Spiders and Bikes, what more could a girl want?

Monday 11th November

Ouch! Our first night in the rain forest and it really hurt. The bed is not a bed, it is a shelf with a sheet over it, imagine a divan base with the mattress removed, that is what our bed is like. Sitting on it hurts, sleeping on it is painful and sleep only comes when exhaustion sets in. My shoulder hurts a lot again and this is spreading up my neck, five days on this is going to leave me exhausted and broken.

Stomach cramps awoke me this morning and the usual nastiness ensued, however with no running water and only a bucket for a flush, what on our arrival seemed quaint and amusing now feels unhygienic and dirty. 

The mosquito net that covers our bed has many holes in it and I have made an effort to repair as many as I can, yet depsite this we still got bitten last night. The mesh is not fine enough to keep out midges, it may be an idea to have a look at buying our own and hanging that up too. To keep this one closed last night and to prevent the big gaps we used a hair clip to hold the two sides together which seems to have held up over night despite us both tossing and turning all night and Carol's frequent trips to the toilet. 

In all, this may be a beautiful place, but there are some flaws that need to be addressed. Carol is thinking of hiring a couple of bikes today and then us trying to find an air mattress that we can put down on the bed. I have also ran out of antihistamine and the rash all over my body is itching again. So rather than sight seeing, we have some serious things to do before we can really enjoy it here. With the heat now rising and the fan in our hut keeping me cool as I sit nearly naked, the thought of putting on gear to ride a bike feels oppressive. 

Later

We went for a walk to have a look at the local shops and see if they had a mattress, no such luck and when we looked into bike hire, the cost was twice what we paid last time. The heat as we walked was horrendous and with the humidity we could not cool down. I know that it is humid here because washing I did yesterday is still wet, despite it being in the high 30s. It is also raining again which has lowered the temp enough to make it comfortable to wear my leather jacket to escape the bites of the mosquitoes. Despite the utter beauty of the place, it is a struggle to be here and I feel bad for not enjoying it. As a scientist I should love it here on the edge of a national park in the rain forest, but it is too hot.

On the spider front I have found a couple of juvenile Golden Orb spiders located on the hut and they were very beautiful, I also found a spider that was a shiny gloss black with a red markings on its underside. Although not typical of the Orb spiders colours, it did have a large web typical of an orb weaver species. Under the hut is a wasp nest being constructed by some thin bodied black wasps that again are very beautiful. Nesting in the pole that is on the shelving under the hut is a large black bee too, the animal is easily an inch a half long with a brutal sounding buzz, yet it seems so placid and gentle. While sat in the bar today we were visited by a large wasp, three inches in length and with a wing span closer to four. The animal displayed such precise flight as it hovered by the flowers in the bar and again seemed so much more placid than the Yellow Jacket wasps back home. While out on our walk we found some of the most beautiful Dragon Flies too, these were bright red and I think were three males fighting for a female who was a darker brown. They darted about and fought above the river and were large enough that they would have filled my hand had they landed upon it. The wild life continues to amaze me and on just a five minute walk about the camp site I found a couple of species of lizard, several large snail species and many large beetles and crickets. 

Look carefully for the spider at the top

A rubber tree being milked for latex

Given the enthusiasm with which I can enjoy seeing these amazing animals it saddens me that I can feels so negative about my stay here. However with my pain levels controlled and me being medicated I am more stable, especially once the heat drops to below thirty. Carol today came to me in my distress and just quietly held my hand as I had a bit of a cry, she seems to understand that my mood swings are not entirely controllable and are caused by my physical condition. The pain thing really gets me down and with our bed being as hard as a bank vault, I am in pain when I need to rest. 

Once again we retired to the bar at around half seven for dinner and once again it was utterly beautiful. The food is exquisite and the staff are lovely. We met a German couple who had been exploring in the jungle and spent the evening chatting with them and they were also lovely. 

