The commencement of the journey to the south-east of Asia started with a slight hiccup-it was discovered that the Vietnamese embassy in London had entered the incorrect dates on our Visas. Reading a few accounts from travellers,this is a non too uncommon practice, and that we would have to apply for a new one. This, the night before we fly! Emails were traded, phone calls were made, and luckily through the generous help of the Embassy staff, an official letter was formulated and sent to Hanoi AIrport. Rubette lover Alan MacDonald and Isabell' durkar' Dawson kindly supplied the chauffeur services to Manchester AIrport, where a good few litres of tear juice was expelled by Jasmine and Durkar. Meanwhile, a good solid handshake was shared between Al and Ronald ( members of the band 'The JAGU'). Issue number 2 -Anglo Pacific shipping sent me an email at the Airport informing a customs declaration form had 'unfortunately' been missed of the original emails and that I needed to send it to them otherwise storage costs would be incurred as it couldn't be sent to Oz. In the words of big Jim MacDonald ' for f***s sake'!. Luckily through the sublime services of Mr Redbak design, Matty Gledroy, this problem was resolved through some ' tinkering'! Issue number 3 - a delayed flight from Manchester to Heathrow allowed us 20 mins to disembark the aircraft, collect our bags, make it to a different terminal and board the plane! By the beard of Zeus, we just made it! The flight to Bangkok was marred by the lack of any entertainment facilities for Jasmin, and after four hours of enquiring about re-setting her system, we were moved to other seats. Perfect it seemed, until we passed a 10 year old kid and his mother who had free flights, and we're moved to accommodate Jasmin's need to watch movies! We asked for the change in seating to be ignored, but the head stewardess was having none of it! The looks we received could only be described as those of utter contempt! Oops. Arrived in Bangkok, bags had been lost due to the mad scramble for the flight in the U.K. With our backpacks, we set off to Khaosan Rd. The afternoon was spent frequenting some of the landmarks I had missed when I had been here with Beetle- The Grand Palace, Dignitary ceremonial centre, food markets etc. The luxurious smells of Thai cooking in the markets are stunning - simply incredible food. Jasmin would not have deep fried scorpion though... A few bars were then frequented, a few amber nectars had their froth blown off, ending in the best food we both have eaten - chicken Satay skewers and pad Thai from a street vendor. A good end to an ' interesting' start to the journey!