Recovery, Ahhhhhhhhhh

With Bangkok now behind us I did what any self respecting person who has been on holiday is wanton to do, relax. And relax I did.

I seem to recall doing little other than catching up on my internets and eating any manner of junk food I could find. This post may be lacking in depth but it makes up for it in shear honesty!

Now with this restful period behind us its time for some more kickass adventures, wooooooooooooo!

Bangkok comes to an end :(

Light streamed through the window on our final day in Bangkok. Our plane was due to leave in the late afternoon giving us a morning to look around Bangkok. We heard from a friend that the Chatuchat market that only ran on weekends was the perfect place for some low budget shopping so off we trekked.

The one thing up to this point that we were remised to have not tried was the Tuk-tuk, but thankfully the hotel had one which they used to ferry people to the main road. After getting someone to give us a lift to the station we set off in the Tuk-tuk. Now, we were only going down the street and it still managed to feel completely unsafe, thank god we chose not to take one through the much more crowded tourist section of the city.

We now had this whole navigation thing down so found ourselves dropped off at the market gates with much of the morning still available for shopping! This market was huge and I don't think we managed to see it all and that was with us walking most of the time, so many shops, and so many pet shops. Once we strayed into animal territory we saw tonnes of puppies of every breed in the handbag category along with a fair few labradors. It was tough prying ourselves away from all the pretty pretty animals but there was no chance we would be buying any so it was only just a sense of "aw how cute, look at their little paws, awwwwwwwwww!".

Several presents were bought and drinks were consumed in quantity; thankfully the market was covered meaning we didn't have to expose ourselves to the ravages of UV but it did get quite hot under all the covers, hence the drinks...

It was during this time of liquid refreshment that we came across teh tarik, which to the layman is pull tea; and to clarify things further it is performed in a way which seems to defy gravity with its awesomeness! Apparently Lena had been trying to find someone who could perform this the whole time we were in Malaysia, only took a month :).

Having wandered around for most of the morning we went back to the hotel and picked up the bags and took a taxi back to the train station where we caught our SUPER useful express train to the terminal. It was at this point that I was starting to get a little sick of airports, I was starting to wonder how George Clooney did it in 'Up In The Air', but I am going off on a tangent. Airports. The Thailand International Airport was pretty kick-ass with lots of places to eat but due to our awesome budgeting skills (LOL) we only had a few baht with which to buy food. We managed to settle on a place which somehow offered food almost 10 times cheaper than anywhere else and was somehow not being inundated with backpackers, trey confused! (feel free to say that last part in a French accent, I know I did).

3 hours later we were back in sweet sweet KL, just had to negotiate immigration which was fast becoming my own personal hell. As I was queuing up some fat arse-hole pushed his way through all the barriers by disconnecting the snap barriers and then yelling at people as they didn't immediately move to the newly opened spot. I was trying to keep composed, immigration tends to frown on a full on brawl in their lobby...

Another day in the airport done!

Grand Palace, now with Scams

With a few tours of the city under our belt we felt that it was our turn to have a go at it on our own; Lena & Jack: Gone Rogue. With visions of ourselves passing out on the street due to a combination of exhaustion and mall nutrition we decided to stock up at breakfast with a VAST meal.

As we were once again up early we had the foyer to ourselves, pretty much, so were able to run wild when getting our food. There was so much that I felt a table for 4 wouldn't be sufficient for holding it all. Upon cramming the last morsel of food down my throat and waddling out of the door we made our way to the bus stop to take us into the city tourist area. Feeling like we had the bus thing down we followed our route through the city, and unsurprisingly we felt we were able to see more of the cities sites this way compared to the tour we had taken a couple of days ago.

As we made our way across the river we decided to jump off a little bit early and wander into the main section on our own; in my eyes this proved to be more of a hassle than it was worth. No sooner had we disembarked than a "kind" man came up to us and offered us some help. Apparently the kings mother had died and the Grand Palace was now closed off to only Thai's so that they may pay their respects, it would open at 3pm; don't worry though, there was another tour of other temples they could help us with. It was at this point we started to call bullshit. If we made sure to get into a white topped tuk-tuk we would be safe and not ripped off. At that exact moment a white topped tuk-tuk appeared and the man offered to take us to a whole collection of temples for 20 baht, a steal! They had justification for this, as the kings mother was dead they were helping out tuk-tuk drivers by giving them all free petrol for today only, so act fast to avoid being ripped off by others.

