So, I am finally at a desktop computer and ready and raring to update you all with the latest installment from the last few days! So let's begin at the top shall we: Day 1 of the tour, in Bangkok!

So both James and I were slightly apprehensive at meeting our tour group. We are both hovering at different sides of the 30-year-old mark, and had no idea if we were going to be the oldies, if we were going to be stuck on a bus with people that sing, or whether we would be stuck with a huge group of people, being led around town to town like the Chinese tour groups you see in London.

So we arrive at the Bangkok City Centre hotel an hour early, and wait nervously for someone to come and fetch us. More and more English, American, Germans and Aussies rock up and everyone is standing around waiting. Different tour groups are called out (Tour of Thailand, Island Hopping, Indo-China...) but still no sign of Bangkok-to-Singapore. Finally our guide (or "CEO" as G Adventures call them - Chief Experience Officer) arrives, and six of us gather around a table with a pony-tailed Thai man called Tommy. It is immediately obvious that he is a bit of a legend, and begins by telling us how he doesn't want us thinking of him as a tourguide, but as his friend who lives far away from our homes. Nice. Agreed.

We then go around the table and introduce ourselves (mega cringe) and our tour group consists of me and James, two Norwegian boys called Karl and Simen, an Austrian girl call Almarie, and a Canadian called Linda.

After filling in some paperwork, and signing our lives away, Tommy then tells us he will take us for some very local street food. And we all trek off under a boiling hot subway, to a very unassuming food stall next to a VERY busy Bangkok road. We all order a plate of what will turn out to be an absolute food-gasm (my sweet and sour chicken has now gone down in history, and all other sweet and sour chickens will forever be benchmarked against this plate.) We also all have the biggest bottle of Chang beer, and sip and chat and look around in awe. The is the Bangkok I had imagined. So the food and beer come to the grand total of 100 Baht (about 2 GBP, incredible) and we trundle back to the hotel for bed (well, me and James snuck down the the hotel bar to listen to the epic keyboardist and singer first, whilst I had a Mai Thai and Jim had more beer!) Then to bed to sleep before we officially start activites on the tour!