Goodbye Australia...Hello Asia!

Thought I would give you all a quick update of my first 24 hours in Asia...

So QF1 Sydney to Bangkok, luckily for me Qantas decided not to strike! I somehow managed to bag myself 4 extra legroom seats (bliss!) and therefore the plan of not sleeping and trying to stay awake completely went out of the window!! 4 glasses of sparkling wine down, a full meal and ice cream and that was me pretty much out like a light for a good few hours!

23:30 and my flight touched down in Bangkok, immigration and baggage collection was simple and then the adventure began!

Lets start with the taxi...my 70year old driver was hilarious!! He was VERY excited and seemed to laugh at almost everything I said. He also seemed to find the fact that I had come from Australia really amusing and continued to ask me a thousand and one questions including 'you eat Kangarooooo?' ermm no actually I didn't 'you eat crocodile?' again that would be a no...next question...'you have boyfriend?' let's just say I didn't hang around on answering that one!!! but then it led to 'where your boyfriend?' so it appeared now would be a good time to just lie and answer 'at the hotel already' his oh so dis-heartened reply of 'oh so you don't travel alone?' amused me slightly! He was quiet for almost 5 minutes after that (which was nice!) until someone let off a firework in the street, making quite a large bang! He started absolutely wetting himself with laughter...and asked 'hahaha you thought you dead?...BANG' I think he thought it had made me jump, which wasn't the case but I decided to do that whole...oh just laugh along with him and make him feel better!!

As we got closer to the area I was staying, the streets were getting incredibly busy and there was people letting fireworks off left, right and centre...My taxi driver couldn't get through to my hotel so basically left me smack bang in the middle of Khao San Road with my backpack! At this point I had no idea where my hotel was, it was heaving and it was about 1am so full of drunk people! Awesome! Welcome to the joys of Bangkok!

I made my way through the crowds avoiding fireworks, not a clue where I was going, so started to ask random tuk tuk drivers. Everyone was helpful and about 15minutes later I arrived at Erawan House, my home for the next 3 nights and the place where I start my tour.

The lady on reception was lovely and she checked me in straight away and gave me my welcome pack from Tucan. My bags were carried up to the fourth floor where my room was (typical!) but at least it was en-suite, had a double bed, air con and a television! sweet!

I didn't get to sleep until about 3:30am and woke again (today) at 7am! I enjoyed just chilling out before showering and heading to the tours desk downstairs to see what I could get up to!

The girl on the desk was really sweet and suggested numerous things for me to do. I had already done a few temples and the Grand Palace so I booked the floating markets for tomorrow and decided just to wonder about today and see where I ended up!

So it's early evening now and I have spent my day enjoying the streets of Bangkok...oh how I haven't missed the smells! I headed out, armed with my map (which I soon realised was a pile of crap! and useless!) got lost and sweated my arse off in the humidity! Oh and I haven't seen much evidence of flooding apart from thousands of sandbags scattered everywhere! but too be honest...it's a crazy s*** hole anyway so it's not as if there ruining any scenery!! </p>

Now...one thing I have learnt is that I will never get used to that horrific sound of a local thai man/women/ladyboy, snorting back and releasing the most putrid gobful of flem ever into the street...I won't go into further detail...but is there really a need for it?!

So apart from the hideous flem situations the rest of my day involved numerous tramps, dogs in cages down an alleyway which, I really don't think I should have taken, random market stalls stinking of fish, numerous games of dodge the tuk tuks and a whole lot of Khao San Road madness! Some good news is that I did however manage to buy myself a new pair of 'authentic' diesel flip flops for £1.50! The exact same style that I had bought in Chaing Mai back in February and wore to death in Africa and sadly had to bin in Brazil! Can't wait to get those bad boys on my feet tomorrow! Oh.. but some tragic news is that I also discovered McDonalds here don't serve Coffee Frappes...really?! gutted! I had to make do with a 60p crappy iced coffee instead...tragic.

So I'm not sure what tonight will bring...possibly an early night ready for my 7am tour to the floating markets tomorrow...I shall keep you updated...wish me luck!

Ok...Bangkok updated!

I was up bright and early ready to head out to the floating markets. I was picked up just after 7am and driven about an hour out of Bangkok

On arrival I took a small canoe like boat along with about 4 other people and we were taken around all the stalls . They sell everything (most of which is crap but it's still cool to see!) There's canoes in the water full of fresh fruit and vegetables, canoes at the sides selling hot food such as spring rolls, noodles and rice dishes, and then there;s the gross canoes selling duck heads and rather smelly fish! Not pleasant!

After the boat I walked through more stalls on land, got attacked by a lady with some sort of balm who proceeded to rub this all over my face and into my ears, saw two random elephants in the street and nearly got a snake thrown around my neck-eek!

It was then time to meet back up with our guide. There was a Chinese couple who had bought some kind of weird fruit thing and they made me try it, finding my reaction hilarious! It was rank and left an awful taste in my mouth-yuck!

Before heading back to the city we took another small boat through the river houses/villages. The river was quite high still from the floods but not many houses were flooded. It was interesting to see how these people were living.

After about 45minutes we were driven back to the city and dropped off on Khao San Road which is where I decided to sit down for a nice cold beer and some pad thai!

It was early evening when I headed back and chilled out at my hotel before meeting my group for my tour through Cambodia and Vietnam. We had a pre-departure meeting and then all headed out for a meal at a local restaurant and a look at the night markets on Khao San Road.

Nobody was late to bed as we had to be up at 6am for a long drive day to Cambodia on the local buses...