Bangkok

We'd booked ourselves into a highly recommended guest house called the 'Siam 2' as it had it's own pool and air-con. As it happened we needn't have bothered as we didn't use either. Nice to have the option though. Again we meet up with Marc, Sorcha & Woody and we trawled the Khao San road like good little tourists. It's nuts. There's a 'Boots' and endless stalls selling knock-off watches, bags and things. We fell for the cheap prices and bought a bag which lasted approximately three hours before one of the straps came off. Pay shit prices - get shit I guess. We also took the opportunity to grab a few cds, we would've bought more but Marc had bought the whole streets worth.
The KS road is interesting and everything but unless you want to buy knock-off Rolex watches, replica 'North Face rucksacks or t-shirts with huge 'Billabong' logos or the current Thai phrase "Same, same but different' then there's really no point going there.
Marc had told us about a great sounding cocktail bar that was on the 41st floor of a hotel and we wobbled off there to meet Sorcha, Nick and him. When we arrived the place was without doubt the plushest place I've ever seen that wasn't in 2D on a big screen with a Hollywood film star crashing around in. There was a bloody three-piece band playing to one fat man in the lobby for Buddah's sake and there was I in a t-shirt, well-travelled combat trousers and Birkenstocks. I felt marginally under-dressed it had to be said. My awkwardness increased when I got the bar's entrance on the 40th floor only to be told by a very friendly Thai woman that they didn't allow people in without shoes and I could borrow a pair if I liked. I panicked, got all flustered and had to phone Marc to ask him what to do. He texted me to let me know I was a berk so I borrowed a pair of leather loafers that were jsut the wrong side of the right size and walked, gingerly, up to the very roof of the building with Beth by my side barely suppresing a fit of the giggles.
The view and the place was astonishing. It's so high and there's no other tall buildings near it so you feel like you literally have your head in the clouds. It's amazing. The building is also very narrow so it has the impression that the slightest breeze and the whole thing will bend like a reed in the wind. The Thai planners had obviously taken this into consideration and planned an extensive guard-rail system to make you feel safe. They'd then taken that initial plan, screwed it up, chucked it in the bin and gone ith 'Daredevil Bob McCrazy's' idea and added a quarter-inch one instead.
The next day the Boases left and Beth & I walked around the city taking in a few sights. We saw the famous reclining Buddah and did some merit-making in the traditional way by paying money, took in a few Watts, (they all look pretty similar after a while), and took some snaps of a crazy mosaic temple. The architect of which had clearly taken his pet bull to the china shop when the inevitable happened and, (now that he'd had to buy all the smashed stock), had thought it a great idea to build a monument to his folly. I swear I saw a tea-cup in there somewhere.
We also took a wee little boat trip along the river, which was nice.
That evening we hit the night market and singularly failed to buy anything of any note. Beth was pretty pissed off that all the clothes were in Thai women's sizes i.e. ridiculously tiny. One stall holder even laughed at her when she asked if anything would fit her. I'm not even a woman and I've gotta say, "ouch!".