Welcome to Thailand

Finally arrived in Thailand after a lengthy couple of flights - didn't manage to get too much sleep on either of them so have been feeling pretty tired since we touched down. We arrived pretty early on so checked in at the hotel, had some lunch and set off to see Bangkok. First we headed down to Wat Pho, one of the bigger temples in Bangkok, it was all very impressive, despite the significance of it being slightly lost on us. We randomly bumped into Goldie strolling round the temples too which was pretty unexpected - there are loads of photos uploaded now on the flickr page if you fancy a look, quality control is pretty nonexistent on the photos though, sadly.

After that we decided to head down to Khao San Road - the taxi driver that brought us from the airport told us that it was Thai New Year and we should expect to get very wet - in hindsight that was a bit of an understatement as we were soon to find out. The tuk tuk couldn't even get close to Khao San Road since it was absolutely rammed full of people - literally thousands upon thousands of Thai people all armed with buckets of water, water guns and a concontion of flour and water which they enjoyed spreading all over our faces. Khao San Road is a pretty infamous backpacker spot, but to be honest westerners made a tiny fraction of the amount of people there on friday - presumably because it was Thai New year, we will head back to see what it is all about when we are back in Bangkok after the carnage of new year has calmed down. We eventually made it to the end of the road after stopping off at a couple of bars on the way - we had to walk for about 20 minutes before cars and tuk tuks were around again because of the massive amounts of people that were about - it's hard to describe in words really, the ultimate water fight that you could only dream of as a kid, except we had no gun....

After that we headed back to the hotel to get dry and get some food - the water fight carried on all the way home except it was a lot less concentrated (still had a couple of full buckets of water poured over us at traffic lights though!) - it was a very good time, really friendly atmosphere everywhere, people would rub the flour in your face, say thankyou and then carry on down the road!

On saturday we got up early and headed out to Chatuchak Market which was absolutely huge, but pretty good fun. Afterwards we headed off  to Chinatown to try and get some food before our train to Koh Phangan. This turned out to be a bit more difficult than we anticipated. When we got out the taxi we found ourselves at a decent looking restaurant and headed inside, when they bought the menus over though everything was ridiculously overpriced - we think they bought us a different version of the menu (more expensive) since it wasn't the nicest place in the world, but cost more than a decent Chinese meal would do back home. We decided to move on, which the waitress didn't seem to happy about, oh well! We carried on for a little while but couldn't really find anything that appealed except some dodgy looking street food - we admitted defeat and headed back to the restaurant at the hotel before going to get the train.

Like the flights on the way over here, the train started out as great fun, but became a little tedious after hours of trying to get to sleep with not alot of luck! Anyway, after a 12 hour train journey (the train seemed to stop and start about every half hour, so not surprising it took so long), 2 hour coach and a  3 hour ferry we eventually arrived at Koh Phangan. It was definitely worth the wait! We're staying in a tidy little resort right on the beach front which is so chilled out - the pictures do it more justice than i can so i won't go on too much. Suffice to say it has exceeded our expectations though. The food is incredible and the owners are really laid back. Going to be a nice few days i think - we open our door to this!

Finally got round to signing on here and catching up with things. Pretty disappointed to see Leicester lost, and my fantasy football team took a battering - never fun, but i don't think i'll be losing sleep on it. We're going to get showered and get some food soon - then head out to watch the Arsenal game. Tomorrow night is the full moon party so we're going to make sure we're all caught up with sleep before that!!


In case anyone was wondering, it's very hot! Had a listen to the ( ) album by Sigur Ros on the train to try and send me to sleep (the train was very loud), it didn't work too well but made trying a bit more enjoyable!