Sa wat dii kha! (hello)

Well, it's official official, I'm gone! Got on that plane and touched down in a completely different world.

Thailand is beautiful, I think I may be in love. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the lights....it's fantastic.

We arrived at the airport yesterday afternoon, without a place to stay or any idea of where we were. After talking to some tourist reps inside the airport and deciding that we didn't want to spend the amount they were asking for a twin room for one night, we took a taxi into Bangkok (the airport is just outside of it) to Th Khao San road; a back-packers haven of guesthouses, bars and clubs, to try our luck at finding somewhere to stay. We ended up in a cheap, yet pretty nice basic room, right next to the strip, and after a change of clothes to freshen up, we headed out for a bit of exploring.

What can I say?

The city is like a combination of a hundred other places, and yet something entirely new and exciting in its own right. The smells of cooking batter and meat fill your nostrels, wafting over from the hundreds of little food stalls dotted all over the roads. We decided to sample some vegetable spring rolls (3 large rolls sliced up came to 25B - about 45p!), which came with skewers to eat them with and were covered in Thai sweet chilli sauce - my favourite as some of you will know, but extremely spicy!
Like in many african countries and other asian countries you get a bit of hassle from people on the street trying to sell you things, but they are easy to ignor or politely say no to, and if you keep a smile on your face then everyone is extremely accomodating and friendly.

We eventually stopped for a cocktail each in a little bar on the strip, where I had something called 'bubblegum' that turned my tongue bright green! We were then approached by the CUTEST 8 year old girl selling roses. We declined her offer at first to buy one of her flowers. In reply, she challenged max to a thumb war and told him that if he beat her he didnt have to buy a flower, but that if he did, he would have to pay 20B. This turned into a pretty energetic affair (she was suprisingly good!) and in the end the defeated Max (who by this point was pretty much crippled with laughter anyway) handed over the 20B to the victorious (and somewhat smug) little girl. She then challenged me just for fun and I was also defeated, but she gave me a kiss on the cheek as she left, so I have to admit, she wasn't a bad winner!
After that we went back to the room and were lulled to sleep by the sounds of jolly kareoke singers in the bar next door. Although somebody completely murdered 'dont speak' by No doubt.

This morning we checked out of the guesthouse and decided to go for a walk and explore the city a bit more. In the light of day, the city takes on a whole new look. Hot, dusty and with visible fumes coming from the hundreds of cars, taxis and tuk-tuks that zoom in and out of traffic. However, rather then be off-putting, the city takes on a charming quality, as if a new and exciting adventures awaits you around every corner. We walked to the water front in the hope that we could rent a boat and visit the floating markets, but we'll have to hit that when we get back because they're only on sat and sundays. Instead we ended up eating breakfast in a small 'coffee' shop and getting the waitresses to teach us a few Thai phrases and pronounciation skills!

After that we by chance happened upon a T.A.T rep (Tourist Authority of Thailand) who arranged us a government run tuk-tuk to take us around some of the smaller temples. All of the bigger temples were shut today, in honour of the Kings sister who recently died, so we will have to visit the bigger ones when we get back too. Amazingly for us though, at the moment (in fact today is the last day) Thailand is offering a special tourist promotional deal to try and encourage tourists back into the country, so paying for a driver to take us everywhere and wait for us in each spot only cost 40B! We tipped him a little though because he was lovely. The temples were beautiful, covered in gold leaf and coloured plastic. we went inside one to pray and I did actually feel really at peace when I came out of it. We also went to these special gardens where I was given some little live birds in a cage, which I was told to release into the garden to bring prosperity and luck into my luck! Lets hope it worked!

After that we got our driver to take us to the T.A.T official building, and with them booked (under this same cheaper promotional scheme) all our travel, accomodation and a 3 day treck which will take up all of our time for the next week and a bit. So, watch this space!!