I am now some what happier after another fabulous meal and some good company. Also I was able to have a look at my first large spider tonight, a Huntsman Spider that had hidden itself on the wall right next to the toilet in the bar! It was huge at about five inches across and with huge chellidae. Sadly it had obviously been in a bit of a fight recently and had lost a rear leg. It was a fabulous specimen and after taking a few photos I spent ages trying to identify it. 

Tuedsday !2th November

I have found a red horned spider in the restaurant and have tried to photograph this beautiful animal despite its tiny size. Sadly none of our cameras can really see the detail which to be honest neither can we with out a magnifying glass. We also have a tiny jumping spider on our mosquito net (which I am happy about as long as it eats some of the little bastards) that has the most interesting features, a set of front legs that are heavily developed in comparison with the other six and eyes that are massive, even for something the size of a money spider these features are visible. Again we have tried to photograph it but it is just too small. 

Early start for us today with bikes to sort out and places to go. Mr Boa took us down to the hire place where he had done a deal for us, which was good of him. The trip in the back of his 4x4 was most enjoyable, however the pleasure of getting out on two wheels once again was greater than pretty much all else. Carol has once again got the cool scooter while I am left with the girly shit one that does not run right, drinks fuel and will not run on idle. 

Jayne admires her latest machine

Riding a full auto is an experience that is either a joy or an irritation. Riding along and just enjoying the breeze is lovely, however when I need to drop a gear to over take slow moving traffic, it is just not possible so it trundles past slowly and I have to have the low down racer look on a flower covered fashion scooter! It is hilarious. 

Carol got stopped by the Rozzers today while on our ride, however Carol being Carol had her camera on and recorded the whole incident. On a later viewing with Mr Boa it turns out that they were in fact waving us through and just wanted to be friendly. A few miles later and I was desperate for fuel so had to stop and ask another Rozzer who was delighted to help, when he stopped laughing he pointed to the petrol station next to the Police Station. It also turns out that they do not use the word petrol here, but rather the word Gasoline. My ridiculous mime of fuelling up his truck brought a large smile to his face as it dawned upon him what I was asking for.  

Once we got back from our ride, we decided to ask Mr Boa about going swimming and he directed us down to a place called the Monkey Temple hole, which turns out to be a resort complex full of German tourists. The river was slow moving and filled with fish and pond skaters. The noise was incredible with frogs, lizards and Monkeys all calling out. Watching wild monkeys jumping about in the trees was lovely, but Carol could not tempt me to swim in the cold water.

Rainforest - a bad idea or the lungs of the planet? Only on Curious Adventures...

Saturday 9th November

Happy Birthday foo foo, funny anniversary I know but there you go.

Bangkok station

Today is another day of travel and we are taking the nicest train we have seen yet, although the air con is on so high I am actually cold! There is no pleasing some people is there. The views from the train have been spectacular and Carol has taken so many photos as we shoot along the tracks, although I suspect that some of the reason for this is so she can escape from the ice box carriage.

After last nights disaster at the restaurant I am unable to get the taste of sick from my mouth. Yes, I got up at about three and tried to keep the contents of my stomach there, some of them have stayed, but I feel like I have a canon ball in my tummy and at some point am going to have a bottom explosion!

The journey from Bangkok has been one of feelings of sadness at times, the storm that is coming has already swept through some of the areas it seems and we have seen people flooded out of their homes, even if those homes are just tin shacks made from corrugated steel and old wood.

At the same time we have seen some of wild Thailand, the wooded slopes of mountains covered in the thick green canopy of the jungle. It looks beautiful from the cool of our carriage, but out there the heat is dense and claustrophobic. Trekking through there would see us soaked in sweat in minutes and with this load we are carrying as we travel to our next hotel, I doubt that we could walk more that a mile or two before exhaustion wiped us out for the night. The jungle starts a few feet from the train and is a impenetrable wall of green, I have never seen forest like it and where it does open up it is to reveal a plantation of palms. The jungle floor is also a thick green carpet of plants, however some of them cover the rivers and streams that flow through and walking there would suddenly get you very wet feet. For some where so warm, I cannot imagine anywhere more hostile to the humble traveller and thinking back to the men and women who have fought wars here I am filled with even more respect for them.

