Bangkok

As you may remember we took a flight from Luang Prabang on the ever reliable 'Laos Airlines'. The landing was pretty sketchy and it wasn't until we were safely on the ground that we admitted to each other that we weren't sure it was going to land properly! The plane seemed to come down front first and then levelled out as it landed! Phwww! Anyway that's it for our flights in Asia! They haven't been cheap but they've saved us a lot of time!

We got transport from the airport for 150b or about £3 to the centre of entertainment known as Kohsan road. We found a hostel pretty quick and quite expensive for what we're use to (£9) and it was the cheapest around. We expected it in the capitals though and we'd have to get use to it in Australia!

We started wondering around and realised we needed to get a new memory card before we do anything. We had a quick look around and soon got chatting to a Thai lady who was seemingly waiting for someone. She was really nice offering us advice and told us 4 main sites we should go and see. She told us that it should only be 20b in a tuk tuk and that we should never pay more explaining that there were some unofficial tuktuks around and how to spot them. She flagged down what she told us was a government authorised tuk tuk for us but we didn't take it because we were looking for a memory card. As we walked away we felt guilty for being so apprehensive about the lady. We got to another junction and strangely enough the same thing happened. Friendly guy starts chatting to us with exactly the same speech! He also flagged down a tuk tuk who was waiting nearby. We again declined the tuk tuk as we were heading to the shopping mall. When we asked the tuk tuk driver to take us to the mall instead he said that it was closed (on a Saturday!). This confirmed our thoughts of there being some scam and we didn't feel so guilty about the lady earlier on! We have met nice people along the way but because there are scams and people trying to overcharge us we are apprehensive to all we meet! Which is a real shame!!

We found a memory card and wondered around the area which is filled with shopping malls. There prices are the same as UK prices so no purchases for us. The airconditioning was a welcome break though every time we went in! It was very hot while we were in Bangkok! Can you believe that they've started putting up their Christmas decorations up in November?! You'd never get that in Britain (-they go up in September!). We just found it strange as it was so hot and the decorations were going up!

We then headed to the biggest market we've ever seen. We didn't get around all of it even! As we were leaving everyone stood still whilst (what I'm assuming was) the national anthem started playing. People were laughing at us as we clearly looked confused about what was going on! We ended up staying still as well, just in case we offended anyone!

We went down Kosan road expecting chaos but actually got people selling food, clothes with a few bars scattered on the street. We were expecting a drunk Brits abroad scenario! It was good however to have a wonder. We saw different things each night on this road. We saw a few lady boys but not loads - or maybe we just couldn't tell! Each night we were greeted to men making finger/mouth popping noises at us advertising a certain type of 'show'! Also every time the police came down the street, the street tripled in width as all the sellers would disappear! Funny to watch.

The next day (8th) we went to Chinatown. We were expecting it to be like new York's one but it wasn't! It wasn't great. The lonely planet also put the thieves Market in the wrong place on the map!! We walked around it a bit after we found it but by then we were too hot and tired.

We spent the next day shopping in readiness for our time at the beaches. We also sent another package home but unfortunately forgot to pack the painting AND Emma's cone hat was too big to fit in any of the boxes! So it looks like it's continuing it's journey! Heading home later we stopped for some food and got chatting to efea and Klaus. We decided to go for a drink with them at 2am!

Feeling tired the next day we headed for the big Buddha, got lost and hot bored of walking. Our bus was leaving at 8 so we headed to the rendezvous. At this point we were told that the 6am boat (which we were due to catch immediately after the bus) was cancelled due to bad weather and the next one would leave at 1pm. That meant we would get to the pier at 5am sit and wait for 8 hours. So the bus leaves an hour later and we arrive in dark at this pier after very little sleep on the bus (they kept putting good films on really loud!) Everyone sat on deck chairs and waited. The sun rise made it a little easier to take though. The 'bad weather' was anything but, the sea looked like a lake!! They basically only wanted to make 1 trip that day to save money - it's low season which sometimes works in our favour sometimes not...this was a not occasion!! It was annoying that we still got there so early though. Predictably there was a restaurant (owned by the ferry company) open and ready to serve us breakfast and lunch! Very cheeky indeed.

Bangkok was not what we expected in the end. We were expecting pure madness but we just got bored there! (well as bored as you can be on holiday!)