I joined Khalsa College just opposite Don Bosco in class XI, but soon I quit studies and was sent to Bangkok by my father to learn martial arts, as that is the only place we could afford given that I would also work there to support my training.
I packed my bags and I moved to Bangkok, Thailand. I spent a year there like completely isolated, no Wi-Fi.
I arrived in Bangkok in 1980: I was 23 years old, and it changed my life.
I'm sure that President [Lyndon] Johnson would never have pursued the war in Vietnam if he'd ever had a Fulbright [scholarship] to Japan, or say Bangkok, or had any feeling for what these people are like and why they acted the way they did. He was completely ignorant.
I landed in 1980 in Bangkok, and I stopped to eat ten times between the airport and the hotel. It was all lemongrass and ginger and chilies.
My favorite whisky bar in the world is in my adopted Bangkok. A refined and secretive Japanese speakeasy among the girly bars of Soi 33, it's called Hailiang.
Bangkok is one of those places where it's so rich and full of tradition, but they're so open to different people - different gender expressions and gender identities. As a gay man, I never once felt uncomfortable there. As a black man, I never once felt uncomfortable.
Thailand was never a European colony, so even though the city is very Western on the surface, deep down it's very Asian. It's quite enigmatic, and I like that. I can't get to the bottom of Bangkok, and I never will.
One of the reasons I like living in Bangkok is that, although it's a megacity, it's very saturated with nature - the vast and brooding skies, the sudden storms and rains, the vegetation and even the animals that abound.
Eating street food in Bangkok is an experience.
The first I heard of the beach was in Bangkok, on the Ko Sanh Road.
If you are in Bangkok, you will find that people there will never speak to you without joining their hands. It's not that they are speaking to you like that because you are tourists. They even speak at their home like that.
I've never been to Thailand and I've only heard good things about it. I really want to make my way there.
When I was in Thailand, I went into the up-country because Marco Polo didn't get down into the flesh pots of Bangkok because they didn't exist in those days.
In Bangkok's budding literary scene, Prabda Yoon sits at the centre.
I'd love to visit Thailand just for the street food and the energy of a city like Bangkok.