A while ago lunch was served on the train, not something I expected I will be honest, but Thailand does things differently. Anyway, lunch was a series of plastic pots with foil lids containing boiled rice, herring in chilli sauce and something I did not manage to identify. With my complete lack of appetite I did not want to eat and even Carol turned down this little treat! The thought of chilli herring did little to appeal to her palate it seems.

I am not asleep, I am resting my eyes!

As long as this guy stays awake, all is OK.

The journey from the station to the guest house was fast, not just speedy, but down right fast. The guy driving the truck drone like he was at Le Mans! How he did this with a clear conscience I do not know because hi friends were stood on the lowered tail gate because the truck was full! They must be used to it though because one of them answered his phone during the ride and had to bend down out of the wind to talk, which he did ar great speed also! I did not ask if they had taken any speed too, but it did seem likely with their wildly animated actions and complete disregard for other road users and their passengers!

Thankfully we landed safely at the guest house and we were met by the landlady of the place, who seemed very new and enthusiastic at the guest-house business. Her place was simple, basic but nice and the bed was pretty comfortable, although no where as nice as the bed at Tara. The more places we stay in, the more that I realise just how utterly spoiled we were there. Once we had settled and sorted our kit into the room, it was time to find something to eat and with little about it was down to a choice of local places. So we picked one that was an outside place, with a tarp over the frame work to keep any rain off the cooking and diners. It sounds rough, but it was clear that he woman who owned it was lovely in a Mumsy kind of way. Her daughter was also about and together they spoke some good English and then helped us to improve our Thai. The food was quickly cooked and when served smelled delicious, the taste though was another story, under the gentle flavour there was fire and with in seconds my mouth felt like I was eating molten metal! With each mouthful the pain got greater and the chilli rush got more intense, this was not just a meal, this was a chilli work out and I loved every burning mouthful, we then retired to our room and both fell asleep quite soon, only to be woken by a terrific storm. The rain was beyond heavy, it was a torrent, a wrath of god shower and with in seconds the street flooded as the drains struggled to carry the sudden load. The pathways disappeared under water and I grew concerned that as Thai custom was to leave your shoes outside, ours would be swept away. Thankfully the rain finally stopped, but my heart went out to all the very poor in Thailand, the ones who live in tin shacks beside the railway. So many of them had already been flooded out, the extra rain would decimate their homes, leaving them standing in water up to the knees in places.

The following morning we packed and left quickly, probably so that the Landlady could get rid of the foreign toe rags that has soaked her bathroom and farted in her room! Yes, me guilty.

Sunday 10th November

The bus ride to the middle of no-where!

The taxi who dropped us off shot off at speed and left stood lost in the middle of the bus station, a local who we mistook for a ticket tout at first directed us to his bus and then tried to tell us to buy a ticket, it turned out that he was the conductor of the bus we needed and he assumed that we were going to Phuket. Once we sorted it out, him and Carol then compared knock off Zippo lighters and I had a lesson in Thai speaking from a local woman who was off on her holidays to the rain forest. The journey on the bus was hot and sticky and the half filled bus quickly filled up at each stop until it was crammed full like a box of extra sticky dates!

Our bus, not the dents, peeling paint and smashed front light!

Jayne learning to speak more Thai

Our bus inside

Local housing

After what felt like hours (in relative comfort to be honest) on the coach we finally set down in the Khao Sok National Park and it is such a beautiful place it can almost bring a weary traveller to tears. Our room for the next few nights does not have many comforts, but then we are now sleeping in the rain forest with only a simple shelter for our safety. We do have though a large fly net that comes draped over our bed and this has a fine mesh that can keep out the most serious of biting pests, such as tigers, bears, dogs, fruit bats and if we are lucky, a couple of the seriously hungry mosquitoes!

our new home, yes it is on stilts, but this is rain forest, it rains a lot here.