If we were suspicious of being ripped off before, we were now certain of it; no country would willingly give away free petrol unless they have some unregulated brain injury. As a clincher we had been warned about this type of activity on that ripoff tour a couple of days ago; now as much as I hated the treatment of me and Lena on that day they did offer some sound advice, "if anyone offers a tuk-tuk for less than 100 baht they are trying to scam you". I feel like this sentiment could be extended to, "if ANYONE in Bangkok talks to you whom you don't know they are trying to scam you".

When the tuk-tuk driver finally twigged that we weren't going to use his services he got irate, finally calling us stupid for passing up such a great deal. No sooner had we rounded the corner on our way to the Giant Swing we saw that "kind" old man talking to a whole group of white topped tuk-tuk drivers; the git had the cheek to smile at us as we walked past.

Feeling rightly smug that we had thwarted the first, would-be scammer we set off with our heads held high and map in hand. Now I didn't realise this but apparently being white in Bangkok with a map out is like having a bullseye painted on your head. We had barely made it 500m before another "friendly" tuk-tuk driver parked next to us offering us some help; once again things turned ugly when he found there would be no fare today, Lena bravely returning his crude English swearing whilst I stood there and store back stone faced.

On our way to the Giant Swing this happened once more, this time the guy was being grade A retarded. I'm not sure if the That people have a poor impression of foreigners intelligence or they don't just get more retarded the further into the pollution you go. We could literally SEE the swing, no walls, no barriers, just a monument in the open and this guy was trying to convince us it was closed to foreigners until 3pm. This was getting old.

The swing itself was a little more disappointing than Lena had imagined. God bless her she had envisioned an actual 20m tall swing that people could literally swing on. In reality the swing was just a monument that sat in the middle of roundabout near to another temple. Moving on from the swing we made our way towards the Grand Palace, hoping to avoid more annoying scammers, this was not to be. I foolish didn't memorise the map before leaving the hotel meaning I had to occasionally confirm street names and get us on the right track, I wasn't doing too badly as well. Like a lion looking hungrily at a gazelle I imagine I made some scammers day, giant white boy with map looking lost; perfect. Unfortunately I was too strong for their scammer-fu, we were just saying thank you and walking right past anyone that was willing to talk to us.

Horrah! We made it to the perimeter of the Grand Palace but alas there was no obvious way to get in. To the uninitiated the Grand Palace is huuuuuuggggggggeeeee, and having to walk the perimeter was no easy feat in the midday sun. This did not deter scammers from trying their same tricks mere meters from the Palace itself. The longer we walked around the perimeter the more we started to believe that we wouldn't get in and that the scammers were in fact right; how weak of us.

Scammers were operating within a few hundred metres of the main entrance and were dressed like proper guides, and sporting the numbers for the tourist police; as if this act of honesty was somehow meant to make their words any less bullshit. I have to admire the balls to pull of this stunt: mere metres from the entrance; wearing fake tourist police uniform; standing next to an armed guard of the Grand Palace; telling us we wouldn't get in despite the stream of people clearly moving into the Palace.

With the scammers now behind us we moved into Palace and were told Lena would need to cover her legs as a sign of respect. The Grand Palace thoughtfully provided a service where we could hire clothes for this but AMAZINGLY people were trying to scam us here as well, the goddamn staff! We were told there would be a 1 hour wait (lies) and that we could hire the clothes across the road for 30 baht. A mere 10 minutes later Lena and I were wandering towards the inner section of the temple, feeling safe in the knowledge that there couldn't POSSIBLY be any more scammers within the temple.

After all the build-up of getting into the Palace the actual place itself cannot really compete. A massive collection of photos taken by Lena, myself, and kind passersby paint a wonderful portrait of the palace and all the various different sections of it. The pictures also show it to be beautifully brightly, this is due entirely to us showing up at the hottest time of the day when everyone else was wandering around the Palace jumping between shade like a collection of brave vampires.

Having spent a few hours wandering around the Palace taking in all of the olden beauties, shiny buildings and UV we moved off from the Grand Palace with the intention of catching a river boat down towards chinatown. On the way we sampled some hawker food and drink. It was as we were wandering around, slightly lost, we were approached by someone offering us to go and see a free museum. Being as cautious as ever we were presently surprised to find it was on the up and up. The wonderfully kept, and air-conditioned, museum told the history of Thailand and how it had amazingly avoided invasion during a time in Asia when you could pop out for breakfast and find a new government in place when you returned.

