Thailand

So wat dii!

"Hot, Humid, Busy, Loud and... um... Hot" are just a few words that describe Bangkok. We had a few issues getting here due to the international airport being closed, but we managed to wrangle a route through an airbase which left us with a 200km bus ride into the city centre.

Banglamphu (our initial area of residence in Bangkok) is a bustling, touristy, student-esque place full of very cheap rooms, foods and stalls selling all kinds of wares. It's a great little festival spot for a day or two with bars and live music venues dotted all over the show. However; sooner or later you'll end up getting fed up with the mardy British 18-30 boys on tour who seem to spend the days drinking in bars and then the nights shouting at Thai women or taxi drivers.

In the immortal words of Deffee 'Get the Northerners out of here'.

Day 2 and we realised we had fortuitously stumbled across a national festival to celebrate the King's birthday and being the generous King he is we were treated to seeing local cuisine (deep fried cockroaches, massive crickets, grub things...), to see the King's parade which was stunning, to hear a million Thai patriots sings the national anthem whilst lighting candles in the local park and to witness a Thai fireworks spectacle... and boy it WAS spectacular. The evening soon segued into a massive concert with several stages ranging from old Thai crooners through to trance raves, here we were able to witness Thai teenagers dance, someone needs to step in and teach them some moves I feel. We also watched the Thai kickboxing final where I'm fairly sure some hardnut Thai kid kicked the life out of a British guy... anyways...

Yesterday we hopped on the ferry to asia's biggest market which was clearly too big, we didn't even make it out of the pet section, then on to Silom road for some temples and religious dancing things. Silom is also renound for its Patpong Sois where all manner of strange Thai business goes down. We have yet to explore that end of Thailand.... We spent the rest of the day with a day pass for the pretty smart skytrain, and got to grips with public transport and the sights and smells of Thailand.

As per usual my time is up at this internet cafe so we'll write again with more exciting adventures soon.

Lots of love to you all and I hope you're all on top of your Christmas shopping. 18 days to go?!...

xxx