Bangkok, by Nige. Landed in our little prop plane at Bangkok, there we met our friend Annie (who was joining us in Thailand for a week) after a little searching through the domestic terminal. Annie had just arrived from a late night flight from Australia and was very tired but eager to see bangkok and its markets. We caught the bus into town because we didn't want the hassle of trying to negotiate a fair tariff with a Taxi driver. As it turned out the bus was a bad idea. Our airport bus had a minor run in with a local bus which caused just a broken mirror, no problem we though as they pulled over to the side - be over in a minute. 45 mins later and we we all ordered off the bus and crammed onto another already fully loaded Airport bus for the next 45 min of standing and over heating to town. So Annie got her first experience of Bangkok traffic. We had decided to stay on Khao San Road but no idea which of the hundred or more guest houses to to choose from, so we went to a bar and rested our packs to have a beer and a talk. 5 Beers later we asked the waiter(ess?) if she had any rooms available, which she did. I was a little worried about the sign on the stairwell to the rooms prohibiting guests entertaining gay prostitutes or Thai girls in the rooms but we still took them (the ROOMS)! Later that evening we went back onto Kao San road and ate some street food bought tee-shirts and drank beer. Next morning we were up late Annie was up early and eager - It was Saturday and that means market day. In Bangkok on there is a very big weekend market in the North of the town. We could have got a bus there but for a more scenic route we walked to the river and caught a boat down past all the beautiful Wats and the imperial palace to the Sky Train (a clean Tube system on stilts). The Sky Train took us right across town above the rooftops giving us great views to the markets. The Weekend Markets are absolutely Huge. No way you could see every stall with out going mad. Or so I thought as Nik and Annie meticulously plodded through the clothes stalls... Decades later we escaped from the markets, just as Monsoon decided to show its face and saturate us. Sopping wet we got back onto the Sky Train and headed for the next market - Pat Pong! Pat Pong is probably Bangkok's most famous market , it is a night market on a street that used to be lined with brothels and sex shows. Apparently the Thai government had ordered all the brothels to be shut down recently, in an attempt to clean up Pat Pong. When we arrived all was quiet - the stalls were there but all the bars and all the strip joints were closed. This was weird we thought, the atmosphere is normally very hectic loud and drunk. We wandered into one of the only open little restaurants and ordered a couple of beers. The wrinkled old lady grinned apologetically at us with her tooth-less gums and squawked 'No Beeeeer, Buddha Daaaaay' - 1 of 2 days in the year where Thais Celebrate Buddha, and in respect to Buddha, alcohol was't being served and obviously Buddah doesn't approve of strip shows either. So We headed back to Khoa San Road and found a bar that was enterprising enough to use plastic cups to serve beer for the night.