Sawadee Krap, (Hello - to the Non Thai Speakers) Arrived safely in Bangkok - flight wasn't luxury but got here safe and sound. Our first attempt at backpacking failed as we left the airport, hit the heat and saw the queue for the taxi's - Airport taxi it was and expensive it wasn't but still three times what we should have paid. Hotel was great and cool thanks to the much needed air conditioning. Got settled and headed out in search of the much talked about Ko Sahn Road, most of you will remember this from the film the Beach. We settled in a bar, attracted by the 'no lousy food, no warm beer, and no bad service' neon sign. (we later found out that this wasn't Ko Sahn Road - Whoops) Day 2: of the search for Ko Sahn Road and we find it! To our surprise not only do we find the backpackers mecca of Thailand we also embark on a fantastic adventure with our new found friends: A very nice Thai lady, a police man and a tuk tuk driver. We dont know their names and so for arguements sake we will call them: the lady in red, Bob the policeman (typical thai name :) and Damon Hill our Tuk Tuk driver. The lady in Red and Police man Bob approached us with big smiley faces and told us how lucky lucky we were. Our skeptical minds told us to run but it was something in Bob's eye that told us to stay - good job we did as in five minutes he'd planned our whole day and organised Damon Hill (tuk tuk) to escort us, all out of the kindness of his heart. This is something we've found with most thai's we've met so far. Our First Stop of the day was at a local temple where we were greated by a 120ft golden standing budda. Apparantly this took 80 years to construct. around the feet of the budda and on the toes Thai's would leave flowers, fish, drinks and candles. On to the next stop - another local temple and before we were allowed to enter we had to go down to the river and feed the fish (100's and 100's of giant catfish). we felt quite privialaged as this wasn't a tourist area and got a real feel of how the thai people lived. Damon enjoyed feeding the fish and we think thats where our friendship started to blossom! After the fish it was on to the temple, we were now allowed to go inside and saw our first real Buddist Monk (excluding the four who got out the taxi as we pulled up). Each temple is very ornate with all hand crafted wall's door's etc - All thsi work for only one figure of Budda inside. This goes to show how much religion means to the People. Even though we throughly enjoyed these places it was the tuk tuk journey that was our highlight - we felt like indianna Jones! Before our day was over we visited the Armani Tailors (but the backpackers budget didn't strech far enough for a purchase). our Day ended just as it started on Ko Sahn Road........... Mission Accomplished!! We bid an emotional fairwell to Damon. Food - Beer - (a thai Robbie tribute) - Bed! (Trying to get Photo's Online will send them asap)