It's really quite surprising i am able to write this after last nights dice with death on a Tuk Tuk....(more on this later)
After the quickest 10 hour flight (thanks to front row seats with extra leg room, courtsey of Nicola's oscar winning perfromance at check-in) we arrived in bangkok and immeditely ventured out into the City. We had the pleasure of being conned first thing by a taxi driver who very 'kindly' insisted "Khao San Road too busy now, you go for seafood first" which we thought sounded a good idea (obviously after establishing they didnt juist serve seafood!) and fell hook line and sinker for the scam. This resulted in a rather hefty food bill, largely thanks to Serena's legendery 'heavy' tiger prawns. Sunsequent offers from Taxi drivers "you want seafood" were met by a group chorus of NOOOO. The Khao san road had great offerings in the market including the deep fried cockroach speciality, mmmm although it did seem a shame to pay when they were running around for free! The Patpong district was extremely seedy with "ping pong' shows in nearly every bar and making the mistake of walking down the ladyboy street is one that wont be repeated but the market was good and managed to get myself a rather special designer watch for 6 quid after lots of batering, in fact already we are bartering queens-Nicola now even feels the need to haggle with taxi drivers over 10 baht (equivalent of 15p)
Our first day was spent at the Grand Palace and Wat Poh areah, i have to now admit that i succumbed on the second night and had western food (steak and chips) still i managed to last 24 hours on thai food!! After spending the night at the Suan Lum market we decided to brave the Tuk Tuk back to the hotel, these are designed for 2 but we crammed our butts in-this was potentially a death wish especially as evertytime we screamed the driver got a demonic smile on his face and got more daring and faster but somehow we survived and live to tell the tale........
Next update on Puket and the islands to follow shortly.................................