Our room

This is our place, lovely but it sways in the wind.

As you can see, rain forest.

This is where we have lunch

The place we are staying is utterly breath taking, the sounds of the rain forest are like no other you have heard, at one point I though I could hear a power drill going for ages but this turned out to be a type of grass hopper! It was so loud it was almost torture and as I type this from bed, it sounds like an extra loud hearing test is being conducted here with frogs, lizards, birds, insects and lord knows what else making their songs heard. What is this all in aid of? Shagging... All of those noisy bastards are advertising their bodies for the use of procreation. Not that I am jealous at all, but when the house you live in sways as you walk across the floor, anything more vigorous is going to induce sea sickness!

Our first meal in the rainforest was sublime, the owner of the site (a massive Liverpool football club fan) had a game on the TV that he was quietly following while enjoying a beer or two, given a change of language to something more caustic and he could have been in the UK. What we ordered was a yellow curry, what came was a bowl of the most fantastically good tasting curried chicken, with rice and a side order of fries (well the chips smelled so good it would have been rude not to!) The gentle under-flavour of pineapple came from the freshly picked fruit taken from a near by tree, it added to the sharp burn of the curry and with a gentle flavour also tempered it down a little. It would seem that for much of this trip, I have become a food critic, but as some one with a lot of food allergies, I have had very little problems with the fresh from the tree produce that they have here.  After dinner we sat and enjoyed the local site, the owner was pointing out what animal made each noise and I noticed that there was a snail the size of a small car zooming (at snail speed) past out table. We got strafed by a huge bat that flew across the bar area and was utterly beautiful and incredibly fast and we also had our usual wall climbing lizards.

The rain when it came back though was another huge down pour that quickly flooded the woodland floor and caused us to worry that we would be flooded out. The owner though just laughed and said quietly "welcome to the rain forest, it will stop again in fifteen minutes!" and he was not wrong.

The rain fall is impressive and flooded here in minutes.

Once the rain stopped the water simply soaked away and with in minutes the floor was clear and the walkways almost dry, the temperature had dropped though to a more comfortable furnace.

So as I prepare for sleep, you can rest assured that I am enjoying the rain forest, even though the parking and shopping facilities are awful. A nice concrete multi-storey with added mall would be useful for somewhere to go to get away from the heat!

A car park here would have spectacular views! 

Let's go out for dinner...

Friday 8th November again...

Well you see we wanted to go out for dinner in Bangkok, even if it was just once. On my birthday here we tried to go out to eat and the stench of Bangkok was so disgusting I could not eat for several days, so with the rain making everything smell so much nicer, we tried again. It seems that the forces of fate do not want me to eat in this city.

We left the hotel in the cool evening with the streets drying from the rain, the smell of rotting rubbish and effluence was quite low in the spectrum of aromas on the streets, most appealing of all was the smell of cooking coming from the various restaurants, I was actually hungry and looking forwards to something nice and spicy. Sadly this was not to be...

With Carol getting a little frustrated at trying to find a place she liked, we settled on a nice place with a good air con and a bit of equally cool jazz playing, the staff greeted us in English and showed us to a table before giving us a menu. Carol having forgotten her reading glasses struggled to read the menu and her face darkened with every aspect she could make out. Being a European place with a European owner, the prices reflected European incomes and were a somewhat higher than Carol really wanted to pay, so with a comment to me she stood up and we left to bemused looks from the owner and the staff. 

