Well here goes with our very first blog entry!!!

Arrived safely yesterday afternoon feeling very tired and hot after a long flight. The journey from Bangkok airport was a bit crazy - moneument with photos of the King and Queen everywhere and the cars zigzagging across all lanes of the motorway without any warning! Our initial impression of Thailand as we drove to the hotel was that it was a total mixture of poverty and wealth with slums and shanty towns as grotty as you can imagine backing onto huge plush office blocks - very strange. There is an overwhelming smog and the city is pretty dirty and smelly but there is certainly alot going on!!

After chilling out for a while in the hotel we decided there was only one place to head for our first evening - the Khoa San Road - famous with backpackers and cited by everyone in the UK who had been here before us. What a crazy place!!! It's like a poor mans version of the Las Vegas strip, crammed with hotels, street markets, bars, clubs and all kinds of entertainment imaginable (quite surprised Jon hasnt been lost to one of massage parlours but there is still time!!). After a few drinks in a bar with a Thai band doing English music (Jon requested Oasis and the little Thai man obliged which was very amusing) we headed home to bed very tired! Our jetlag ensured that we would only sleep until 2am local time so we popped a Nytol each and didnt wake up again until 1pm - oops!! Obviously what we both needed. We headed out for the first time in daylight and after realising we had missed the opening times for the Grand Palace and nearby temples we were persuaded to take a tour of the city. This turned out to be a mugging off by a local who persuaded us to have a very expensive lunch! I'm sure he was on commission!! We did however manage to book our travel to Ko Samui where we will be heading tomorrow evening - on the night train so watch this space!! Jon is sure to be singing On The Night Train by Guns and Roses for at least the first hour!!

Something about Thai food hasn't quite agreed with us so far so the next few hours were spent on the toilet and diving for the Immodium!! Back to the Khao San Road this evening on the hunt for some non-Thai food as we decided it might be good to give the rat-burgers from the street market a miss this evening.

Tomorrow morning we are planning to be up for breakfast (which starts at 5:30am!) and then off to see The Grand Palace and other temples and maybe for a ride up the Chao Praya River. We are due to arrive in Ko Samui on Friday morning Thai time so watch this space over the weekend to see what it has in store for us!!

Lots of love to all xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx