Bangkok, Thailand

P: It's the evening of our second full day in Bangkok. We're perched in a cute internet cafe next door to our hotel. It's nice and cool in here until someone opens the door, when it feels as if someone has directed a hairdryer at us! We've almost acclimatised, though we try to avoid walking around at the hottest time of day. The time difference is another matter and our sleep patterns have been turned upside down - especially because our room doesn't have windows (but luckily air con) and we keep waking up in the middle of the night thinking surely it's time to get up...It's a nice room by the way (with twin beds, not a double, phew) with our own bathroom and a fridge and tv. We'll be lowering the standards very soon though!

C: The flight went fine, although the seats were so cramped together I could barely straighten my leg....so you can imagine what everyone else must have been feeling!! Also Qantas decided to serve us up some fabulous cuisine! My favourite was the passion fruit mousse....it was....orange. Anywho we got here ok and spent the first evening looking around Kao San Road - it is mental. Philipoops likened it to the Royal Mile and it does share similarities - bustley, claustophobic, touristy, loaaaaads of flyerers (with whom i can sypathise!), and lots of drunk tourists, quite a laugh really! I should also take a moment to just mention how amazing the food is, the smell of the spices really hits you in the face when you walk around the various food stalls and at night they all put out plastic tables and chairs. So cheap too!

P: Re: the flight... I have to agree it wasn't hugely comfortable. Especially when I was all snuggled up under my blanket and Catherine woke me at 5.30am by caressing me with a cold banana! Also there was this couple with a new born baby (which looked like a hairless monkey)which was relatively well behaved but occasionally noisy. And when we arrived in Bangkok we had a PINK taxi assigned to us! It was too funny. Unfortunately we spent close to 2hrs in the taxi cos the traffic is so bad here. We've managed to avoid it today by using every other form of transport there is, minus tuk-tuks because they only want to take us to PingPong shows.. We've been on boats, the Skytrain and the Metro, and our little black and blue feet. We went to a shiny big modern shopping centre and were impressed with their food court but made sure we didn't buy any clothes or hardware.. This is in stark contrast to our ultra-culture day yesterday when we saw the Grand Palace, and three temples (Wat Arun, Wat Pho and Wat Phra Kaeo). They were all absolutely stunning and had lots of big shiny gems stuck to them and buddha statues in them. We had to take our shoes off and Catherine had to be very very quiet for once.

C: Just quickly, we have booked our expedition northwards to Chiang Mai and will be heading that way tomorrow on an overnight sleeper train. We've organised some trekking and cookery courses so far, but may extend this to more activities when we get there. Also, it's the Buddhist New Year on 13th/14th/15th so that will be cool! Bye!