Bangkok

After a relatively straightforward entry through immigration, (I got a couple of funny looks) we met up with Rob, shared some man love and jumped into a taxi. Feeling pretty tired having not slept much on the 11 hour flight, I think we were both operating purely on adrenalin. First things that struck me about Bangkok from the ground was that a) the buildings are huge b) its ridiculously busy c) I got the impression I was going to love it.

Rob had hooked it up for us to stay in Soi No1 Hostel for our first night, so we headed there to be met by a cool American called Dave. Now Dave is an example of that friend we all have that is into porn/seedy stuff just a little too much! He gave us the lowdown on what shows we should be seeing and then showed us to our dorm room. After a quick sprucing up we headed off to see what this mental city had to offer.

Heading just round the corner we stopped at a little market of street food vendors and grabbed some pad thai. This is basically the countries national dish and is very tasty. Knowing what utterly depraved people me and Tom are, Rob couldn't resist taking us along a street in Sukhomvit which was basically full of ladyboys/ladies, tuk tuk taxi drivers trying to get you to have massages and the like. This was well funny, particularly when we saw a thai midget dressed as a leprechaun.

On the first night we also jumped on the skytrain and visited a MASSIVE mall called Central World Plaza which was pretty mindblowing, particulary with jet lag and a few beers inside us. Suprisingly, given that Thailand is mainly a Buddhist country, the locals go mad for Christmas and there was lights, trees and massive toy statues everywhere.

Amazingly, still going after more than 24 hours awake, we then settled in a bar to watch the Arsenal vs Chelsea game. Now my temper when Arsenal are losing/playing badly often gets the better of me, but whilst I was annoyed at the result, this was not going to ruin a quality introduction to Bangkok.