We crossed the road and went looking for something that matched our prices a little more, I though was starting to really struggle with the noise levels on the busy street and the traffic noise, people noise, music noise and day to day city noise was becoming so oppressive all I could do was cover my ears to stop the building roar that was ricocheting around my head. I know that my hearing is unusual, I can hear a watch ticking on the other side of the room, yet as soon as two noises happen together I have to work very hard to distinguish them. You can imagine how I am when in a busy pub with music and lots of drinkers, basically I tend to sit quietly because I am unable to follow a conversation. With the street in Bangkok though, the noise level was painful and when Carol spoke I could not hear a word she said. Why am I telling you this you may wonder, well it will soon become pertinent to our story. 

Carol found a small family run restaurant on the corner of the busy street and asked me if I wanted to enter, with my ears covered it was all I could do to follow her and we wandered inside. The small eatery was a roar of noise that to me sounded like I was stood in the path of a tornado (wind or plane, take your pick!) and the powerful fan at the back did not help. Carol asked if we could shut the main door and sure enough the noise level dropped to merely irritating. The radio was playing a mixture of old rock n roll and the news channel on TV was turned down, inside the floor was littered with the latest delivery and as we were shown to a table it became clear that the young boy working there had been doing his homework only moments before. 

Once sat down, the young woman who had invited us in came over with menus and asked what we wanted. Carol ordered a mild Pork curry, with steamed rice, some garlic bread and a pot of tea. I ordered egg fried rice with chicken and a sprite. A nice simple meal so that we could come back to hotel early and have a good sleep before our long train journey the following morning. A short while later A cup of tea was brought over to Carol and I was given a bottle of sprite. Carol's pot of tea, now a single cup had no milk or sugar with it. We waited for a while and in the end Carol asked for some milk and sugar. The owner of the restaurant spent some time hunting for it and in the end found a jug of milk of indeterminate vintage in the same fridge that my bottle of sprite had come from, a small amount was decanted and given to Carol along with a large pot of sugar. Again we waited, but this time for our food. After a while the restaurant owner returned to our table somewhat perplexed, she was confused over our order and could not understand what food we had asked for. Carol explained it again and after a few moments the light flicked on, even though we were sat with the the menus that we had ordered from, the owner smiled and left us to our drinks. 

It was at this point that I started to notice some things that did not seem right. First of all the young boy came out of the kitchen and washed his hands, he then went to the toilet and returned to eatery doing up his fly. He did not wash his hands again for the rest of the time that we were in the place. I pointed out to Carol that she may wish to avoid eating the melon that the boy had then started to slice. A few minutes later the boy was called into the kitchen and he returned carrying a plate of food and placed it upon the table infront of Carol. It was a bowl of indeterminate meat curry soup. a moment or two later the boy returned with a plate of steamed rice, his thumb holding down the edge to stop it wobbling. I pointed out to Carol that she may wish to avoid some aspects of her meal. The bowl of soup had been placed on a plate and was encircled by a a lay out of Bay leaves, some of which had black spots on them and obvious signs of decay, again I pointed this out to Carol and she stated that she had no intention of eating them anyway. Her soup though was very nice, even if the meat was a bit chewy. 

Jayne still waiting for her meal to arrive while Carol finishes her own.

I started to laugh, struggling to suppress my giggles as I noticed that stray cat had entered the eatery and was crouched low on the floor watching the staff moving about. As they moved from the eatery to the kitchen the cat bolted across the restaurant floor and hid behind the ice cream freezer for a moment before emerging and scanning the floor looking for dropped morsels. As the young boy entered the eatery again, the cat pelted from the room as fast as it could on the polished floor, my giggles started to get louder, but could still not drown out the roar of noise from outside and the cooling fans. Carol was half way through her meal when the young woman returned to our table and placed a plate of garlic bread upon it, slices of garlic the size pills were grilled into submission upon the stale looking bread roll. Again my laughter was hard to suppress and even Carol started to laugh. However my food was still some other place. 

Still no food for Jayne while Carol enjoys her grilled garlic on toast!

