Hey everyone, we're here in Bangkok and slowly getting to used to how mad it is. Everyone here wears yellow t-shirts and apparently that is becuase it was the king's 60th birthday in december and that being on Monday which everyone knows is a yellow day, means that they all wore yellow t-shirts to celebrate... and they are still wearing them, even when it's not monday. Sometimes you see a whole bus go past with everyone in yellow. (shoulda been Green)

We've been sleeping a lot at the wrong times and not at all at the right times, but in between times we've managed to stumble upon a really nice cultural park with lots of workshops with thai people learning how to make tissue paper flowers and so on, lots of speed walkers, table tennis, and on Wednesday night we saw some thai dancing and a drama about a demon and some monkeys. This was apparently very funny but as our thai is not yet fluent some of the jokes bypassed us!

Today we got completely taken for a ride ( blame the jet lag) as were informed by a "university lecturer' that the Grand Palace was shut and hastily dispatched in a tuk tuk to see lots of other temples. Before we had chance to draw breath, we had indeed seen lots of other temples, but in between 2 tailors a gem store and the house of jade. All of whom gave our driver a hefty commision to buy gasoline. Luckily we managed to not part with any money for interesting jade statues and in fact our tuk tuk driver stranded us before we had a chance to pay him too, so all in all, apart from the detours the day was very cheap. We did get back in time to see Wat Pho - with the largest reclining buddha all in gold. It really is amazing! But naturally all that gadding around tailors meant we missed the grand palace. However, we will be back to see it, and our lesson about tuk tuk scams has now been learnt!

(i of course found it funnier than the monkey demon situation, but that wasn't appreciated at the time either...:( )

Much more pleasant ride on a river taxi we came back to have usual tea of pad thai ( evan) and corn on the cob followed by coconut milk ( me) before changing our travel plans for tomorrow. We are now going to kanchanaburi and giving ko samet a miss.

Evan is very pleased with his new hat and I am sporting a pair of 150 baht ( 2.50sterling) birkenstocks which say made in germany although bet they have never seen past the thai border! Very comfy though.

Seriously, the whole holiday thus far has basically been about the hat, it rocks, wait till you see the pictures, seriously, mmm it's a peach!