THAILAND BANGKOK - part 1 (15 Dec - 18 Dec) We arrive in Bangkok at 5.30 am on the overnight bus, which does the usual trick of dropping us miles from anywhere so that we have to let the local transport make some cash out of us. However despite having the cash and being willing to pay we are unable to find a cab driver willing to take us into the City! We eventually persuade one to take us into town in his pimp-mobile but he will not put the meter on, so he names his price and we have no choice but to get in - not a great start but he drops us off right outside the hotel we want to stay at, despite us not being sure of where it is. When we arrive there is a rather off-putting FULL sign on the reception counter and the area is littered with knackered looking backpackers but after some discussion and unusual levels of politeness from Mark he manages to bag us the last room in the hotel (so they said anyway) which is a result as they let us check in straight away, always handy after an overnight bus journey. After a power nap we set off to explore Bangkok but only make it as far a Khao San Road just around the corner from our hotel. Welcome to the backpacker mecca of south east Asia, this place is madness and we love it. There are hundreds of stalls selling all sorts of stuff, you name it and you can get it here: clothes, DVDs, thai-tack, fake dreadlocks for that real traveller look, a new driving licence or degree certifcate (we just opted for new student ID cards (Students? thirtysomething and married? yeah right!!). Plus there are quite a few bars, which is handy, so we spend the day wandering up and down Khao San buying junk and getting drunk. At night we visit a bar on the street that is made out of a Volkswagen Camper Van (The Volk Bar) for a couple of cocktails before having our first 'Pad Thai' experience - gorgeous noodle dishes cooked by street vendors and sold at about 40p - it becomes our staple diet for the rest of our time in Bangkok. We pass on the assorted fried insects (see pictures) - totally disgusting and wrong! We actually made it off Khao San Road the following day as we had booked a trip which begun in the morning at the floating market about an hour out of the city. To get to the market we took a journey in a longtail speed boat. Mark gets very giddy remembering seeing it in a James Bond film... sure enough this was where they filmed the 'Man with the Golden Gun', which went down quite well with us obviously. The market was OK but v touristy rather than the genuine article and tourist tax was in full force here so no bargains to be had. After that we went on to see the Bridge over the River Kwai stopping at the cemetery and museum nearby which was really interesting. The bridge is pretty high and they let people walk across it - no health and safety concerns naturally - which is one of the things that is so cool about Asia as they would never let you do half the stuff you can do here at home. We were pretty sure that a few tourists would have taken a tumble off the bridge into the water over the years and yet there are still no safety rails or notices or anything - quality, the Thai people are nuts. Last stop on the tour was the 'tiger temples' which we were both really excited about having heard great reports from a few people we had met. Basically this is a place where a group of monks look after wild tigers which have over the years become tame enough to allow visitors to stroke them - we were quite intrigued to see this for ourselves as it was hard to imagine what it would be like. When we arrived at the park and had to sign a disclaimer to state that it would be our own stupid fault if we got our head bitten off by a tiger, the fear started to set in a little. When the 2 Aussie guys who were on our tour pointed out that it was the end of the day and the tigers might be getting hungry, we started getting a bit more twitchy... Anyway, no time to dwell on whether or not we would make it out alive as the last session of the day where you could stroke the tigers was drawing to a close so we had to hurry down to where they were kept. This place was a bit surreal as we were expecting to see temples rather than a huge pit with about 50 people stood infront of 8 or 9 huge full grown (apparently tame?!!!) tigers which were admittedly collared and chained but on long chains so that they were pretty free to roam about should they decide to. Mark was really excited to go in and stroke the tigers (see photos), Sarah was less enthused (again, see photos) however before we had really had time to think about it one of the keepers had grabbed each of us and walked us into the enclosure... It is kind of hard to describe what it feels like to stroke a tiger, as you can probably guess you don't mess with a tiger, especially one which starts to carry on and growl as soon as you touch it as both of ours did, however it is fair to say our experiences differed, as Sarah was petrified whereas Mark managed to really enjoy himself - even if he did accidently sit on the tail of a particularly grumpy tiger - not a good move! Mark ended up stroking nearly all of the tigers before walking one of them up for its dinner, just like he was taking a dog for a walk. A truly strange experience. Again, not quite sure that the tiger temple would pass the old Health and Safety regulations in the UK but that is half the fun. All in all it was a pretty eventful and great day; even if we did loose the cricket that day (and got ribbed by the Aussies of course!).