Ooops. I guess we have arrived. Through the looping films of the long flight over, the whooping of Big Mommas House 2 merging somehow with the squeak of the hostess trolleys; into the thick, embalming heat of the airport with its bewildering layers of red tape and the anxious moments as customs question our motives for entering the country. They are of course good questions.

And on, rushed through like couriered parcels of damp white sweat, our meeters and greeters do their best to make themselves understood through the smog of language and we are all polluted by our trust in our own language. The throng that heaved around the aiport arrivals hall was not interested in our confusion, in our cultured shock. They were looking for loved ones and missing ones or wailing children and then heaving huge boxes held together somehow by dirty string and making sense of finally arriving.

And then the contrast of the hotel, the sounds of the crazy traffic dampened by the hush of luxury; the sound of silk rubbing against silk. No friction, no spark nor life. Just a lull in commotion; an oasis of soothing ointment applied with smiles and bows. Truly this is for wounds not even opened. There is nothing sore here. But of course who argues with the embrace, the ritualistic, economic hug that gathers around us. Not me. For some hard currency we are given soft furnishings and a potent view over the thriving city; we find ourselves in a rooftop pool swimming with what energy we can muster as exotic fronds hang loosely over the water. And with this tickling, delicate touch, we can pause for a moment and consider the journey, the move, the change and I can duck my head under the water with the noise of a thousand mopeds just a hundred metres down, and believe that we have arrived.