"Hot in the City..."

Seriously big Budha...reclined
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We arrived in Bangkok on Monday afternoon and were immediately hit by the heat and humidity of the city - we thought that Japan would have prepared us at 27 degrees but oh no this was around 35 degrees! We headed straight for our hotel in downtown Bangkok, right near the Koh San rd area where all of the backpacker hotels, restaurants, street markets and thai massage parlours are! Needless to say, our hotel was just off the crazy street and so not in the thick of discoville. We met up with our group in the hotel and also the GAP guide, a Peruvian called Augusto (ironic I know a South American leading an Indochina tour, but great)and then headed out for our first authentic sample of Thai food.

Grumpy statue
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Yesterday we met up with the whole group and we have another good mix of people. A smaller group than South America as there are only 6 of us, but actually there are some upsides - like it takes less time when a photographic opportunity comes up! We headed out early and took a speed/long boat tour of the canals around Bangkok. Scenery was as you might expect - water taxis, ladies selling their wares on the water boats, lots of housing by the canalside which apparently are very prone to flooding in the wet season and some huge catfish which we fed bread to!

our carriage waiter clearly had a thing for Nick and kept touching his bare leg and patting his ass when he was getting on to the top bunk to go to sleep!

Imperial palace
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We then went to see a couple of the temples around Bangkok. The famous Wat Po and also the Grand Palace with its Emerald Buddha - the most sacred Buddha in Thailand. The temples are truly beautiful and very different to what we have just seen in Japan. They are ornately decorated with msaic tiles, glass, green, sapphire and ruby-coloured stones and lots of gold! The Grand Palace was probably the most spectacular to see due to the volume of temples and their decoration.

In the afternoon we were ready for a good swim to cool down (you have to wear long trousers and t-shirts in the temples in 36 degrees of heat - phew) and then we ventured out to fill our tummies before our evening expedition on sleeper train.

Us and the elephant
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This was our first time on a sleeper train so far this trip. It was a pretty good laugh particularly as our carriage waiter clearly had a thing for Nick and kept touching his bare leg and patting his ass when he was getting on to the top bunk to go to sleep - truly hilarious to see Nick's face as you can imagine! Anyway 12 hours later, a few rumpled clothes and bumpy periods later and we have arrived in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. This afternoon we are off to ride elephants and take a float down the river on a bamboo raft.

Baby elephant
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Well the elephants were nice to us. Ours managed quite admirably with our combined weight and seemed quite cheery when presented with lots of bananas. At one point I even sdat on it's head and drove it. We lso saw a show of elephants proveing they have good shooting skills (or at least better than Liverpools) and one elephant even did a painting! The rafting afterwards was sedate....which was needed.