Thailand. Part VII. | Mar 2nd/3rd

Time to leave Koh Phangan and everything would have to run smoothly as my friend and I, only foolishly gave ourselves 3 hours, between arriving into Bangkok, get across the urban sprawl, check in and our flight taking off for Perth.

Setting off at 11am, we get a taxi to the ferry terminal and greeted by a hoard of backpackers standing around, some were like dead-expressionless animals grazing in a field others were enthusiastically measuring dicks to see who'd had the most rewarding experience through beer.

After some confusion of why our ferry wasn't here yet, we found out it was delayed a few minutes, this is off to a good start, taking shade from the sun and its heat under a tree we wait 30 minutes until the pack of backpackers start shuffling along the pier towards a boat, we put on our blank expressions and follow them.

We find some outside on the boat and sit down with our legs dangling over the edge and let the boat do it's thing, as everything is out of our hands for the time being, taking in the scenery as we rock through the waves of distant islands experiencing the wet cooling of a cloud burst.

Arriving at the ferry we're ushered onto our patiently waiting coaches and start our long drive to the train station, looking at the normal life these people live and how they're unaware of our tourist eyes looking upon them thinking it's a fairly strange and tough way of life. Then you see a £50,000 pick-up truck roar past someone selling fruit on the roadside, then you think 'Well, it can't be that bad'

As this journey went on, the health of the coach deteriorated rapidly, apparently something to do with the clutch, until eventually we pulled over and stopped. Our driver then decided to start a fight with the gear stick, accelerator pedal, and whatever else he could fight with from his seat until the coach gave up being a dick and started up again and off we went.

We got to the train station and after much bundling and running around the area to get food, snacks and supplies we got to the platform to find out the train was delayed 70 minutes. Well, that's just fucking grand!

Waiting around on the platform as the sun set and darkness covered everything, I dashed off to the toilet and I got offered a sexual act by a Thai boy in a Chelsea top, I said no and left there as fast as I could. Thankfully it was also at that point the train arrived late on time.

Settling into our quarters we ask the conductor what time the train is planning to arrive into Bangkok to be met with a reply of 'On time, we make time up, over night', we could now relax.

The train was comfortable as we opted for first class this time round, so we were gifted with our own room to spend the night chatting, playing drinking games and reminiscing.

...

First class was a rough noisy uncomfortable sleep, looking at our watch it was Blahblugh o'clock, I knew whatever time that was displayed on my watch didn't look good to making our arrival time into Bangkok, and as the train got closer and closer to the city, it was getting more and more delayed. Not an overly relaxing morning wake up call.

We were, however, treated to a wonderful sunrise over Bangkok that helped relieve some of the stress, even though there was nothing to really worry about, as our airline made 3 flights a day from Bangkok to Perth and we were catching the first one of the day.

The delays were getting ridiculous as stops at each station were getting longer and longer, we decided to jump out at the next stop, wherever it was, and risk our success of getting to the airport in a taxi.

We pile out of the train and say a swift goodbye to our friends as we ran down the street to try and hail a cab, this process seemed to have taken way too long, it felt like 15 minutes when it was actually just a few. We eventually get a one by running further down the street and more-or-less running into the taxi.

Bundling in, we say something to effect of 'Airport, and step on it!' then we looked at our driver and realised that wasn't going to be possible as he's older than the moon, but we should've of been so dismissive as all motor vehicles in Thailand are built with potent accelerator pedals and without brakes, asking 'How long it would take?', 'Not long, only 5 minutes' We relaxed, again, on this journey.

Problems seem to arise when we relax, because 5 minutes in Thailand seem to equate to around 30 English minutes, and mild panicking started to set in, especially coming so far to fall at the last hurdle.

Getting to the airport, we run into a chaotic mess of lost wandering people with large bags and confusing screens of flight information, none of which seemed to really relate to our flight, my eyes suffering from rapid eye movement didn't blind as I was trying to digest and process all this information, none of which made any sense in my panic, it all looked like hieroglyphics in English.

Then, Yes! There you are! and we ran, nay galloped through the crowds, contorting our bodies around others as we were sliding under pulled luggage, jumping over midgets, it felt like a extreme live-action version of Frogger.

Getting to the check-in area, I spot the woman who was just about to close the counter, dashing over I slapped my passport on the desk, followed shortly by a second slap of my friend's passport. “Hello, we're here” we say in an exhausted, flustered, cool kind of way.

