Bangkok

Maybe it's something about arriving in a place at 5.30 in the morning that kind of takes away all the extras, so what you are left with is the two diametrically opposed facets of the place. Monks waling barefoot on the city streets colecting their alms for the day from the cafes and restaurants juxtaposed against the revellers from the night of the day before unable to walk in a straight line and still on a mission to drink until it gets light. Welcome to Khao San Road area - backpacker's ghetto land! We walked and walked until we found an empty roon, which ended up being pretty decent compared to the original one offered near the foyer (noisy) with a sign in it telling us it was forbidden to bring "prostitutes" back to the room (that scuppered that plan then).
Eating from street stalls, navigating our way through all the windy streets was hard work in the heat. Taking the express ferry up the Chao Phraya River was brilliant and from it you can see a plethora of temples and pagodas. Another good day was visiting the Wat Pho temple which boasts the biggest lying down Buddha (golden)statue in Asia. Check out the pictures on Picasa as it was really big. All very clean and well looked after, unlike Nepal where there would be someone selling vegetables on it's steps! Then, unplanned and to our surprise, we ended up at the National Theatre sitting on the grass watching a traditional singing concert followed by a dance/drama show. All very, very camp. If I hadn't have know that this was the traditional form of performance (ie men dressed as women) I would have thought it was just an excuse (mind Shakespeare was performed by an all male cast wasn't it at time of writing).
A lovely interlude to all this tourism was traveling out of the Khao San area to go for dinner with Greg's cousin, Cliff, his wife, Dumpna (have I spelt this correctly?) and their beautiful daughter, Charlotte. We had a brilliant evening at Dumpna's brother's restaurant and it was really interesting for us to be able to talk to Cliff and Dumpna about what Thailand is actually like to live in as opposed to whizzing through as a tourist. They showed us pictures of their house out east near the Cambodian border and I had to admit it looked idyllic and so peaceful.
Visas for Cambodia sorted....it's now over to Greg.
Liz