Bankok Ladyboys!

Ok - we're still alive! Been a while since we last wrote with any news, but made it up from Sydney (which I thought was a great city) to Bankok, which I think is a CRAZY city! Cheap as chips, but busier than Hong Kong and the traffice is nuts - 12km in a taxi took 2 hours!

We stayed for 2 nights in a cheapy Backpackers joint around the corner from Kao Sang road, which is the main backpackers area in Bankok, and also convenient to go see the Grand Palace, temples etc... It was clean, but basic, and we spent the last 2 in a slightly upgraded guest house, which has a pool and HOT WATER! It's scorching hot and humid here - 32/33 and pretty damn sweaty. Confused the poor buggers at the airport when I turned up with my snowboard bag!

You get hassled about every 5 seconds here. Tuk tuk drivers are a pain in the ar$e, and the usual scams have been tried by everyone - but we've been advised of them by mates and our trusty guidebook, so so far (touch wood) we haven't been done!

The food is err.... good - if you venture off the main streets, where you get noodles and chicken, noodles and pork, or noodles and vegetables for about 50p. The 'American Style' breakfast I had one morning consisted of an egg boiled to extinction (no soldier dippig here!), two pathetic strips of bacon and a couple of slices of toast......... not good! What is good is the ice coffee (hmm......) and the spicy beef salads. Thinking I'm hardcore with the chillies, I went for the spicy salad and consequently got laughed at for about half an hour by Kat as she watched about 5 pints of sweat run down my face. 45 minutes, 2 glasses of water, a beer, an ice coffee and a large glass of milk later I had the damn thing polished off!

We've managed to catch up with both Maz and Amar since we've been here. Both are happy and well, and both are getting married to Thai birds next year! We also bumped into our friend from New Zealand randomly while at a bar - it's a small world!

Drinks are cheap - with a 6.5% 750ml Chang bear costing 40p in the 7-11, or 1 pound 10p in the pub. You can sit on the street with a 'bucket of strong coctail' for 3 quid, which did a great trick of getting us hammered the other night.

Kao san road bussles day and night and to be honest, we're now pretty sick of it! We went to MBK today, which is a 7-storey shopping mall, which has everything you can imagine at pretty cheap prices. Once we've done the travelling around and end up back here I can see a monster shopping trip on the cards!

In an hour or 2 we're leaving Bankok (wahoo!) to head up North to Chang Mai, where we've booked onto a few 'proper' tourist trips; the trekking, elephant riding, bamboo rafting etc.... It's actually the full-moon festival on the 17th, where they make a big thing of it up there and have boat racing, lots of candles on lotus flowers on the river...... and apparently isn't to be missed since we've timed the trip so well..... hmmm..... good salesman speak I'd say! - we'll see. We also booked on a Thai cooking course up there, so prepare to be amazed by our authentic green curry when we get back at xmas.

To be honest, I'm looking forward to getting up there to chill a little, without the hussle and bussle of here. We checked out the temples (very impressive and colourful) and have seen the ladyboys, the thai boxing etc... so Bankok for now is done and dusted.

After a week in Chang Mai, we'll be heading up into Laos for a 2 day boat trip. It's a requirement really, as we need to go out of the country to renew the visa on re-entry.... I'm really looking forward to heading down South after that to the islands - Phuket, Pipi Kao tao etc... I can see some scuba diving on the cards

Oh yeah - saw the England vs. Argentina game last night- GOOD SH!T.... the boy wonder did good - slightly odd listening to the Thai commentary though at 3 in the morning! We'd been up Pat Pong earlier with Amar and Maz, and Kat got to experience the famous lady-boys that I'd been fooled with last time I was here! Luckily, she was fooled too.... so I'm not that blind/naive after all...

Seems we also beat Oz and NZ at Rugby too - pity we left that perfomance till we left!

Ok - getting hot in here and we've gotta get moving.... send some news if you have some!