We walk over to the long line of security and customs and check our passes, the boarding time was exactly the same as what was being stated on my watch and the line didn't appear to be moving.

I grab the attention of a security girl and point at the time on the boarding pass and at my watch and let out a small pathetic yelp, she got on her walkie-talkie and we were processed through the VIP entrance.

After a thousand thank yous we sprint to the gate and sat down on the plane, 2 minutes later the doors were shut, as we prepare for take-off.

We arrive into the ever-welcoming shit-heap of Perth airport and get a taxi home, this journey door to door took 37 hours, shattered I do the sensible thing, go out to the pub and meet with friends for a few drinks.

Thailand... Large Chang fuelled fun.

Thailand. Part VI. | Mar 1st

Late start to the day, arising at around 1, as others were nursing their zombie-like ways me and the previous night's nurses hired some snorkelling gear and went off to explore what was under the water's surface.

It wasn't that interesting, at first, just a long expanse of shallow water and sand with many many sea cucumbers, boring.

Things did get interesting when we crossed paths with these black long-spined sea urchins that looked menacing as these dark black spiky balls slowly moved themselves into position, on top of one another to create some sort of urch-double-chin.

As I'd never been snorkelling before, I was fascinated by that for way too long, we continued out further to open water and the sand shelf felt like it suddenly disappeared and we were confronted with this amazing reef, it literally blew me out the water, how incredible it was.

Fish of all shapes, colours and sizes bustling about in their own little underwater city in packs, with coral buildings swaying in the water, I could only best describe it as, it looked like a mixture of the film Shark's Tale and The Warriors.

I had an amazing time diving down into the depths of water to get a closer look of these strange and unusual animals I've never seen before, I couldn't get over how this looked like someone exploded a massive fish tank into the water it just spread everywhere like poison ivy, it was that good, if not better!

Thailand. Part V. | Feb 29th

Today was going to be a long day, thankfully most memories are hazy so it shouldn't be long to recollect.

It started out sensibly enough, with the need to explore off-foot, we found a taxi outside our resort who would turn out to be our own personal chauffeur for the whole day, I can't remember his name so I'll call him Lloyd McKenzie, he was extremely friendly and helpful.

Lloyd McKenzie drove us on the northern stretch of road passing villages, road-side shops, homes, jungle forest, avoiding various street furniture such as scooters, people and dogs to our first destination a Chinese Buddhist temple.

It was a very modern concrete heavy temple, that looks like it had just been freshly repainted set within the hills with a great view, and ignoring the fact that it didn't look overly aesthetic, it had a very quiet and serene atmosphere. Looking around the statues of the gods and admiring the Taoism used within the architecture, we left the temple.

Lloyd McKenzie took us to a village that we'd passed on the way there called Fisherman's Village, as the name suggests a village, with a lovely long bay beached area, with hills descending down into the horizon into the crystal clear water and a few fishing boats moored up on the beach front, this place was majorly unexpected and a chorus and repetition of 'wow' could be heard as we all grabbed our cameras to savour the scenary.

We went to a beach-front bar and relaxed lying down in its lounge area, while sipping on drinks we have probably the only ever conversation that's been had at that bar to the effects of 'surely it can't be that hard to open a bar here, on the beach, listening to awesome music, with cold beers. It would be awesome!' - it was about that point the power went out, it didn't deter us of our dream though.

Lloyd McKenzie drove us back to Smile Beach and some of us relaxed lying on the grass outside our rooms reading or sleeping and generally saving energy for the night ahead, the half moon party.

Time was getting long in the tooth and we an idea was planted that tonight's event required vests and fluorescent face paints, so the group stupidly sent off the two people to pick our vests for us, as a 'fun surprise'.

They returned with the look of naughty children, this wasn't going to be good, and instead of unveiling the vests there and then we decided to wait until later... Lots of tense moments passed as we got ready for the night and we all convened again for the big presentation ceremony.

They started off strong with bright 80s head and wristbands, but then it was instantly learnt that you don't sent off two buffoon douchebags to do the work of sane thinking people; they, of course, got themselves respectable vests with black and white obscure photography on it, another two had Rolling Stones lips and a fish or something and another two, were what could only be described as, shite. One said 'No Money, No Honey', another 'Sex Instructor, First lesson free'.

After mourning the death of giving a good idea to idiots, we sucked it up, got a few pop-band photos and went to the beach for nice relaxing meal to build up on stodge, I got the meal, but not the relaxing.

