Hi All,

We flew from Chengdu airport to Guangzhou airport which took a couple of hours. We then had to wait 6 hours in what turned out to be the worlds most extortionately expensice aiport (9 pounds for a bowl of noodles, 4 pounds for a bottle of water!!). Therefore we didn't eat much, just found some chocolate bars and wated for our flight to Bangkok. We flew with AirAsia, obviously our bags were over the 15kg weight limit so we repacked everything and wore as many clothes to avoid the charge! They also gave us seats completely separate, Zoe was at one end of the airbus and me at the other!! It turned out the plane was pretty empty so we moved anyway. We saw a great thunderstorm on the way, lighting crashing through black clouds not far from the plane!

So we arrived in Bangkok, took a taxi and were treated to an hour of ballads while this Thai bloke sang along in his best English. "how do i breathe without you....." I think it is Celine Dion that sings that and Zoe and I concur that the taxi driver should leave it to her in the future!

We got to our hotel at 2 in the morning or so, and just crashed out after sustaining a number of mossie bites. Little cretins.

The following day we realised how hot it was. Even talking made me break into a sweat! Zoe and I were a bit sick of big cities so thought we might try to get out to an island pretty quickly. The Sky Train in Bangkok is airconditioned and really fast but seemed to offer the only escape from the heat as the majority of the restaraunts are on the street pavements/practically in the road and offer more air-carfumes than air-con!

The next day was far cooler, and allowed us to go to the weekend outdoor market - the biggest market in South East Asia. Mammoth shopping potential. I managed to pick up a white linen shirt for 3 quid.

Bangkok definitely takes a bit of getting used to, but we both found that the longer we were there, the more we liked it. Nevertheless after another day we caught the bus down the South East to get to Koh Samet Island. The beach was calling!

Rich