10th Dec. - 14th Bangkok, Thailand

Average temperature: 30 degrees
Thai boxing matches: 8
Green curries eaten: 3
Markets: hundreds, including night markets
Fake goods bought: 1
Buddhas: 1 reclining, 1 emerald, 1 jade, then lots sitting around

Arriving in Bangkok was like stepping forward in time. The airport is new, in fact everything seems new, and very clean. It was strange to see all the little things of modern life we'd (almost) forgotten about like normal roads, traffic lights, constant electricity, normal shops (with aircon and fixed prices), locals enjoying themselves in restaurants, seeing rich people (Thais), and no cows in the street!
Our hotel was just off the "famous" Khao San Road, which is the hang out for all the farangs (Westerners). It's full of food hawkers and souvenir stuff. From thongs for your feet to fried crickets to eat - Which we didn't eat any by the way.
First things first, we went to the most newest, modern, Westernised area we could find - to quench our need for everything capitalist, after spending so long (well it seemed like a long time) in developing countries we suddenly had the urge - how un-traveller like is that!

We got the ferry down the river to reach the new skytrain, which disappointingly was not a monorail like we'd thought but it is up high. It's a bit like the DLR (Dockland Light Railway), but goes through some great skyscraper scenery. We got to a massive shopping centre which has all the shops you could imagine and more! Even Zara!

There were also some great Christmas decorations which were the first we'd seen and it almost felt like Christmas (but with heat).

In the evening we had our first Thai food, mmm, Vik had the hottest (chilli) salad ever! And Carl had his first Chang beer (6.4%)!

We thought we should do some proper sight-seeing so we decided to go to the main palace and temple area where there is a reclining Buddha and the Emerald Buddha (not really made of Emerald, but is of religious significance).

On the way there we were stopped and told it was closed and that we should take a tuk-tuk around the city to other temples first and visit later. Obviously after our India preparations, this con was so transparent that we had to laugh - What do they take us for!

We went anyway, as the place was not shut. The reclining Buddha was extremely big and golden and great to see. The temple grounds are amazing as everything is gold, shiny and sparkly.

Unfortunately Carl was inappropriately dressed so had to hire some blue (prison camp) trousers - hence the fashion disaster (although who's to say either of us have any fashion sense?).

One of our main wishes for Bangkok was to go and see some real Thai boxing, so we checked out the main stadium to see when we could go. Luckily they're on every other day, so we incorporated a late afternoon at the night bazaar next door to the stadium then got in early to get the ring side seats! We were very close to all the action, in fact right behind the refs and judges. It was really entertaining, they perform a ritual kind of dance at the beginning of each match along to some strange Thai music of drum beats and Java pipe sounds. The Thai's get really into their betting and bets and taken loudly and excitedly like the trading floor of a stock market with much gesturing and shouting. The boxing starts off very slowly with both fighters sussing each other out before the next round when they kick and punch hell out of each other. The whole event took around 2 hours with around 8 fights.

A big task we needed to do before leaving Bangkok was to see how we could extend our visa. Apparently it said in the book that we could extend it another month for a small fee. So, after finding the immigration place was and taking 3 different types of transport to get there (not including feet) we arrived just in time to get our visa before it closed. Unfortunately, we were told we couldn't get a month's visa extension, only an extra week. The only possible solution was to go to another country and come back, giving us another month's waiver. They could only advised us to change our plans and go to Cambodia while we were in Chiang Mai, this didn't suit our plans at all because we had already booked our accommodation and transport to Koh Samui.

After some deliberation we worked out we could go to Malaysia for the day instead while we were still on Koh Samui. Didn't really want to visit Malaysia, but there's nothing else we can do.

We spent an afternoon in a great big shopping mall called MBK (with aircon) with each floor having theme, for example one complete floor is dedicated to mobile phones, another is furniture.

Carl wanted a new watch and so spent some time looking around while Vik spent a few hours getting her hair permed straight (best thing that I've ever done) for 29 GBP, bargainest goldmine ever! In which time Carl came across a particularly helpful shop owner produced a watch from under the counter which is a very good copy of a 1,800 GBP Omega Speedmaster, just with the insides from another. So far it's very good and looks the business - another bargain at 26 GBP!

On our last day before departing to Chiang Mai we split our bags up and left the warm clothes at the train station's luggage storage. The rest of the day was spent filling in time before catching the evening sleeper train - thought we'd finished with these after India. Luckily they're a lot nicer and cleaner, but still couldn't sleep!