Hello from Thailand, we love you long time. BANGKOK We arrived in Bangkok, like two eager and excited travellers, raring to get back on the road and into the full swing of the back-packing lark. Strangely though, upon arrival at our guest house it appeared we were in a scene more reminiscent of Magaluf and our hopes of re-visiting our 'simple' life were quickly diminished. The famous travellers Mecca of Khoa San Road was a 24hour party street complete with banging chooons and thumping base, not to mention the token 17 year old puking in the gutter. It was hard to believe we were still in Asia when every other face we saw was white! Anyway, after further exploration Bangkok was great, the best way to get around is by boat on the intertwining canal systems (if you can stand the smell) and on the river which splits the city in two, new from old. Most exciting of course, Bangkok was where we were meeting our temporary travelling companions Natalie and Daniel, two were becoming four and new adventures awaited. We spent 3 days in full doing the circuit in Bangkok, including of course The Grand Palace, the night street markets and a night at the Thai boxing......but enough about that, tell us about the lady-boys. It's no exaggeration that they are everywhere in Bangkok, a particularly butch and helpful one worked at our hotel who literally was just a bloke in a dress, who appeared quite often to forget to shave. On the same subject, we felt we owed it to ourselves to visit the infamous 'lady-boy sex' district of Patpong. It seemed to make no difference to the hundreds of touts that a) it was still daylight and b) we were quite clearly two couples, as they approached us with flyers for the various sex-circus acts on offer. The whole place seemed to lack the charm of a place like Amsterdam and everything was very tacky, although Dan was eager to see what a woman could actually do with 5 ping pong balls, 3 ribbons and a cigarette. NB: Dan would like to put on record that the Thai boxing arena was the same as used in the 1974 007 smash 'The Man with the Golden Gun'. KANCHANNABURI Next stop in Thailand was a quick hop and a leap to the delightful town of Kanchannaburi, a small sleepy town on the banks of the River Kwai. We found a wonderful floating raft house on the said river with a great view of the magnificent surrounding countryside. The one thing that has struck us most of all about Thailand (other than the amount of white people) is just how beautifully green everywhere is. Obviously the River is the main focus of the town here, as is the legendary Death Railway, the Thailand-Burma track constructed by World War 2 PoW's at the cost of thousands of lives. As the town itself was reasonably compact, we took advantage and headed out on bicycles to explore and admire. Nat and the 2 Dan's sensibly opted for mountain bikes which left LJ trailing at the back on her Mary Poppins front mounted basket machine. We also took a short drive from the town to a magnificent National Park which was home to a great series of waterfalls cascading from different levels of the park. Our reward for the sweaty trek in the heat to each level was a refreshing swim in the idyllic clear fresh water pools formed by the waterfalls. A scene straight from the movie 'Cocktail' - fantastic. No visit to Kanchannaburi would be complete without the trip on the death railway it is famous for. The trip itself took us over the inimitable 'Bridge on the River Kwai', made famous by a classic 1957 Alec Guinness film, but we can't seem to recall the name!!!? The track still uses a majority of the original wooden trellis bridges and cuts through rock faces, at some points the train almost slows to a crawl as it slopes through the unnerving canyons. A memorable experience, and on reading the full in depth history, also somewhat distressing, but extremely worthwhile. AYUTTAYA The former capital of Thailand and really only used by us as a stop over point on our journey northwards. We made a combined decision merely to just, eat, drink and relax. It proved to be an ideal place for all 3, easy to explore, chilled out bars and friendly people. One point that we cannot forget to recount occurred whilst enjoying a quiet drink at the very cool Moon Café. The live band that night had a limited selection of English tracks and offered the mic freely around the bar. Q Dan, who not only stepped up to sing a track, but also took the guitar and launched into his own limited selection of English tracks (i.e. Nirvana). On completing his mini set, the audience was demanding more and it appeared that the original band had gone home, so Dan had to wing it as best he could. Next, up stepped an Australian drummer and a Kiwi Bass player, with Nat & LJ as backing vocals and other Dan on Piano, we got the place rocking and had to be politely asked to leave at 2am....a good night, although Dan really needs to learn a more varied selection of songs!!!! CHIANG MAI An overnight sleeper train delivered us to the northern town of Chiang Mai 3 hours late, but bright eyed and bushy tailed. Chiang Mai is the supposed centre of Thai cuisine so we immediately enrolled ourselves in cookery school. It was situated out of the town on a countryside farm where we were able to pick our own herbs and vegetables, visit the local market and learn about the traditional ingredients. We don't want to blow our own trumpets, but somehow we managed to whip up the best food we've tasted in Thailand so far. The Thai red chicken curry was sublime. Beware Mr. and Mrs. Raw, when we return to Luther Street - it's a spicy one! Another great experience and another great fun day. We're making the most of our time with Natalie and Dan, because as soon as they've deserted us, they'll be no booze & fine dining, we'll be back to steamed rice, plain noodles and water. Our next stop is the small town of Pai where all many of outdoor activities await us and the action will really hot up. Step forward white water rafting, elephant trekking & jungle camping!!! Will update again soon. Danny and LJ x