Checked out of Coral Bay Beach Resort this morning to meet at the Grand Ville Hotel, which is located in Chinatown, not too far from Koh San Rd, in Bangkok. My flight left at 9am and arrived in Bangkok 1 hour later. I found the taxi rank and got into the brightly coloured cab and was on my way to the hotel, which was the meeting point for the Intrepid Indochina tour group. After getting into the cab my driver pulls over and tells me he does not know where this hotel is, but after a phone call we were finally on our way.

I arrived at the hotel at 12pm, which was perfect timing due to it being the time for check in I was told when arriving that I would be sharing with someone so I was intrigued to know who it was going to be. The hotel was not the nicest of hotels especially compared to where I had just been, but it was a room for the night and Ill be staying in much worse along the way.

At about 3pm a girl from Holland by the name of Esra walks in and tells me that she will be roommate for the night. We chatted until about 6pm, then headed upstairs to meet the rest of the group. Everyone in the group is really nice and we have a good diverse bunch from all over. Matt our trip leader is from the UK, Mark from France, Lyndsay and Ian from Canada, Susan is also from Canada, Marie and Eion (Owen) from Ireland, Di and Graham from New Zealand, Esra from Holland, and we have a trainee trip leader, Gerry from USA. The ages of the group is also quite diverse with the youngest being 24 and the two eldest being in their late 50s and there are no young 18-22 yr olds, which is a bonus.

After Matt went through all the details of the trip he took us down to Koh San Rd for a meal and then we had some drinks at a really cool little street bar, which was or is (not sure) one of the worlds top 5 bars. Enjoying a few beers and trying one of the local delicacies, Crickets! They were marinated in a soy type marinade and they had taken off the skins so it wasn't crunchy when you ate them. After a few more beers myself, Susan and Esra caught a cab back the hotel and called it a night.