Greetings from Thailand

Hello Everyone!

Just about got the the end of our first weeks travelling and what an exciting week its been! We thought we were in for a rest after the last few hectic weeks at work....but then we arrived in Bangkok the most hectic place in the world. Fortunately the hotel we had booked was lovely which just about gave us the energy we needed to manoeuvre 6 lanes of traffic, 100 market stalls and thousands of tuc tucs which is pretty much what you have to face to get anywhere in Bangkok.

Day one was very uneventful as we had just travelled for 16 hours so we looked and felt ruff as old boots so short walk around some drinks (including drinks on a petrol forecourt?!) and something nice to eat was the order of the day. Day 2 was A LOT more eventful...by 10am we had managed to be persuaded by a friendly "English teacher" that the places we wanted to go to were all closed because it was the king's birthday so we got in the handy tuc tuc that appeared as if by magic and got whisked off....only to realise that we were actually in the process of being conned into buying fake jewels in a notorious Bangkok scam. After Alex shouted at the driver he evicted us with a cheery "fcuk you and a ball of spit" and dumped us on the other side of the city. (Alexander the Brave).

We them made our way to the weekend market, as recommended by Emma, which has to be the most unusual place in the world, with snakes, shoes, puppies, purses, furniture all for sale in a market spread over a 2 mile area! This was all fine apart from seeing the raw meat hanging next to the stinking drains, which put us off Thai food for a couple of days and forced us to eat McDonald's!! (diet going BADLY at this point).

After deciding we hadn't seen enough caged animals for one day we decided to follow Horton's advice and go to the snake farm, where we saw lots of snakes being fed, Alex loved it, Ruth hated it!

Our last day in Bangkok, was the best day (probably a bit do do with the fact we knew we were off somewhere quieter!) We got up very late and went to see the main temple in Bangkok which is amazing. It was like something from the King and I (which Alex kept singing songs from) and we saw a gold Buddha the size of a football field. But the best bit was yet to come...we got our own private long boat to take us on a guided tour of Bangkok so he took us all round the back of the main river which was like a time warp. there are hundreds of houses built on stilts on the banks of the river...falling apart but with whole families living there. The water was filthy but the families were washing themselves, their clothes, their crockery and their dogs in it! We went to McDonald's for tea!

For the past two days we have been in Phuket which is one of the Islands and a million worlds apart from Bangkok. Its much more chilled here and is the start of our proper holiday. Yesterday was the first chance we had to go to a beach and not to rub it is but it was breathtaking...white sands, crystal blue seas...am sure you can imagine. How is the weather in England by-the-way? Anyway we lived up to a true Brits abroad cliche by managing to burn ourselves to a crisp and now can't go to the beach today! :o(

OK enough of this now..off to find a bar or something to entertain ourselves in...hope you all have a great day at work. Miss you all lots, please text or email us any gossip and please send this to anyone we have forgotten.