Due to the set up of the restaurant's tables on the beach, they seat everyone to look out on upon the water, but as there wasn't enough room on this particular table, someone would have to sit on the opposite side of the table with their back to the water facing everyone. That person was me.

I can cope looking at my friends for a duration of a meal, I don't find that too stressful, I do find being singled out by our waiter on the other hand, very unnerving.

His over-affectionate verbal nature of wanting to carry me to my room when I get drunk and his hands touching me with belly rubs and hugs, saw the smile from my face being wiped off as it was replaced blank friendly endurance to end this situation as soon as possible without violence.

In order for that to happen, he made a deal with me, he would give me a free large bottle of Chang beer if I downed it straight away or I would have to buy him two. I was hesitant at first, because I am rubbish at downing drinks, it's not something I can do, but peer-pressure saw me accept.

After a few minutes of blissful silence as he went off and got the beer, he quickly returned with the bottle and opened it up. I took in a deep breath as a stalling tactic while I prayed the ground would swallow him whole, I take the bottle and I slowly chug away and after what felt like hours of drinking this damn beer, I was done and I could finally relax.

Not so, as our waiter was over-enthusiast that I drank a whole beer, he felt it appropriate to be more over-affectionate than he was before. I was not in a good place at that moment.

The waiter eventually fucked off and the alcohol surged through my veins and I cheered up a little, as we met Lloyd McKenzie who drove us to the south of the island for the Halfmoon Party.

...

Arriving at 9, the place was empty.

Hm, that's a little crap, though for an all night event you don't want to get there too early, still gave us a good opportunity to look around; it was dark, but from what I can remember, the venue was set in a big open space within the jungle with a stage at one end, a dancing platform in the middle of the dance floor with a giant pole holding up a large canopy, opposite end of the stage was a large wooden structure that housed one of the many bars that looked over the main dance floor, in and around the main space were waterfalls, sitting areas, food stalls, paint shops, etc. etc. Also the whole place was lit by UV lights.

While it was empty we put on the fluorescent paint on our faces, representing our beings and self-awesomeness in our fuzzy drunken state and to be honest I can't remember seeing anyone enough to register their decals, I was like a douchey Hulk Hogan though, if that gives you any direction of mind imagery of what was going on.

Time passed and we left at 430am, what happened in between?

- One friend drank too much, too quickly and ended up having a good ol' sleep in a flower bed by around 11.

- So, two friends looked after him and nursed him as best as they could, leaving him for dead every-so-often enjoy dancing and the like.

- Another friend went into a manhunt mode, but hunting for girls with bear hugs, he randomly disappeared, only to be found later when we got back asleep in his bed.

- I was on the stage, hand pushing the air for pretty much the entirety of the event, occasionally being stopped by people giving me much love for my body paint.

- Our last remaining friend disappeared until 1030 the next morning, not knowing much of what happened in the last 12 hours.

At the end, a very welcomed Lloyd McKenzie was waiting outside with big grin and walked us to his taxi where we had a tranquil drive, like being in rally car during a race, back to the resort.

Thailand. Part IV. | Feb 28th

Elephants, they tend to be fun. We're going to find out today if that's true or not, we found our nearest Bureau of Experiencing Elephants on a dodgy tourist map and decided that it didn't seem that far and it was the ideal day to walk and explore the area on a comfortable 30-something full-sun day, not taking into account the hilly-nature of the area nor the lack paths. After a little struggle all was well, we got to the place and booked a ride for the 6 of us for a few hours later.

After killing time, by walking to a nearby waterfall, which was more like a waterstand, with its collection of stagnant looking pools and getting a drink, it was time to take to the elephants and fly away, or something.

Climbing up some concrete stairs to reach the heigh of the elephant, I gingerly put my foot on the elephant's back, which was a little weird with its mixture of firm, soft and loose feeling underfoot and sat down on the basket which felt as secure as leaving your bike near a gypsy camp site.

We were escorted through this well-beaten jungle track, as the elephant with a sense of slow majestic boredom, idly followed his trainer as it swayed and jolted from side-to-side, forward-and-backward as it negotiated the terrain.

Halfway through the trek we were allowed to sit on the elephant's neck, which can only be described as riding a freakishly tall saddle-less horse and you could feel the muscles of his neck and every heavy footstep reverberate up through your body.

