Jimmy's Thai-Australian wife Jane had messaged me a few days earlier and asked if I'd like to join them for dinner on Monday night, and I jumped at the chance to catch up with old friends. I'd known Jimmy since the early days of Cold Chisel – my cousin Don Walker is the keyboard player and main songwriter. Close call ... Jimmy Barnes at the scene of the massive bomb blast in Bangkok. Credit:Jimmy Barnes We met at the upmarket Erawan Hotel where the Barnes family was staying and then headed for the Intercontinental Hotel on the opposite side of the road where we had a table booked in the 5-star Chinese restaurant. We were a large group – Jimmy, his wife Jane, daughter Elly-May, her husband Liam Conboy and their young son Dylan, who was in a stroller – and as we left the hotel we debated the best route to get from their hotel and cross one of Bangkok's busiest intersections to our destination. Jimmy, Jane and I tossed up whether to walk on the footpath past the popular religious shrine on the corner, which was always crowded with worshippers and tourists, and then across the road.

Our other option was to take the overhead bridge that linked their hotel to Bangkok's Skytrain. There was another overhead walkway from the Skytrain through a shopping centre and into the Intercontinental Hotel. We opted for the overhead route – a decision that probably saved our lives. This image taken from security footage provided by Thai PBS shows the moment of an explosion in central Bangkok. It shows the bottom of the overheard walk-way used by Jimmy Barnes and his family. Credit:AP As we started walking, Jimmy was in a good mood, talking about the upcoming Cold Chisel tour around Australia and New Zealand, the band's new album and other plans he had for the rest of this year and early next year. As we made our way across the overhead walkway from the shopping centre to the hotel, there was a very loud explosion and the glass lining the closed-in walkway shook and almost buckled from the shockwave of the blast.

Flames burn after an explosion in Bangkok. Credit:AP We had just walked right above the spot where the bomb had gone off and were about 50 metres away when the blast shook the walkway and the glass almost shattered. It was a really loud explosion and Jimmy, Jane and I knew it wasn't thunder, a car backfiring or fireworks. We rushed into the safety of the hotel and stood there for a minute, shaken and trying to decide on where was the safest place to be. The foyer of the hotel was chaotic with people running both in and out, but we were safe there. After a couple of minutes Jimmy and I left the women, Liam and young Dylan and walked out to the edge of the road. A police officer walks by the body of a victim covered in a white sheet following an explosion at the Ratchaprasong intersection in Bangkok. Credit:Dario Pignatelli We were a safe distance away by now, but could see flames shooting up near the middle of the intersection we'd just walked over. A large crowd had gathered at the corner and some police had arrived and blocked off the area. We heard various reports from people on the street – one man told us two motorcycles had collided, but Jimmy and I dismissed that as the blast was simply too loud.

We walked back into the hotel, found Jimmy's family, who were safe in the foyer, and then went to the restaurant. None of us had much of an appetite, but we ate and started checking news sites on our phones. At first, reports varied on the cause of the explosion – some said it was a gas tank in a taxi that had exploded, while others said it was a bomb. Medical workers rush the victim of a blast at the Erawan Shrine to a nearby hospital in central Bangkok on Monday. Credit:Reuters We were all convinced it was a bomb from the size of the blast. A little over an hour later Jimmy and I had to make an excursion from the hotel to the 7/11 convenience shop across the road – young Dylan needed a nappy change and we couldn't get back to their hotel room for supplies. So we left the hotel and carefully made our way across the road, stopping at one stage to talk to a television crew from a Chinese cable network which had set up near the 7/11. They said they'd seen a mangled body under a sheet at the blast site and there were reports of another bomb at the intersection that was being defused by a bomb disposal unit. We carefully made our way back into the hotel restaurant, nappies in hand. Jimmy joked about the headlines in tomorrow's papers: Rock star makes nappy run during bombing.

None of us had much of an appetite back in the restaurant, so the bill was paid and we carefully made our way back to the safety of their hotel, the closest hotel to the bomb site. We took a long route back and managed to enter through a side door, Jimmy, me and Liam carrying the stroller with young Dylan aboard across a series of steps to the entrance. It was a night to remember, and we all thanked our lucky stars that we took the overhead route and hadn't walked across the road. Alan Parkhouse is a senior editor and journalist working in Bangkok. Follow FairfaxForeign on Twitter