probably never have thought to visit Ko Kret, an island in the Chao Phraya River upstream from Bangkok. It was far away (not even in Bangkok itself, but in Nonthaburi Province next door) and not so easy to get to, and the main activity on the island was walking around outdoors to explore. But my friend A, who lived in Bangkok and knew the best way to get anywhere, wanted to go. And sometimes impossible things just seem so much easier when you have a friend with you.

As usual these days, I didn’t have time to research the destination beforehand. We had both seen on a website that there was a leaning pagoda on the island, so our initial plan was to go on a quest to find it. Unfortunately, that plan fell apart as soon as we stepped on the ferry. We had already spotted the distinctive pagoda from across the river.

Apparently, just like its similarly lopsided counterpart in Pisa, the leaning pagoda of Ko Kret started off straight. The tilting started about 130 years ago because of erosion of the riverbank. They tried to straighten it in the 1990s but it didn’t work. These days it also draws in the tourists. The good thing about the heat was that there weren’t that many tourists around. Really more local tourists than foreign ones. So we could take photos without much competition.

Most of the population living on Ko Kret (population) are ethnic Mon people. They were resettled there during the reign of King Taksin. Away from the ferry pier, past all the stalls selling food and souvenirs, the place looked like a semi-rural village, but without cars. It looked like many of the residents commuted to and from the mainland for work. During the morning and evening peak hours, the ferry fare rose from 3 baht (12 Australian cents) to 5 baht (20 cents). It was quite different along the stretch of riverbank next to the pier. This bit was full of hipster cafes, and the craft beer place was packed.

The other feature of Ko Kret was the pottery studios. The Mon people have their traditional style of pottery. But I had the feeling that many of the studios belonged to artists who liked to work with ceramics, and not necessarily people who practiced the traditional Mon style. We were invited to participate in a pottery class, but by that point neither of us could concentrate under those weather conditions, and we had to turn back towards the ferry.