There wasn't much scenery to be seen, except when it was time to turn around and we had a great view looking over the top of the jungle canopy down into the water in the far distance, though most of the time we were all fooling around; singing 'I'm on an elephant muthaf-ker' and acting like rappers, doing child-safe elephant impressions and being an unamused emotionless sultan, looking back on it now, it seemed like a good idea at the time that you had to be there for. Highlight would be laughing at a set of friends that got the renegade baby elephant and spent the whole time looking frightened and struggling to stay on, essentially fighting for their lives.

As we were returning back to base, our elephant trainer stopped us and enthusiastically pointed and told us to look left, at which point I did.

It took me a while to adjust and see what I was actually looking at, until my friend next to me pointed out this huge spider, it was about that exact point when I completely lost my cool and freaked out to the Nth degree, from memory, this thing had a body the size of a tiger's head, legs as thick as an octopus's with a white skull marking on its back, it then scuttle off up its web, which was even more disturbing cause I knew it was real. It then, seemed to point at me and say 'you're next Rupert'.

Well that's ridiculous, it obviously didn't say that, spiders can't speak English. He telepathically sent it to me in Thai.

People laughed at my disgrace and karma's a bitch.

...

Later on, We grabbed a late lunch and I calmed down from my brush with death with another beach massage where all my knots from yesterday's massage had magically reappeared.

It was turning out to be another amazing sunset so a friend and I hired kayaks and took to the water paddling out into the calm bay, to get another perspective of Smile Beach and watch the sun slowly fall behind some distant clouds and smashed into the horizon.

Thailand. Part III. | Feb 27th

7 o'clock and the morning sunrise streams through the windows, filling up my closed bunk area with glorious unwanted sunshine, I look out the window with sensitive eyes to see that the high sitting light grey clouds gives way to the sun's rays that get interrupted and flicker as palm trees block the ray's path, we appear to be in a jungle and it has just rained.

Looking at most people on the train, they looks a little worse for wear as they've, instead of sleeping, decided to go through a few rounds of boxing in the night, we laugh deliriously as some people are having early morning moments and next thing I know we have about 5 minutes to pack and get off the train.

We're escorted off the train by random people pointing in different directions, through the platform, through the car park and on to some coach, like dumb blind sheep with rucksacks, we (mainly I) only knew it was the right coach, as after 2 hours of driving on roads through rural Thailand (I imagine it was rural, as I was asleep for most of the journey) we got to a place that sounded like the word everyone had been uttering that we'd be getting a ferry from, my biggest clue was that it was a ferry terminal called Dansak.

Boarding the ferry we had another few hours to amuse ourselves before we got to the island we were aiming for when we left Bangkok 8 weeks ago, Koh Phangan. Getting a taxi to our hotel, located at the north-west of the island, we made it to our accommodation, Smile Beach Resort, at whatever late afternoon time.

After some mild language confusion with deposits, paying and general what the fuck was going on, we get led down a garden path and shown to our wooden shacks where we'd be sleeping; actually shacks isn't fair as that implies we were roughing it in some dodgy Thailand outhouses, these shacks were comfortable with a decorated verandah, air conditioning, hammock, outside wet room (with typically foreign “No toilet paper in toilet” ruling) and a few beds. The setting of these shacks were great as well, 2 to a shack and set out quite far apart from each other in amongst this fairly well maintained garden, located underneath a tree covered hill and 2 minutes walk from the beach, it's all you could ask for when you're paying £Sod.All a night and we spend the rest of the day relaxing on the beach.

Smile Beach was set within a wide bay, sheltered by tree-heavy hills on all sides (except for the side with water) with houses and lowrise hotels breaking onto the sand and spitting away from the jungle at occasional points, the sand was yellow and fine with a calm and clear mirror like water lapping up on it and the water drifted and expanding out into the unknown, coming to this spot would feel refreshing, even if you'd seen it a million times.

We swam in the shallow waters of which was slightly disturbing with it's small infestation of sea cucumbers or as they looked like, alive crawling poos and afterwards, I went off to get an hour's full body massage on the beach where I had all my muscle knots abolished from beneath the surface of my skin, while I was being picked up, bent-backwards and swung around in all different directions and having my fingers pulled out, which was surprisingly, incredibly calming and soothing.

I rejoined my friends for an incredible sunset and later, enjoyed well-deserved cocktails and fine beach dining looking out on a fairy-light lit horizon as many fishing boats calmly overfish and destroy local fish stocks.