Feeling slightly better about our fellow man we headed off with fresh directions and a purpose; river bus. Although trying to find the river bus amongst the far more extortionate river taxi's was proving to be slightly more difficult, but after asking someone who wasn't approaching us first we managed to find the right place. Cruising down the river was wonderful, with the wind in our hair and soothing our obvious sunburn we relaxed as we waited for our stop.

Stepping off into chinatown was quite interesting, as we were nowhere near. To add to this chinatown didn't open until 6pm, so we were left to wander around the streets of chinatown for a few hours sampling bits and pieces where people had opened early. It was at this point that Lena decided it was time for a proper Thai massage, something I wasn't really interested in. For the next hour Lena was bent, twisted, and massaged in ways that would normally be reserved for pretzels; whilst all of this was going on I had my feet up downstairs being served tea by the owner of the place :). Once again we stepped bleary eyed into the dark streets of Bangkok, chinatown was really open and in full swing. We sampled some octopus skewers on our way out, the heat had finally gotten to the both of us and we just wanted to cool down.

Getting back proved much more simple than the last time; I was finally getting acquainted with the streets, shame we were leaving tomorrow. When stepping through the threshold of the hotel we just stood and admired the air conditioning for a few moments before settling for a couple of hours in the pool. It was whilst in the pool that I discovered I had the mother of all blisters, a punishment for wandering the streets for far too long...

Motherf**king Elephants!

This morning we returned to our roots, having been treated to a thoroughly splendid first night at the hands of the man running tours out of the lobby we decided that we would return to him after a slightly disappointing tour at the hands of the "professionals'; take note those air quotes were said in my head with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

Breakfast was large and filling, keeping us sated for much of the day. First stop on the tour was the floating market Thailand was famous for; being quite far out from the city itself the addition of a tour guide was a definite necessity. After a long car ride we were deposited in a tourist oasis in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere. The floating market consisted of a stretch of water littered with stalls on either side that was negotiated by an old lady; it felt a lot like the Cam in many ways, except with many more people trying to sell you stuff.

Now while we were on this river I managed to display a fine masterclass of haggling; people would speak of my accomplishment for generations! What great feat did I achieve you ask expectantly; I talked a woman down to 20% of her asking price, I... AM... A... GOD. Or far more believably is that the prices are so ridiculously overinflated here that if they were to ever sell something at that price they would be set for quite some time. After being whisked around the whole market in 45 minutes we were able to stroll along the riverside market where everything was suspiciously much cheaper despite being identical, what is this trickery?

As a spectacle the floating market was well worth it, but as a place of business it was severely overpriced. I still have no idea how they find people gullible enough to buy things there. As we were leaving it was revealed to us that the products being sold had all been bought in Bangkok and brought out to the river to be sold on to gullible tourists who didn't have the luxury to be able to walk away at will.

Shortly after realising that purchases made at the floating market would not be a wise choice we moved onto our next stop of the day; ELEPHANTS! Not too far from the floating market we pulled into another nondescript place which seemed to exist solely to entertain tourists. As we parked all we could see were elephants with little chairs on their backs.

After payment was made we clambered aboard the elephant and off we went. As we walked off we found out our elephant was called Patsup and our herder was called Jack; this I took to be fate! The further into the trail we went the fewer elephants we saw which is probably what prompted our herder to do what he did next. Jack offered us the chance to sit on the elephant for real, without the addition of a harness, being a little apprehensive Lena took the chance to go first. With our herder now walking on the ground and taking pictures for us Lena was free to sit on Patsup's head. After seeing how much fun it was and thinking I would be a fool for passing up such an opportunity I took my turn. Moments later I had one of the largest land animals betwixt my thighs, my feet nestled safely behind his ears. Apparently my positioning was not sitting well with Patsup who with a quick trunk grasp repositioned my foot to a more suitable location for the both of us. It was at that point I realised how easily the elephant could repurpose me as a flail but chose against it for whatever reasons, or moral code, the elephant might have. This was easily the highlight of the day, if not the trip to Bangkok.

