Arrived to a lovely warm Bangkok- not the 36 degrees we had been told - weather predictions as unpredictable as ever. H pleased though! Owen has been a star on the very long journey via Singapore. He was very excited about the whole travel experience. (We're sure that will wear off!)

Settled in after a much neeed, though often ill-advised midday nap. We opted to stay further out from the centre in Sukhumvit district to get a hotel and pool. Its obviously an affluent area, but still there's the fabulous street food vendors. We've slurped bowlfulls of noddles and eaten heaps of rice. Its' been great fun trying all the different dishes. God knows what the actual dishes are washed in, but so far, no upset tums! 'Is the food hot?' will be Hayleys holiday motto! H a little grosed out to see a huge, (really!) cat sized rat feasting in the bowels of a street cafe we ate in that afternoon - yuk! O is unperturbed eating at street level and seems not to notice the chaos of Bangkok.

What bugs him is attention. The Thais adore kids. Where in the UK we expect kids on the tube to make way for adults, the opposite is true here. They are very tactile with children so Shy boy Owens motto for this part of the trip will be 'I don't want people looking at me!' He has also, whilst wearing his favourite pirate bandana been mistaken for a girl. Big No No!

J as ever in in heaven in this heat - O a little grizzly and H half asleep!

We have already had our reality check that we're travelling with a young kid - the list of 'to-dos' in BK is lightly touched - much excitement goes into actually getting onto above road tubes and river boats - by the time we arrive at a temple a 4 year olds patience is a little thin. We did however find a huge buddha with serpents over its head that O loved so much we had to sit in there for half an hour.

We went to Chatuchat market on the weekend which amazingly puts Portobello to shame. Hayleys love of markets was teased as a) no room for extras in our luggage b) they wouldn't fit anyway - H not exactly a tiny Thai frame!

Our hotels location highlights the mix of Bangkok as its a typical international hotel, but theres girlie bars across the road and a chap selling fresh pineapple from his bike-stand outside for 20p. Anything seems to go here - maybe a bit like London? We're guessing the rest of Thailand will be quite different.

We've spent quite some time chilling by the pool. O has swum non-stop, H slept and I think J been dragged down to our level of heat acclimitisation. Gorgeous luxury ends after 6 days so make the most of it.

We finally got to the Grand Palace and temples, meeting the long trowser rule and ignoring the 'wily strangers' (who try very hard to divert you away from the palace and to god knows what). Met by amazing roof lines, gold leaf adorned walls and figures by the hundred, colourful mosaics hand painted walls. - a truly remarkable work of art. We left with the usual bitter/sweet feeling you have seeing such a gross display of wealth, but amazing work of art. Owen was sidetracked from utter boredom a bit by the fact that soldiers marched on Laos to steal back the famous emerald buddha!

We've had to have a few rides in those emphsema-indicug TukTuks.

Now we head off to the South for two weeks. we plan to visit two islands - Ko Libong and Ko Nghai. We will do the next posting in two/three weeks as there will be no internet connection on the islands.