Thailand Day 1

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Here I sit at 03:25 tapping out our blog on the first day of nineteen visiting Thailand! Anyone heard of jet lag...

After an uneventful and surprisingly short flight of 10 hours 20 mins we landed in the heat and humidity of Bangkok at 16:00!

Thankfully visa entry went without a hitch, I think Charlie had the happy of the two immigration officials we encountered, mine didn't say a word and looked at me like I was a sex tourist (read deviant)! Though having seen my fellow passengers I think there might have been one, two or a hundred on board...

Once we had eventually found the Public Taxi rank it was then down to negotiating the fair to our hotel. This was surprisingly easy, partly down to travelling with a tired feisty Charlie and partly down to a possible communication error, needless to say whilst we were heading to the hotel we were happier than the driver! I think his happiness was also affect by having NO idea where the hotel was based! Initially this didn't look like it was going to be a problem, the driver read the address, nodded and started off towards Bangkok, however after three more attempts of gleaming more information from the same address he eventually swallowed his pride and phoned for directions, guess the Knowledge hasn't made it's way to Thailand yet.

One hour of A/C bliss later we stepped out of the taxi at our hotel into tropical rain (everywhere we go).
Thankfully this was our only dampener (apologise), as our hotel was as swanky as we could of hoped for. Obviously the first port of call before heading into the darkness of Bangkok was to freshen up by having a dip in the rooftop pool. Isn't it amazing that a photo in addition to being able add 20 lb to my frame(!) it can also make the smallest of pools look like lakes...

Suitably refreshed it was off to look for food, fortunately I had had my eyes open on our trip and noticed a side street only a five minute walk away which looked like what we needed. If, however I had needed the services of a dozen girls (or Ladyboys) then we would have been in luck... Personally I thought the bars looked inviting, but needless to say we ended up just sampled some street food instead. There's actually three Red Light districts in Bangkok and we had managed to find the smallest (and so I read, the cheapest...) one called Soi Cowboy! We then rounded the next corner and found a place to eat without any 'extras'...

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