It was then that I noticed the large beetle crawling along the work counter where the garlic had only recently been sliced, Carol had nearly finished her meal when I commented that food had better be good given that I had no idea what if anything I was going to be served with. It turned out that I was to be served with nothing, they had forgotten to cook my meal and again my giggles were hard to suppress. What made it funnier is that it was only then that we found out that Carol's curried meat soup was actually curried chicken soup which they assured us was exactly what we had ordered. Carol explained again our order and the young woman rushed away to the kitchen and the hurried sounds of cooking emerged. While this continued I watched the young boy washing used dishes that had been placed on shelves in the kitchen during the last opening, the dried contents took some scrubbing in the cold clear soap free water that he used and with each plate he "cleaned" he placed it on the drying rack, along with the empty bear bottles. I could not stop laughing by this point

The plate of food placed infront of me resembled a pile of vomited up slop, in a rounded mound, next to that was a freshly sliced salad. I did not check it for invertebrates! I picked up a piece of chicken with my fork and placed it in my mouth, it had the consistency of old school rubbers and no flavour at all. It simply did not taste of anything, not even chicken and my confused facial expression caused Carol to ask if it was OK, to which I honestly answered that I did not know. I tried another piece of flavourless rubbery chicken and then tried some of the rice. The Rice had flavour, but it was not a nice one, it tasted the way a bin smells on a hot day after it has been left to putrefy for a week. It was at this point that I gave up and put my fork back down. Carol finished her garlic sandwich and we asked for the bill which we promptly paid. My comment to Carol that she should give them a big tip because I had not laughed so hard in ages was met with a cold look! 

Bangkok on a nice day

Thursday 7th November 

Some times you have to sit back and be the traveller and sometimes you have to be the travelled. Today I am the traveller and my dear Carol sits with me snapping away with her cameras as always. She is I think looking for that illusive perfection that can be captured on film and maybe find that moment and hold it forever. I guess that this is the aim of the artistic photographer over the wedding photographer, a wedding photographer has t deliver the goods for a couple on one day while a photographer like Carol is always looking for that moment and will be looking for that moment for ever. The ones she does capture are in my view beautiful, she is good at her art and on long journeys like this one today, it will keep her occupied for the several hours that the train takes to reach our destination.

Not our train, no really!

This is a table of lies and miss-information!

Woo woo, I am a train!

Our first Mantis

Today we leave the delights of Tara B&B, the company of Nort and the other girls who made our stay in Kanchanaburi and are now sat on the train, for them the sausage factory of guests and travellers continues and a new couple will sleep in what we called our room, maybe make love in our bed and let us hope that their stay is as precious as ours was. AS we have said many times already Tara was special for us and we loved our time there for as long as it lasted, but we are at heart travellers and it is better to leave while the heart is filled with the joy of a place than to grow tired of it and wish to move on. Had we stayed much longer maybe we would have grown weary of the place that we loved so much.

As Pad Brat (army child raised in married quarters) I am well used to moving on and making new friends, but sometimes it is with a bitter sorrow that we move. In truth we know nothing about the people who made our stay so welcome adn this is as it should be, they should not lay their hearts on the table for us to scrutinise. They should be distant, they should leave the tourist thinking that their time was special when for the tour worker it is just another tour on the rota, another set of faces to learn and understand in the short time that we have with them. To mark our stay as special for us, Nort gave us two mugs, printed with the Logo of Tara and because our time was special, they will be treasured. The cynical part of me that has worked in travel thinks that this is just the usual ploy to spread the word of Tara and increase business, by making us feel special. Maybe they give mugs to every one, maybe they do not. But the truth for Carol and I is that it was special and we will treasure those simple gifts.

Would we recommend Tara to our friends? Yes, I think that we would because our stay was so lovely. Had we had the same stay in the UK it would have still been special (albeit considerably more expensive!), so what emerges is that Tara was a beautiful place for a pair of wandering travellers to stay and rest. Also the Milk Shakes are to die for!

