These photographs are of: The first experience of using a mosquito net, me stroking a tiger, Tthe bridge over the River Kwai, the floating markets and the reclining buddha


Ok, I realise that I have been rubbish at keeping this up-to-date! Replyin to emails AND updating this blog is harder than you might think, but here's a summary of the amazing week we've had so far:

Heathrow - Bangkok (15th Jan - 16th Jan)
Thanks to Jen we had a place to sleep in London on the Sunday night before our flight (thank you so much!), so it meant we only had to get up at 6:30am, made it to Heathrow on the tube without any problems and checked in pretty quickly. The flight to Singapore was just over 11 hours and surprisingly went really fast (TV screens in the backs of the seats with a choice of over 70 films, radio shows etc, a constant stream of food and free socks, blanket and pillow definately helped!) 4 films later we made it to Singapore airport and onto the Bangkok flight. I don't really remember much about it (apart from I was sat sandwiched between 2 thai business men reading broadsheet newspapers, and looked rather out of place with my 'new!' magazine). Ended up passing out on my table for the full 2 hours.

Bangkok (16th Jan - 18th Jan)
The taxi took us to Khao San Road (the backpacker ghetto) and we booked into the D & D Inn (for an outrageous price of ten pounds a night!) but the place had a swimming pool on the roof, a beauty salon and massage palour so we couldn't really complain as we sat watching the sun set over Bangkok.

Found James (a cousin of a friend of Mary's!) and went out in search of some quality Thai food, which we found quite easily for 1 pound a main course. A few Singhs later and we were merrily chatting to a group of Ozzie's and a guy from our flight, a few more beers later, whiskey at an out of hours place (which I did not partake in) and I was sympathetically looking after Ellie in the bathroom of our hotel (sympathetically from a distance!). Moved onto a cheaper, livelier hotel off Khao San road which was constantly full of people to chat to. Whilst Ellie spent the day recovering, I set out with the King of Hagglers (James) in search of some bargins. Haggling is surprisingly fun, even if you don't really want the thing you're bargining for.... A skill which I would love to practice further in England, but I doubt it will go down very well. Had a walk around the river, a meal and chilled out for the rest of the day before heading for Phat Pong night markets in a tuk tuk (which is kind of a taxi, but has a motorbike engine and overtakes anything in its path!), we scoured the markets for a while and braved a ping pong show (sex show) but only lasted 5 mins before leaving completely disgusted.

The next day we decided that it was about time we saw some of the famous sights in Bangkok and headed for the Grand Palace (completely inappropriately dressed), borrowed a very sexy smelly grey shirt and explored the entire place for 2 hours whilst listening to the chanting buddhists. Unfortunately, Ellie felt ill again and had to return to the hotel (on a very scary tuk tuk!) and so I went to see the reclining buddha (which is HUGE and gold and a little freaky). This is definately a sight worth seeing if anyone ever visits Bangkok, you couldn't possibly imagine the size of this thing, and then went on a boat trip back down the river to check on Ellie. With Ellie fully recovered, we went for an hour long thai massage which was amazing, and then went for a meal/ drinks in the evening.

Kanchanaburi (18th Jan)
We booked on a day trip to see the River Kwai Bridge, which had a bunch of extras included. Setting off at 7am, we stopped at a sugar making place where they used coconut juice to make the sugar, had a quick taste before heading to a floating market. Lots of sellers are in boats sailing down these canals and you get in a boat and they try and sell you stuff.... its better than it sounds! Like Bangkok, the smell is pretty unique to say the least, it does take a while to get used to the mixture of sizzling food (mostly hot from the sun), sewers and car fumes and it is definately a stomach turner the day after a big night out! Anyway, we then had lunch and moved onto the River Kwai museum and bridgem which was great (apart from the fact that the bridge has massive gaps in and is really scary to walk on with people shoving past you). Finally, we went to a Tiger Temple, which consisted of a quarry and some tigers chained up, they took your camera and dragged you round each tiger to take a picture. We made it back to Bangkok about 7.30pm and after a bit of food ended up sitting on Khao san road on a stool next to a row of bottles of spirit (which aparently in Thailand consists of a bar!), met a bunch of travellers and hung out with them until the early hours. Bangkok done!