Right, before I even begin to apologise for not writing for 1 month, let me first say a huge CONGRATULATIONS to Gemma and Carl on their engagement - Gemma you must be thrilled, wishing you the best of luck and I'm going to design your wedding invites... when I get back! Talking about engagements, Anthony keeps hinting about going into jewellers shops and stuff so I may have some news myself soon, and if not then it's going to happen some day so your all invited to my future wedding! Now lets get out of Rish's dream land and back to the adventurous stories of my world trip. Apologies for not writing sooner but it was a pretty fast paced 1 month overland tour that I just finished and I didn't have time to sleep, let alone write.

So how do I catch up on a month? I'm going to have to write it country by country I'm afraid so I know it's cheating, but I'm entering some past diary entries and backdating them. So if you want to read about the scariness and beauty of Vietnam, the mysticism of Cambodia and the last parts of my Laos trip then read the last 3 entries as they are all new. As for now, I am in Bangkok as you may see from the beepy dot on my homepage. It is extremely hard not to shop here, but it must be done. It is also extremely hard to avoid the street food as it all smells so good that you have to try it (well not the cockroaches!). Anthony flew in a couple of days after I ended the tour. I hadn't seen him in 3 months so it was a typical romantic airport seen when we saw eachother. We went to see a great (but pricey) evening show a few nights ago which was visually stunning - it had the traditional thai dances and festival dances as well as having scenes set in North Thailand compared to the sea-faring, trading South and there was a scene on the agricultural parts as well. They showed a scene of hell which all looked very painful and then the mystical plains in between earth and heaven with some strange creatures and finally heaven with floaty people and gods! Unfortunately, the day after Anthony got sick and he's been in bed for the past 3 days. So I've been drifting around by myself the last couple of days. What can I say about Bangkok? Depending on the area, it's not as loud as many other cities - you may get tons of traffic, but no-one beeps. Thais in general are quite quiet - they see no need to speak louder than need be. I like this about the people. Need I say the food is terrific... I'm catching up on my curries as I haven't had many since India. The area we're staying in- Siam (pronounced See-am) is shopping central - I didn't know it was possible to have 50 shopping malls within 2 minutes of eachother (no exaggeration). They all look the same after a while. I'm sure Selina will be glad to know that there are dessert shops everywhere. Soraya, work skiing weekend sounds great - I can't believe your company paid for it! Anthony says I look really different - healthy... must be all the sun I'm getting. Actually, I do feel a lot healthier than I was when working...I wonder why!