Sawadii-car - that'll be hello in Thai. After 4 days I have finally managed to pick up a few Thai words - Hello and Thank you! Worryingly beer in not one of those word but i can assure you I'm not missing out!

LEft Manachester on Sat morning, only a few mishaps on the way- managed to stand at the wrong gate for 20 minutes wondering why no one was else was there?? Needless to say it was us at the wrong gate! The transfer flight was just as daft at Singapore as they were sampling smirnoff vodka and Bailies at 6 in the morning!! We obliged and then got carried away drinking beer and talking to a random man and realised we should be boarding so had to down and run!! Anyhow we arrived safely in Bangkok and managed to find out way to the shuttle bus to take us into the centre to KhoaSan road where we were staying.

For our first couple of nights we decided to pay a little more for the room to ease us into the travelling life. So we thought!! the room was nothing like the picture on the net and the bathroom had a big hole in the inside door where it had rotted away! It did serve us well though as it had aircon which we were grateful for. It is so hot and sticky here! But i am NOT complaining it is fab to be wandering around in shorts and Tshirts at 10 at night and not be cold!!

OK so a little more about Bangkok - what a smelly place! every 5 minutes you walk down the road and want to cover your nose! Our hotel was right in the thick of it whch was perfect as it was close to walk to most of the thing we wanted to see and do. So after a night of getting aquainted to the local bars we set off on our first day sight seeing to the grand palace. The guide book had warned us to be wary of tuk tuk drivers who told you things were shut as they want to take you off to other places where they get a commission. So we ignored them all and went on our merry way only to find that it actually was shut as the king was in town! Doh - I think he heard we were coming so decided to come to see us. It is mental here - they all love the King. There are picture of him across all the streets and on special occasions all the Thai's wear yellow tshirts with I love our King written on them!

So instead, we managed to find a place where we shot smith and western handguns at targets. I was a bit gutted though as they wouldn't let me do a forward roll and then fire at the target. I'm not sure why?

We also visted Chinatown to the stinky markets, went on a taxi boat and missed our stop - twice! and finally got conned by a lady in a TAT pushing us to go to Ko Pan Ngan. We bought the ticket and for the rest of the day wondered how it had happened seeing as though it was not in the plan! Anyway it's the full moon party on Sat (which I think was why we managed to get sucked in) and we're very excited about it.

That night we took ourselves off to the Thai Boxing which was an experience. We sat our selves down in the virtually empty stadium and the pre fights went off. It started to fill up a bit with Thai Men and within 30 minutes it transpired that we managed to sit in completely the wrong end and were sourroucnded by 200of them betting and spitting until finally one of them told us to move as there could be trouble! At this point we happily shot out of there and skipped over the the other side of the arena where we passed a sign that said 'Foreigners this way'. How P.C of them!

Steve - I now know what you mean about not trusting anyone out here - We have been conned so many times now included by an 8 year old boy who charged us 100baht a drink at the boxing. It seemed the couple sat next to us only paid 40! Looks like they start young!

We finished the day with a whistle stop tour of patpong - the redlight district, with avery nice tuktuk driver who took a shine to us. He walked us through the area so we didn't get hasselled too much and then joked about paying us the taxi fare is we kissed each other!! Becky and I that is! Oh dear oh well he can dream eh!