After saying goodbye and a quite legendary 11 hour flight (Quantas are heroes), we were greeted in sunny Bangkok airport by a host of over-eager fraud merchants wanting to rip us off as much as they could.? Much to Dan's displeasure, J managed to convince him to not to hitch a lift with a Thai ladyboy, but to get a taxi for an eighth of the price.? The journey to central Bangkok was highly interesting.??We must state that a large proportion of it was spent looking in the rear-view mirror to check?that our?bags (held in the back of the?boot?by string!) had not deserted us 20 minitues into our 5 month holiday.???

We knew we were approarching our hotel when the taxi began to weave between dingy back alleys and pungeant pedestrians. Having said that, Boonsiri Place, at 9pound per person per night was suprisingly glamourous. That, in Thai means hot water and relatively clean bedding! It even had A/C which is a good job as we otherwise would have died from excessive heat!!

After Jamie's meticulous study of the travel map, we left the hotel to walk through smelly markets/Thai houses (it's very difficult to tell the difference!). Seriously, it f***ing stinks here!! Having got exceptionally lost on the road; Jamie looking helplessly at the map; Dan too busy taking pictures of 1) himself with Buddhas and 2) Jamie struggling with a map! After a while, we discarded the map and decided to embark upon our first tuk-tuk journey. A tuk-tuk is basically a motorbike wih a dodgy housing, seating 2 people in the back. We arrived on Khaosan Road, a backpacker's stretch with resteraunts and markets etc, and after a decidedly average meal (4pound between us, including 4 beers!) we decided to return to the hotel. This, however, was somewhat more difficult than we anticipated. It took 3 tuk-tuk drivers to actually find our hotel, leading us to believe that we would actually have to sleep on the street with a frail, helpless little fella with saliva dripping from his mouth and chin. Long, long day but a great start!