With the ride coming to an end we were off, not before helping ourselves to some cold water provided for another group, mwahahahahahaha. And just like that Jack and Lena, master thieves, were off to their next location (I imagine us as the Asian equivalent to Bonnie and Clyde).

The next stop on our tour was not one that we agreed upon but seeing as we were a bit ahead of schedule our guide thought we might like to see some really kick ass temple out on the outskirts of Bangkok, its this type of treatment which elevated this guy above the vultures of yesterday. The temple was a little quieter than those we had seen previously, the buddhas were under renovation so tarps and scaffolding were rife but the beautiful temple itself and the gorgeous glazed tiles were in pristine condition. In addition to all this the temple grounds seemed to house a superb collection of trees from across the world with each trunk sporting an identification tag.

The detour proved to be a worthwhile one with some stellar photos taken, upon our return to the car we found that our guide had bought us some bamboo rice which had been soaked in coconut milk and cooked over a fire in the middle of the jungle, it was given to us in the bamboo it had been cooked in! The rice was quite starchy, very sweet, and generally delicious; I wish there had been more in each stick!

With our detour over we made our way to the final location for the day; The Rose Gardens. The place is a popular tourist attraction with large grounds covered with authentic Thai houses and showing people the way of life in the days of old. As we arrived the heat of the day was approaching its worst so we took some time out to try some of Thailand's desserts to try and cool down. The main ingredient I have found in most desserts in SE Asia seem to include ice and it was no different here. Using a combination of jack fruit, jellies and ice they managed to create a refreshing dessert that provided us with newfound energy, off into the gardens we strolled.

The houses themselves were very nice and well maintained, just would have been nice if we could have actually seen them up close. Either the houses are occupied in which case they are superbly maintained considering their constant use or they are laying there for people to photograph. This raises the question why would anyone willingly live inside a tourist attraction? With that question working its way into my skull we found ourselves slightly lost within the grounds, but the beauty of the place kind of diminished any sense of worry. We soon found ourselves back where we started and just in time for a cultural show and elephant dance. Now, had we visited the gardens before the elephant ride I would have been jealous of the herders getting to play with the elephants, but as it stood I found myself relishing in a sense of smug satisfaction that I got to ride on on of them; boom! Suck it, everyone else.

After smugly watching some elephants we moved onto the highlight of the Rose Gardens; the cultural show. For the next hour we got to see a cross section of Thai culture dating back hundreds of years, some of the best parts were demonstrations of Muay Thai and other fighting styles performed in Thailand. There was of course some flair thrown in by those performing but for the most part it was really entertaining with a bit of audience participation at the end, which Lena dutifully joined in with.

With the tour for the day done we returned to the hotel to assess just how badly burnt we had gotten during the day. Being as white as I am all the burnt sections came across as a nice shade of red. A dip in the pool was definitely on the cards. Not being a fan of aftersun, it makes me feel far too oily, we instead opted to take some of the heat of our sunburn by taking a nice long dip in the shielded pool. Away from prying eyes and destructive UV we regained a uniform body temperature... mostly. To the touch we were still red hot but that would be over soon enough, some peeling should see to that!

With our bodies now in a state of semi-cooked(ness) we felt it was time we consumed some cooked foods instead of becoming them. Up to this point Lena had been the one working the connections in SE Asia but I had something up my sleeve; a friend from my MET course back home was Thai and happened to be working in Bangkok during the summer so we agreed to meet up for dinner and drinks. Having not had much luck getting truly authentic Thai cuisine so far Mart (my mate) took us to an authentic Thai restaurant.

Stepping out from the Mini Sports Car we ascended the steps to a non-descript looking restaurant that proved to be tastefully decorated and exuded a sense of poshness (which is apparently a word, who knew!). We started with a small aperitif served entirely on a spoon, which introduced us to a taste that would be quite prevalent throughout the rest of the cooking; lemongrass. The taste is quite refreshing and is a theme running through a lot of Thai cuisine (I have to say I'm guessing this :) ). The next thing to arrive was an assortment of brightly coloured bite sized morsels which all had their own distinct fillings but all proved delicious, and served to wet our appetites. The main meal was a mixture of chicken curry, fish cakes, soup and a noodle dish. All were delightful and offered distinctively different flavours to those experience elsewhere in Asia.

