Thanks for taking the comments in the spirit in which  they were intended, as constructive criticism, and for clarifying some points. I  agree with others that your writing is very evocative, but, as an ex-academic I tend to be a bit pedantic about clarity and evidence :-)  and some of your text was rather amibiguous (given what you now say)and open to "extreme intpretation".

"True to say I was probably lucky that I didn't get ill - but I did point out that most conditions around the food are poor, that environmental health wouldn't allow it in the UK."

Yes, but you did continue that paragraph as if refuting this:

 I never got ill once, the food was gorgeous and incredibly cheap and very quick to make. The more run down and battered looking the stall or the bar, the better the quality of food. People are more likely to get stomach upsets from the spiciness rather than from food poisoning.  

  "Fair to ask where the evidence was for my comment about spices causing stomach upsets rather than food poisoning - it came from our tour guide and she was referring to tourists rather than to Thai people."

Maybe you should have said it was the tour guide's claim and been a bit sceptical - and tourits are at least as likely as Thais (who've built up some resistance) to get food poisoning ;

"The comment about quality of food vs quality of surroundings came from the Lonely Planet guidebook, mostly in the context of restaurants though."

Maybe that should have been attributed too and noted that it's  a possibly romanticised view.

 "It's a reasonably instinctive thing as a tourist to only drink bottled water/fluids and to be fairly careful about food.  I did avoid meat and fish on the outdoor stalls (because of the conditions I described), although I ate just about anything from the restaurants."

But then you do say :

The more run down and battered looking the stall or the bar, the better the quality of food » - without excluding meat and fish.

"I also pointed out poor sanitation and mentioned the state of the river/canal water and the overcrowded and dirty conditions that people live in. I made the point about the stark contrast of the way that people lived in the different areas of the city.  I found the impact of poverty there quite hard to articulate effectively."

But again you went on to add :

Maybe not the best first impression of Bangkok or Thailand, and I think it was one that some of my fellow travellers found too much. Most of them concluded that they didn't especially like Bangkok, and wouldn't wish to go back.  I, on the other hand, loved it.

Which does tend to suggest that the poverty didn't worry you that much.

"But it is also my intention to discuss poverty in more detail in my diary on the Hill Tribes."

I look forward to reading it.

"My comment about regulation was more aimed at the contrast with regulation to the point that we are familiar with at home, I'm not against regulation - I'm certainly not trying to echo corporate propaganda against regulation as you suggest. I'm a unionist, most of my working life is spent trying to protect people's rights and that includes health and safety."

Glad to hear it , but honestly I wouldn't have guessed that from what you actually said and the use of "sterility" suggests a negative view about the use of regulation, and,  as I pointed out, even regulation here is arguably inadequate in many fields, and regulation can even allow diversity to flourish.

"But fair enough to criticise the way I have chosen to phrase some aspects of the diary, I should have thought more widely about possible interpretations."

Well, from all the other reactions you got, little need to worry, and it is very difficult to be aware of one's own assumptions about what others will understand. When I made students check others' interpretations of their work, they were often very surprised and sometimes dismayed at the variety of intertations, some of them almost completely opposite to what they thought they had obviously communicated.

"Perhaps I should have made explicit in the diary that I was actually really shocked by the fact that families were piled onto motorbikes, but I felt that was implied by the image itself. That's my automatic reaction to seeing/reading it. I saw a woman waving her baby around while the bike was moving and I was horrified.  I was attempting to draw some contrasts in the text but clearly didn't make some points as well as I could.
By the social nature of that photo, I was referring to the way that people were being friendly and chatting and that children often seem fairly involved and are well socialised.  I wasn't trying to say I think it's wonderful to see tiny children on dodgy motorbikes"

Photos are more open to varied intrpretation than most text, and when you say :

This picture sums up my favourite aspect of Bangkok.

It's hard to think that you were "horrified".- better to have said so, to show your ambivalent attitude.

"Thanks for finding the stats and making the time to comment so thoroughly and I hope I've been able to address some of your concerns in this response."

Personal responses to places are interesting and obviously a lot of people like your style, but you might consider including a few quotations and stats of the kind I gave. They can (I'm not asserting there's only one way :-) ) give a deeper understanding of a place - and complement one's own immediate impressions and images. But I know how much time such diaries with iamges can take, with adding research too :-)  

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.