Sa Wat Dii Krap!

Hello again folks! Well another week has passed and we are still here in Bangkok! Thankfully we leave Bangkok this evening and we have to catch an overnight sleeper train down to Champon where we catch a ferry to the island of Ko Tao. The journey is going to take us 14 hours! So why have we been here for so long you ask? Well basically Kerry and I have both suffered with pretty poor health for the past week and between us we have been to the hospital three times and spent a fair amount of money on treatment. Whilst we weren't feeling great we wanted to stay in an area that we knew had good health care. Thankfully, touch wood, we are both feeling much better now and are ready to head off and start having some fun again!

That isn't to say we haven't seen or done anything this week. We have been to a famous temple (Wat) here called Wat Pho. We paid a really funny and friendly tour guide called Tong to take us around and give us some information on the images and history of the place. Wat Pho (or Wat Phra Chetuphon as it is known locally) is famed for the massive 'Reclining Buddha' it houses. At 46 meters long and 15 meters high, this gold-plated Buddha image depicts the Buddha's passing into Nirvana. It's highly ornate and a genuine spectacle - genuinely worth seeing. The Buddha image's eyes and feet are decorated with mother-of-pearl and carvings in the feet depict the '108' characteristics of Buddha.

Wat Pho has considerable historical significance. Covering an area of around 20 acres, it is the largest Wat in Bangkok, and built two centuries before Bangkok became the capital, it is also the oldest. The Wat was rebuilt by King Rama I when Bangkok became the country's capital. The temple is also regarded as being Thailand's first university, being the first institution to provide education to the public.

A few nights ago we visited an area near Siam Square called Sukhumvit, which is famously known as the sex tourist area of Bangkok. The area is a strange mix of expensive looking hotels situated right next to a street literally covered in Go Go Girl bars. We had been told to check out something there called the Nana Entertainment Plaza, which basically looks like a three story shopping mall consisting entirely of strip clubs and girly bars. Kerry and I thought it was hilarious seeing all the old men perving on the pretty girls so we decided to sit in an outdoor bar and kill a few hours people watching at all the freaks. The area seems to cater for people of all sexual perversions. The most harrowing thing we saw was a bar called Lollypop that was using clearly underage girls to entice people in, the youngest could only have been about 9 and was dressed very provoctatively. Nearly half of all the adult girls were ladyboys, although they were very pretty and you could easily be fooled if you'd had a few pints!

The rest of our time has been spent pampering ourselves getting cheap massages and watching all the latest Premiership football matches in the evening. Arsenal are getting off to a good start this season unlike poor Kerry's Villa who remain a frustrating team to watch! (Sorry Kerry)

Once again our apologies for such a short and relatively dull entry, we shall hopefully have some more fun things to update you all with next week from the island. We are hooking up with Frodo, our dive master from Oz, and also Pegah and Maria who we made friends with in our first week here in Bangkok. We should also get a few more dives under our belts and fingers crossed we're lucky and get to see a whale shark or some manta rays!

Speak to you all soon!

Khap khun krappe (thankyou)