After dinner Mart took us for a drink in a hotel bar called the long table. It offered an open air bar many floors above the ground. The real clincher for making the place brilliant was the stupendous view of the Bangkok skyline at night; full of colour and bright lights it served to remind us that the place seemed to seldom sleep.

Temple Tours & Platinum Mall

Waking up early when on holiday, urghhhh. Even so the alarm bells were ringing and we had a day to get on with. The tour we booked with the travel company at the airport was meant to be picking us up at around 9am so we felt it was in our best interests to be down and having breakfast by 8am, yay.

The continental buffet breakfast wasn't exactly varied but you could have as much as you wanted and we appeared to be the only people there, so the less the better! Settling down to munching we were approached by the guy who took us out on our tours yesterday, he had brought us some Thai satay sticks to have with our breakfast, all free and all delicious. Everything started to seem too good to be true, and we were about to find that out with the tour. I am going to say now that the tour was by no means bad it just felt incredibly rushed and this was topped off when our guide told us to meet us back at the car for a certain time, and she smiled as she said that if we were late they weren't waiting, bitch!

Well back to the start. We were picked up late by 15mins from the hotel but at least we were in a nice air conditioned car. As we pulled out from the hotel our guide turned round and proceeded to talk to us in clear english giving us some information as we went on our way to our first temple situated in the touristy centre of Bangkok. It was during this exchange that we realised we were conned leaving the airport, not by the travel agent, but by the trains! We paid 300 Baht (about £6) for 2 people return, but we discovered that there was an alternative to the express train for a total of 180 Baht; the discriminating factor between the 2 lines? The express got you to the airport an extra 15mins early, whoop de freaking doo!

Well as I was reeling from the robbery we approached our first temple, Wat Traimit. To the uninitiated the word wat means temple in Thai and is uttered about as commonly as the word 'the' as they have so many of the things throughout the country. The sun was baking and I could feel my skin protesting beneath my shirt, let alone the exposed stuff! The temple itself was pretty impressive and swarming with tourists, the main reason this seemingly average looking buddha got its own place was the fact it was constructed from solid gold. Apparently at the time of some invasion the buddha was covered in plaster to avoid robbers and subsequently misplaced amongst all the others, whoops... When they found out to due to some spectacularly careless removal men they decided an upgrade of temple was in order.

Leaving the place we kind of felt we were going to get a little shafted on this tour as it didn't seem all THAT impressive, this was swiftly bludgeoned when we saw the next temple; Wat Pho. Wat Pho houses the sleeping buddha, a gigantic reclining buddha coated in gold as opposed to solid gold construction, which would have definitely have bankrupt someone. In addition to its large stature there was some metal pots that give you luck if you drop a coin into each of the 100 or so; nice idea in theory but it kind of shatters the peacefulness of the place when you feel like a collection of small woodland creatures is performing their own rendition of 'Stomp' somewhere within the building.

As we left, boarding our own private tour car, we were offered to go and see the optional third temple. Apparently the fat Americans this woman was used to taking around usually couldn't be assed with completing the whole tour so used to skip the marble temple; over my dead plums were we going to miss out on something which we f**king paid for!

When we arrived the temple (Wat Bowonniwetwihan) really didn't seem like much, the only thing it had going for it was it was very white on account of all the marble, something that spoke to me (being part albino and all). We sauntered around for a while before begrudgingly returning to the car.

At this stage we were expecting to be dropped off because when we first boarded the car we told them that we wanted to be dropped at platinum mall, but apparently we needed to go round all of the sponsored facilities. We were kindly treated, at no rush (a first for the day), to two jewellery stores and a suit makers. Later when we made it home we found the suit makers were as bad as suit makers could get in Bangkok with many falling apart months after completion. So all in all, the temples were nice but those taking us around were money grubbing to an extreme.

Stepping from the car we moved across to Platinum Mall for some retail therapy but found the place to be quite expensive due to it being a retail outlet, so unless we were planning on buying in bulk we weren't going to see any savings; seeing as Lena and I didn't often have clothes that overlapped it was unlikely we were going to find any real deals. The main purchase of the day was some 3D manicured nails that Lena bought. They looked really nice but moved her hands from dextrous to art exhibit for most of the day :).

When in Platinum Mall we stumbled across another intriguing thing about Thai Culture; the food court. Now I am not one for much on Thai history but unless there was some massive change shortage among food suppliers there could be no other reason why you had to get a prepaid card before buying ANYTHING! Sure it makes things easier if the place were heaving, but at all other times its a nuisance, like when we were there...