The train back to Bangkok was laughably late, not just irritatingly late, or annoyingly late, but in the realms of Virgin trains agonisingly late. The train was supposed to leave Kanchanaburi at 14:40. We checked out of the hotel at 12:00 and sat in the bar for brunch until 13:00 when the bike taxi that we had ordered arrived. Our plan was to find a place out of the sun and just wait for the train for a an hour or so, this did not work out because the train was so late that I managed to have a sleep, Carol spent close to sixty Baht going to the toilet and we saw a Mantis take up residence behind the mirror of the ladies toilet.

I got so bored waiting for the train that I went exploring and found the following interesting animals. There was the inch long black ant scurrying about its business, there was the large weevil sun bathing on the rail, there was the discarded pretty snail shell and a dried up centipede. I saw butterflies and birds and dragon flies all while we sat bored in the station. finally at close to the time our ticket states that we will get into Bangkok, our train arrived and this is where I am now sat, waiting to get back to the Roof view hotel in the smelly quarter of Bangkok. Tomorrow we go To see the tailor and find out how well our clothes have been made. Custom made clothes, bought cheap like the rich Western imperialists that we are, I feel no shame.

Friday 8th November

Feck me, what a night...

The train was so horrendously late that when we finally got into Bangkok it was dark and it was also pissing down. This was not a bad thing, the rain has damped down the stench considerably and it is almost nice to walk around the city. However there are several places that still have that delicate aroma of a badly dug latrine! What is nice though is that with the stench gone, you can smell the food being cooked in the many places that allow tourists into their homes, porches, gardens or window seats to eat "exotic foreign food". The local Thai people must tire very quickly of travellers getting pissed and trying to out do each other with hot curry mixes. They do smell lovely though as you wander past.

The journey from the station to the hotel was a nightmare, first we were hassled by an irritating Tuk Tuk driver who would not take no for an answer and kept trying to fleece us for as much cash as he thought we had. We finally got rid of him and got into a taxi with a driver who was probably doing the driving having finished his homework and having some time before he had to go to bed for school in the morning. As I understood taxi driving as a profession, it is a requirement that a taxi driver must have a car or suitable vehicle and must also have a sense of direction or at least be able to read a map. Our teenage driver could provide only one of those prerequisites! We got hopelessly lost and it was only thanks to Carol's sense of direction and then her sat nav that we were able to get to the hotel at all! Once checked in we climbed into bed and discovered that the Thais had stolen the mattresses and replaced them with ironing boards. Sleep came eventually, but it was a hard fight and I kept banging my knee on the edge of the ironing board mattress every time I turned over.

Breakfast this morning was scrambled egg on toast. Coffee and tea were free, but a juice or coke was an extra 16 Baht. So we yummed that down and buggered off into town, which now smelling only like a slightly dirty gents toilet was almost pleasant. What does make this trip though is our interactions with the Thai people, who are on the whole lovely (although Tuk Tuk drivers may get a hammer to the face next time they try to force me to pay vast sums of cash to drive me a few hundred meters!) and the place is quiet and peaceful with out fights breaking out or the like. As I keep stating, the only poor behaviour we have seen has all been performed by tourists and this can cause us some embarrassment.

So it was off to the tailor for us and a custom made set of leathers for Carol and a skirt and top for me. Hers looked lovely, mine however makes me look like a high end escort. I need to get some New Rock boots and a bit of Goth make up to set the scene a little better.

Leathers colour matched to her bike... I am saying nothing!

Does my worship of Satan look big in this?

As well as picking up our clothes, we also had a bit of a wander about in the not so smelly part of Bangkok and it was so nice that we have decided to go out for dinner later.

On of the things that does get to me a little is the poverty here, as a tourist we are bringing in much needed wealth to an otherwise poor nation, but you know it is pretty bad when people have to live like this.

A sad and sorry shanty built on rotting wood struts above the polluted river 

The Tuk Tuk, one of the plagues of pedestrianised areas.

Leave me alone, I am just too hot!