Thai me up

Bangkok. It's nothing like I imagined. To be fair, I've never really sat and imagined what I thought Bangkok would look like, but everyone always goes on about the Koh San road and stuff, so I had an image in my head. It was totally wrong.

We left Siem Reap in a small, rust bucket of a van (think the A-team) which managed to cram 31 people in - and all of their rucksacks. It was extremely hot and uncomfortable. And that was before we got on the pit-holed road that takes you up to the Cambodia/Thailand border. It was the bumpiest, dirtiest, most uncomfortable ride ever. And it went on for hours. Still, crossed the border with no problems, changed buses and then a few hours later rocked up in Bangkok.

It's like LA. Well, it's not really. But coming from under developed Cambodia it is. Really tacky, loads of neon, banging bars, thousands of tourists and crawling with cockroaches. Plus is stinks. I remember someone once saying to me that Bangkok smelt like tramps, and I'm afraid to say it does. It's not nice.

Checked in to a small guesthouse where Eve and I splashed out on a room with air con and then hit Burger King. Wandered about for a bit, down small winding passage ways. Stroke stray cats. Dodged cockroaches. And that was our first night in Bangkok.





After that we didn't do much really. Trawled a market looking for knock off bags for Mrs. Gavs but left empty handed and disappointed. Checked out a huge Buddha where I was asked to cover my shoulders as I was being completely inappropriate (do they not understand that strap marks are completely inappropriate?) And met up with Darren, our friend from London, for a fancy Thai meal which was ace.

But no bags or fake sunnies or Luis Vuitton wallets were bought much to our disappointment. I went to Bangkok and all I got was this lousy fringe.