The Sweat Box

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We stepped on the plane to Mumbai, fearing the worst as we were in "shuttle class" (one below economy) but were pleasntly suprised by ample leg room, a plethora of films to choose from, and an authentic indian curry for dinner. With our dinner we also got a complimentary Hennesey each which went down a treat. After changing in Mumbai the second flight was more what we expected, a bit more cramped and the only English film on was "The Company Men", which if you haven't seen it is extremely boring. As the flight was a bit shorter this wasn't a problem and we were soon arriving in Bangkok.

No matter what any one had told me I still wasn't ready for just how hot Bangkok is. Our first indication was after landing at the airport at just after 7 in the evening and the screen saying the outside temperature was still 40 degrees. After speaking to some of the locals they informed us that it was the hottest time of year. After landing on the first night we had some dinner and a stroll down Khao san road and then got an early night.

The second day was a lot busier, we set off to find the grand palace and bumped into a local man called Art who showed us the best temples to go that were all free entry. He set us up with a tuk tuk driver, something we were't going to do as we had read some bad stories about them but our driver was fine. He was called Bung Me, and he drove us around to 3 or 4 different temples, one of which had a 40 metre high standing Buddha. There was only one catch, we were asked to go to a tailors and look around for ten minutes as Bung Me would then get a gasoline coupon. We went through with the act of looking through the brochures all the while thinking that this was the most pointless exercise as one it was so hot no one in their right mind would want to wear a suit, and two even if it was cooler your only going to buy a suit if you actually want one, no one is going to be able to talk you into it. Anyway after 5 mins we left and moved on to the grand palace complex.

Later that evening we met up and had dinner with a guy caled Ryan we had met earlier and then ended up getting pretty smashed. We went to a bar playing some live music, then leaving in embarressment as Pill had tried to join in on the mic, only for the lead singer to start cussing him to the rest of the club. After this we went back to Khao san and tagged on with a group of people who were going on guided tour led by two Aussies. Essential they were paying them to take them on a bar crawl, which i thought was strange, but we tagged along and ended up going to a club. The night for me ended their and i woke up in the wrong room back at the hotel with two thai people laughing at me because i had gone into the wrong room.

The next day we decided not to drink that much again after starting the day gingerly. We played some pool and then went out to the Golden Mountain, which was another temple. After a long winding set of stairs you reach the roof where you have a 360 degree view over Bangkok and you can really appreciate how big a city it actually is. We hung around for a bit taking in the scenery before having a whack on the giant gong on the way out. After this we took a boat down the river to china town. This side of town was completely different to the tourist areas, we didn't meet any other westerners and got some dirty looks from the locals while strolling through the back streets. We took the boat back to our hotel and then got ready to meet Supawat. He was meant to turn up at 8 and we decided to go get dinner when at 8.40 he hadn't arrived. After dinner we went down to Khao San again and bumped into Supa walking towards us, he had been looking for us the entire time. Apparently there were 6 different Lamphu House hotels and that we only just missed him arriving at ours. After a few beers he took us to a couple of local clubs with more live music. Both thai bands were playing heavy metal music, which was quite an experience, and despite not having a clue what they were singing about I really enjoyed it as the music was awesome.

After only a few hours sleeep we were up at 6 today for a day trip to Kanchanburi. There we visited the "best floating market' in Thailand, though i can't remember its name. There we were paddled through narrow canals on a small boat where there were loads of local people on their own boats, all selling the same crap. If you thought you were lucky enough to float by one of these stalls unharrassed you were then hooked back in by the poles they all had to bring the boats together. After an hour or so of this and then walking around the land based stalls, we moved on to the Japanese Prisoner of War museum and the Bridge over the River Kwai. We strolled round this for another hour or so before the best part of the day. The last stop in Kanchanaburi was at the Tiger Temple, a Buddhist monk run animal sanctuary where we could have a photo taken while stroking some adult tigers. We were a little apprehensive about this as lets face it tigerd are designed for one thing, to eat other animals. Once we got their though it seemed as safe as it could be considering what we doing and we had our photos taken with them. After a look at the other animals in the rest of the sanctuary, which included deer, wild boars and water buffalo (all wandering freely) a black bear, an ostrich and some peacocks among other things we got the long bus back to Bangkok. We are just killing time for a couple of hours now before getting on our sleeper train up to Chang mai, which thankfully is air conditioned unlike our hotel room.

Bangkok is an awesome place but after days of non stop hassel to get tuk tuks and see ping pong shows (which we decided against) I am looking forward to going somewhere slightly more remote. Chang Mai and Laos next. And yes we saw some ladyboys.

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