Leaving the mall we made our prayers to our respective gods and attempted to cross the street to get to the Platinum Market. Haggling was well and truly on now! Purchases were made left and right, the nature of these cannot be revealed right now as I don't wan't to spoil the surprise for anyone who is on the receiving end of one of them :).

With shopping done we went for some relaxation therapy before retreating to our hotel fortress for the evening. Now, finding a massage parlour of any quality at the lower end of the price category in Bangkok is akin to closing your eyes and throwing a dart at a board... in the next room. As we walked down a side street on our way toward some sort of station we were inundated by countless places, deciding one was as good as another we trudged in. The next hour of foot and shoulder massage was passable but more painful than enjoyable, but this may have been down to the distance covered during the day.

We walked, bleary eyed into the darkness and found our way, somehow, to the MRT (railway station); ignoring any taxi driver who was offering to "help" us to get to our destination. Once within the safety of the train the journey was uneventful and the walk home proved quite easy.

Having made it back with time to spare before bed we headed back the way we came, after refreshing ourselves of course. Dinner was served to us around the corner from a 7-Eleven and was amazingly delicious. It could have been a lack of food and water all day or that those Thai people sure knew how to cook a mean Pad Thai; either way we were happy!

In addition to the Pad Thai we had some sour sausages which proved to taste truly awful, we weren't quite sure if they weren't just off. The whole thing soured us (HA!) to the whole idea of street food which was sweetened with the thoroughly pleasant experience mere moments later. Once our stomachs were filled we came across a stall selling crickets but we were sadly too chicken to try them.

That night we slept soundly till being woken up around 7am the next morning...

Ladyboys & Ping pong balls; Typical Bangkok!

I feel I have been spoilt with airports in my life, not airlines. I soon realised on the flight over to KL from London that I was missing out on a world of middle class flying, the days of being treated like cattle in the sky were OVER...at least until today that is. We were flying the eastern equivalent of EasyJet known as AirAsia. I feel I have taken a tangent from my original point; I have been spoilt by airports.

Now I am not going to claim I am well travelled, far from it (have I mentioned this is my first time outside the EU), but I have seen my fair share of airports domestically. There is always something about airports that fills me with joy, it's that sense of excitement about what lies ahead. I know all the food is overpriced and I can't even get a can of coke past airport security but it still manages to seem enjoyable; this brings me to LCCT, the low cost terminal of KL. The nerdy brother to the cool and suave KL International Airport.

To say I dislike LCCT is putting it a bit mildly. To any casual observer there may be no reason for such unfair treatment of an innocent airport but there is. My reasoning is twofold: having to have a baggage scan PRIOR to CHECKING-IN the bag and having no toilets beyond the security check. OOh I thought of another; having to walk across the tarmac to GET to the freaking plane. Rant over.

We boarded the plane to Bangkok feeling rather sleepy, having had to be up early to catch the bus to the terminal. The arrival was a 2 step process: Lena's dad dropping us at the bus stop at 7.30am; the second step was the 1 hour bus journey to the airport. Sadly once we were there we had a long wait on our hands as our airplane didn't depart until 1pm. To try and keep ourselves conscious while we waited for the plane. This involved a McDonald's breakfast and some McDonald's ice cream dispensed from a small kiosk set-up on the edge of the fast food restaurant. For RM1 we got a small whippy cone which was really appreciated in the heat, Lena got a slightly more expensive version called a 'chocotop' which involved dipping the ice cream cone into liquid chocolate and letting the temperature of the ice cream solidify it on the surface of the ice cream.

After boarding we found the flight went quite quickly as we spent the entire time sleeping, waking only when we came into land. As the cabin depresurised and we disembarked I was struck by the lack of humidity and slightly reduced temperature; it seemed as though the weather here would be far more mild than I anticipated, fantastic!

The airport on the other end of the journey was more accustomed to what I was expecting and I was relieved to find collecting baggage a breeze, if only because queuing at immigration took so long...

Once our bags were gathered and we had our bearings we had the task of figuring out how to get to the hotel. We decided on the cheap option of taking the train coupled with a short walk to our hotel. On our way out we asked for some directions at a tourist centre and found ourselves walking out with a half price city and temple tour for the following day, we were off to a good start! With our spirits rising high we made our way to the train station and booked an express train to our stop buying return tickets that we would need at the end of the week to quickly drop us off back at the airport.

