Today was our first full day in Bangkok and we were to meet up with our group at 18:00 this evening, but Christina and I were woken up at around 8am in the morning by someone knocking on our door. We shouted "hold on" but they kept knocking. I went to open the door, but it was some drunk Australia guy knocking on our door wanting to get in, only to find that he was knocking on the wrong door.....what more can you expect when someone if just coming in at 8am in the morning, he must have had more than enough to drink that night.

After being rudely awakened this morning we headed out for some breakfast and then went out for a walk around the city. We had been warned not to stray too far away from the area that we were in as although we were in the safe part, the red shirts camp was still in the city and we didn't really want to go anywhere near there. We did see quite a high population of police and army around which made us feel a lot safer knowing that they were around.

Walking around the city we found a bar down by the river, Christina had a cocktail and I ordered a beer (no more cider for a few weeks, I bet). Lunch consisted of a banana pancake from a vendor at the side of the road and it was amazing and only cost 40p. As we were so hot walking around we decided to head back to the hotel and go for a swim before we had to meet up with our new group. In the pool we got chatting to a guy from England (James, I think) who had also been made redundant and decided come over to Thailand to go mountaineering with some friends and little did we know at the time, Julie & Damien were also sitting by the poolside but we didn’t speak with them while we were there.

At 18:00, we all met in reception, there were about 20 people there and I thought that our group was going to be massive but there were 2 Intrepid trips both starting from our hotel on the same day. We split in to our respective groups and headed off for our induction meeting. Our new group was a lot different from the China group where I was the oldest. The new group consisted of Julie & Damien (who we saw in the pool) who were our age, Alex & Kathy (who we had met for dinner last night) and Peter, an Australian who had just had 4 teeth pulled out today and was heading back to the dentist in 2 weeks time to have some implants done as it was cheaper to come to Thailand to have it done and have a holiday than it was for him to have it done back in Australia. Alex, Kathy and Peter were all in their mid 50’s. Everyone apart from us was from Australia (Peter was English but been living in Oz for 27 years).

Insurance details explained, passports copied and forms signed. The trip starts now, 2 weeks in Northern Thailand.

We all went out for dinner and then went for a few drinks. The first stop for some drinks was a street “mini bar” which was rated as the top 5 bars in the world, or so their framed article said. The bar was basically a trolley which was set up outside a closed jeweller on the street with tables and chairs set up on the footpath. The drinks were cheap, the owner was very sociable and the atmosphere was great. After quite a few drinks here, the older members of the group left to go back to the hotel and Julie & Damien came with us to another bar with live reggae music. Although Christina passed a note to the lead singer saying “I love you” just so he would mention her name, I forgive her.

This is a good start to the trip as I didn’t have many nights out drinking with the China tour and already on the first night here we have had a great night out......let’s see what’s to come!