Today started a little bleary eyed and just coming up to 12!! i know i know late for a backpacker!! But we meade the best of a bad start and headed stright out to find the museum of Jim Thompson - a brit guy who came to thailand after wrold war 2 and saved the silk industry and made it what it is today!! (not sweaty chop shops but the finest stuff). They ahave preserved his house and man it is stunning!!! Only found our way after i got us lost!! by getting off at the wrong station, which sarah knew all along but wanted to see my face when i realised!! hmph!!! Then i said we'd walk to next station where we were suppose to get off to save the 20p!! another bad idea, we ended up at the wrong station!! Sweaty, grumpy and slightly hungover were not a good combo!!!

Anywho, finally got there and the place was amazing!! He kept all the traditions of thai house buling and raised the old houses off the floor as they would do to avoid flooding!! Everything is just as he left it at 61, as he went to malaysia for a walk and was never seen again!! quite spooky, as he was born in the year of the horse and this means that 61 is a very bad number for him!!! Chinese rules!! The pics can explain so much more than me, but bear in mind that this place is down a back lane, about 1 minute from the main skyline train!!! Unreal!!!

After this we headed off to see a temple calledWat Sekat, as we had no idea where the giant swing was and niether did any taxi driver!! On arrival after a few near death experiences, gave the driver a 100 baht note to cover a 60 baht fare- he had no change so out the taxi he got, went and brought an ice cream, then came back and gave me the ice cream plus 35 baht!!! Didnt really want it but anywho!!

Temple was gorgeous and it seems that monks study here as they have loads of accomodation set up for them. The views we spectactular and after about an hour there we headed off in search of a monument commisioned by the king.

On foot bangkok is one big place, when we arrived at the monument it was nothing more than a few statues on a very busy very busy roundabout so no chance of good pics and no real chance of crossing to see it if you valued your life as cars, mopeds, bikes and tuk tuks dont stop!!! So we headed off to find a river boat.

Many annoying tuk tuk drivers later, stopping us, engaging us in pointless chitter chat and then trying to lure us to shops to buy things we came to what we thought was a food market - no but it was an outdoor sainsubury but with odd dodgy food!! me thinks not one place for a westerner!! As i was about to see!!

Due to having camera and expenive things in my bag i carried it on my front, like a german!! this backfired as we walked through a pigeon littered pathway only for an old woman to slide popcorn curnels between me and the bag. Igave them back, only for her to now use my open hand to place 3 open bags on, as i tried to giv these back her accomplish a slightly older guy, tipped my hand, thus feeding the pigeons!! Sarah by this point hd ran away and was standing a good 20m away (cheers for the support!!). This is where it turned quite ugly and scary!! Due to ME tipping this feed on the floor i now owed the 2 of them 150 baht!!! The woman stood if front of me, screaming at me, the guy stood to my right so if i turned i'd bump into him, also saying "give her the money!!" Sarah still nowhere to be seen. So i tried to fob them off with some coins - 30 baht or something, but this was thrown back at me!!! As i tried to walk off they both stood in my way, now not wanting to get arrested for knocking them to the floor on purpose or by accident, i decided to cough up 50 baht!! less than a quid to me and much less than getting robbed of everything!! Good samaritan good plan!? Not soo....

The man proceded to bump me and as i got out a 100 note took it off me and gave it to the woman who imediatly placed it her bum bag, no seeing that again!! so i said that was it, with some vulgar language i now regret, but still they wanted the extra 50. To my surprise the old man grabed a 500 note out of my wallet and went to hand it to the woman!! This was the point of no return, so id di what i should of done from the off, grabed the money back whilst raising my arm to him and shoved my way past!! NO attmept to now stop me!! Shaken and still feeling pretty crap i managed to relax a little bit.

Thing it taught me is - there are so many people in this country that will work as hard as they can for their money, and even do very dodgy jobs for it, ping pong rings a abell. That you sometimes feel sorry for them, and want to gve them more than ask for, and you do. But then the other hand people do take advantgae of you casue of your skin colour and just assume they can pretty much rob you!!! These 2 people changed my view of thai people but not on th whole but showed me they are just like english, good and bad mixed in!!!

Plan tonight is to head to china town for food and stuff and see the sights, or maybe head to Pat pong, the sleazier end of town, but sarah really does wanna see a lady boy!! no idea why!! shall updated the pics and tongihts info soon!!!