Hello!!

Apologies for not updating and sending the link to you before, we have had problems getting any blogs to work!! Anyways, here goes: -

We arrived in Hong Kong after a painless flight and made our way to the hotel. Here we learnt a valuable lesson....Always check your change!! Luckily we were only ripped off by 60p by the taxi driver. It appears that some taxi drivers the world over are xxxxxxxx !!

After a good nights rest and noodle and beer fest, we started the next day on the main tour of duty. We jumped on a tram and headed to the Bank of China tower were we made it to the 43rd floor. It took a while to acclimatise, but the views of Victoria Harbour were amazing. Next stop the Peak (highest point on HK Island) which had similar views from a greater height.

We then headed to our first temple experience in Lok Fu (called Sik Sik), monged around Mong Kok in Kowloon (which was frantic with tourists and locals), and decided to call it a night after walking around for 8 hours.

Since this was our last full day in HK, we managed to get up late, and head towards the Monastery of 10,000 Buddha's. It was a good job that the 400 odd steps were lined with trees and Buddha's else Em would have sat at the bottom whimpering (not a fan of heights). The temple was simply packed floor to ceiling with buddha's of various sizes. Graeme ventured up the 8 storey pagoda whilst Em sat at the bottom with the camera...

Following this we made our way to the Kowloon Walled City Garden, which remained part of China when Britain held sovereignty. Having spent hours trying to find the place, Em got us lost on a monster skyscraper estate looking for the tube. We consoled ourselves with McDonalds. The final planned stop of the day was the giant Buddha, so we legged it to the other side of Hong Kong and attempted to make it before closing. The ride was excellent, although a bit hair-raising on the way over, and once we reached the buddha, we new it was worth the effort.

On the way back, we decided to take the Star Ferries from HK Island to Kowloon. The night views of the finance district were something else. We found a viewing point with a can of beer, and suddenly music started playing...Then buildings individually lit up, then together flashed etc to the music. It was the weirdest thing ever. Only in Hong Kong!!

On arriving in Bangkok, we realised that all the rumours are true. No matter where you go and no matter what you do, there is an old fella with a young woman.

We also had bad taxi river experience 2. We were trying to get to the Grand Palace and a taxi outside the hotel said he would get us there for around 2GBP. About 5 minutes later we arrived at a tailors for a "looky looky", so that he would get his 5$ voucher. Not impressed. We had to sit in a tailors and thumb through a brochure, until finally we were released. He then took us to the river boat, but the one which cost around 8 times as much as the public one. When we turned round to find the right station, matey was waiting for his kickback from the boat people. Lame.

We eventually made it to the right pier and made our way up the river to the palace. The temples within the palace were stunning, with gold leaf and mirrors from floor to roof of the buildings. We then tried to get in the palace but were unable to for some state occasion.

Before heading to the Giant reclining Buddha, we stopped off at a street market for lunch, which has made us apprehensive about Thai food since the chicken noodle came with squid legs (neither of us eat anything piscine!! ). After this slight trauma, we headed to the reclining Buddha which was bigger than we had thought and then took a tuk-tuk (3 wheeled taxi) to Pat-Pong, the infamous red light district. We were quite surprised since most of the filth is actually on the first floor, and not as bad as Amsterdam.

Yesterday was a classic, since Em persuaded Graeme to do nothing!! We had a few beers, played "Open the Box" (a variation on the Classic 3 Tuns game), saw a few lady-boys and generally relaxed.

Today we've been to Attatuya, the old capital of Thailand. This has been probably the highlight of Thailand so far, since most of the buildings dated back 6-700 years.

Tomorrow, we head east to Nam Tok, a few miles away from the Bridge over the River Kwai. We'll be staying there a few days before heading south by boat to Koh Tao. Graeme will hopefully be doing some diving, then the plan is on to Koh Samui, Krabi and Phuket.

We'll update more frequently now that we have got the thing up and running.

Emily & Graeme.

PS. Should have bought that She-Wee, still can't work the toilets out!