Our trip into the city gave us a chance to admire the scenery and the very fitting temples that dotted the landscape. A brief 15 minutes later we found ourselves at the end of the line looking for our next connecting subway to take us to Sukhumvit road where we would trek on foot to our hotel. As we exited a kind man showed us the way to the station where we found there was an airport scanner for us and our bags, upon setting it off we had to open them up to confirm to the poor overwhelmed guard we were not harbouring any illicit device. Feeling slightly shaken by that little transgression with the law (apparently deodorant is highly dangerous to the Bangkok subway system; who knew!) we were once again on our way. The subway wasn't nearly as nice as the previous (and shiny, don't forget shiny) train journey we had taken. Lena, being all Asian looking was fitting in nicely whereas I was sticking out like a sore thumb but thankfully I had gotten used to all the glances by now.

Departing at Sukhumvit was an easier affair although getting our bearings was proving to be much harder. After wandering the streets trying to find our bearings we got a friendly Aussie to point us in the right direction. When we eventually gave up and flagged a taxi it was much to our chagrin to find out we were no more than a street away from our intended destination. Oh well.

Getting inside the place looked a little run down but we were to expect that from what reviews had said, considering the price we got on the room it was an acceptable price to pay. Once checked in we made our way up to the room, it...was...massive. Put any room we had in Cambridge to shame and I think it probably cost less per night and it had breakfast included too! Deciding we had had far too much time with our room we headed downstairs to start crossing some of our items off our list: ladyboy show and ping-pong show. Bang! One night of debauchery in Bangkok. The tour guide that operated out of the lobby was really friendly and gave us competitive pricing along with private drive there and back, we were off to a good start with this holiday malarky.

When we got to the ladyboy show it was packed with lots of tourists just as curious as we were to see these ladyboys in the flesh. Now correct me if I'm wrong but when attending a ladyboy show you are going in expecting every one of the 'women' to be ladyboys, this was a concept Lena was having trouble with. Apparently she interpreted the ladyboy show more as a game of 'find the pickle', with every new 'woman' on stage Lena explained 'she can't be a man!' as if the makers of the show were trying to get you to pick the ladyboy out of a lineup. Was quite cute really :).

Between venues our driver kindly took us for some food, the last food we ate was the McDonald's at the airport and that was a looooonnnngggg time ago. He took us to a small street shop and to our surprise, bought us dinner. Mind you this wasn't michelin star quality but it was still an unbelievable gesture I wouldn't have expected from anyone, much less our tour guide.

After the show and our complimentary Pepsi (yay) we moved onto the ping-pong show. Now when we asked for this the guy behind the desk said he could take us somewhere but it wasn't going to be on the list of tours, rather a more private, wink wink affair. When we turned up the place was distinctly less touristy than the last place, some might say sleazy. The appearance some places generate I suppose, but when your clientele are drawn to you so they can watch women do unrealistic things with their vaginas I don't think decor factors into things much. We paid and realised that in order to do everything we wanted we were going to need to change a few more ringgit. Now we were led to believe we were just going to be watching some mildly older women do things with their nether regions, imagine our surprise when we walked in on some acrobatic sex show. Thinking we had made a mistake we were about to head to the door until we realised that it was the finale of the show and we were just about to catch the next loop. What followed was the most bizarre lineup of women doing things you could only imagine or conjure up in your worst nightmare, depending on your sensibilities and sexual preference I suppose.

We left feeling rather dirty and were glad once we were back in a locked car heading in the opposite direction. Quite a first day.

Bangkok's Waiting!

Sadly not much of interest happened today unless you are some fanatical packing enthusiast in which case, enjoy!

Packing.

As we were planning on shopping and making the most of the loose hand luggage rules in effect we only paid for a single piece of check-in luggage with the return trip hand luggage packed inside. Apparently there was some ruling which meant we could get onto the plane with a laptop bag and hand luggage. Jackpot. Having only been travelling in the EU and never being one who tries to game the system I was apparently missing out on a whole world of additional luggage, I was practically salivating at the exploitation I was going to inflict on Air Asia, MWAHAhahahahaha!

I am way too excited about packing.