Khaosan Road & Bangkok

Well, here we are all safe and well in Bangkok! Naturally our flight over here was delayed for two and a half hours due to some freak weather conditions in Europe. Unfortunately Qantas boarded us before telling us of any potential delay so it meant we spent over 13 cramped hours on a plane instead of just under 11.

This also meant we had the dashed good luck to hit Bangkok at the peak of the rush hour... so we got to enjoy the scenic delights of a Thai traffic jam for an enthralling hour on the way to the hotel. Naturally the Taxi driver made us pay the road tolls (not entirely sure he was supposed to do that) and then ripped us off for some of the change. We could hear the rustling of our cash disappearing into his pocket on its way back over to us! It was probably all of 20p, but to add insult to injury when he dropped us off at the opposite end of Khaosan road from where we'd asked him, he whispered in Duncan's ear "no tip?". I gave him 20 bhat (30p) and my best dirty look... I wasn't up to much else after 14 hours of travel.

Finally we got into our hotel after beginning to seriously consider the notion that the fates were conspiring against us. We're staying at the Buddy Lodge. Its hardly a typical backpacker type of joint as we're paying 2,800 bhat (About £38) a night for it, but we wanted to have a bit of luxury combined with the massive freak show that is Khao San road for our first few days.

Seriously, if you are thinking of coming here I would recommend Buddy Lodge. It's all done out in tradtional thai style with wood paneled walls, a spa, swimming pool, gym, and most importantly, satellite telly. Our room has a rather swish four poster bed in it, a mini bar, and a huge patio area with small garden. Naturally its too damned hot for us to go outside, but sometimes we open the shutters and admire it from afar.

We haven't done much whilst we've been here to be honest, the whole first 24 hours was a combination of sleeping and getting used to the humidity. Then Duncan got all sick from something for a day, and today we went shopping for our Thai Backpackers uniform. I am now the proud owner of one pair of fisherman’s pants, one cheeseclothy

kinda shirt thing, a headband, and the absolutely essential beer Chang and Redbull t-shirt combo. All of this stuff has probably cost me less than £10, but I've still haggled with the stall owners to get that essential discount on each purchase. It's no fun shopping here if you don't get 10p off!

Khaosan road itself can only be described as a cash extracting shithole (and some parts of it do have that mysterious eau de raw sewage scent to it), but a strangely compelling one at that. We're constantly bombarded everywhere we go with offers of cheap 20b tuk tuk tours (where you actually get kindapped by your driver and endlessly taken to tailors shops, travel agents and anywhere else he might get a commission), invites to ping pong bars (too rude to mention, and again a slight risk of kidap and possibly robbery and general rip off), cheap tailor-made suits, pad thai, fruit, springrolls and a plethora of strange and crappy wares from street vendors.

We’re leaving proper sightseeing till we return at the end of our trip. We've just been and bought two tickets to Koh Samet from the hotel travel agency. They cost us 700 bhat each, I've seen them cheaper but the agency looked well established. A well known Khao San scam is apparently selling people tickets to places, and the bus driver dumps them off at either a local bus stop or buggers off at a service station half way there, leaving them to make their own way to their destination on a local bus. My theory is that a more established agency won't be involved with operators that do this. However, I guess we will find out tomorrow if my theory is good or not! One thing is sure, the travel agency guys will get a visit from one unhappy Scottish lady if we find ourselves stood at a random Thai bus-stop with two backpacks, two bags, and Duncan's huge dive gear bag!