Thailand. Part II. | Feb 26th

As my friends were nursing hangovers, jet-lag and any other miscellaneous issues that may have occurred through the night, I decided to get up and make use of the rooftop pool of our hotel, which was damn pleasant, gliding on the surface of the calm warm water in the morning light in amongst neighbouring highrises was my idea of a perfect start to a day, especially after the previous night.

Eventually, people rose from their slumber and over breakfast orange juices and beers, we decide we'd head on the skytrain high above a sun soaked hazy bustling city with views of endless layers of skyscrapers as the haze eventually drowned out the urban development. We arrive to a very busy station to a pretty large market, which turned out to be the largest market in. the. World!

Our way to the entrance was no easy task with a narrow path adjacent to a busy road, being used up with vendors selling their goods. This was a mostly enjoyable experience, looking at the endless amounts of crap for sale, that people seemed to be buying, no doubt for the joy of haggling, until a friend and I noticed a woman with a disturbing facial disease or syndrome, I wasn't quite sure what it was, all I know was that the joy disappeared in an instant, not because it was necessarily horrible to look at, it was more of the shock, that this is the sort of thing you would see on a late night program aired on the Discovery Channel, not on the streets of Bangkok, but then again, this is Bangkok, expect the unexpected.

The market was your usual affair of narrow walkways with available space used by some random product from beer to blanket, food to furniture, souvenirs to shirts, plants to pets, in fact, I found the pets was the most distressing bit of the market all seeing all these hot puppies and kittens in cages cooled down by a small fan and, worst of all, people selling leashed chipmunks that were dressed up in various costumes, these people were cunts and I could've quite easily punched the teeth out through the back of their necks, especially that chipmunk bastard.

Anyway, I have a limited patience for markets and added with the 36C heat, amount of people, and general closeness of the atmosphere very weary and tiring after a while, others seemed to be enjoying themselves shopping for random koi-carp t-shirts, tiny flannels to wipe off sweat and ridiculously tiny hats for their huge heads to keep the sun off.

We left the market and aimed for, what I presumed was, the downtown area but who knows, I'm yet to see a map of Bangkok and it probably has 20 downtowns, we get off at a shopping plaza and we were greeted with the pleasant surprise of a ukulele festival, which seemed to be drawing quite a crowd, as you'd expect from any random event held in Asia. The guy we saw on stage seemed like a big deal for whatever reason, as he spouting out some random lyrics at us in his native tongue with, the tiny twangs of these tiny guitars being played.

Getting hungry and learning that we have a 12 hour train journey ahead of us that evening, we decide to stock up on a large late lunch at a nearby Sky dining bar and do that over a large glass of beer, a 1 litre glass, well, some of us guys did the others had quaint delicate fruit smoothies.

So, stuff happened in between and my next memory takes me to it being dark and running for the train. The 12 hours on that train, really rolled on by, as we were confined to small section of a corridor of bunk beds, so we ate our 7-Eleven snacks for dinner and played various drinking games until 3 in the morning, when we eventually passed out.

Thailand. Part I. | Feb 25th

Flying to Thailand, or if you want more specifics, Bangkok. A country and a city that I have very little knowledge or have given much acknowledge to its existence, not because I've never been overly interested in the place (even though that's true) just always seemed a bit 'nothingy' to me, but regardless, I have some great friends going and if you've friends that are somewhere you should be there also, also a chance to recreate Hangover II should never be turned down.

The flight from Perth to Bangkok was to be expected on a budget airline, 12 hours of as much as fun you can have within a hard cramped space, though the 4 hour layover in Singapore on what was quite possibly the most comfortable tiled floor that has ever existed, was the highlight of the trip so far.

Arriving into Bangkok Airport at 'It's still light' o'clock, us 6 rendezvous together in the arrivals hall 2 from Vietnam, 2 from England and 2 from Australia, all looking bleary eyed and in a bit of a fly-daze from backpacking, hangovers and red-eye flights (in that order), re-enacting the ending of Love Actually, but I didn't care for all that emotional nonsense, I was just happy to be within 1000 miles of a Starbucks.

Cramming into a cab that's way too small for us and barely legal to do in sensible countries, you know instantly we've arrived in outlaw country, this would be one of many reminders today. Bangkok is as you'd expect from an Asian city, dirty urban sprawl of highrises and pollution, neither much to look at or nothing to look at, it is just is what it just is, functional.

We arrive to our hotel via some seedy looking alley/road, with a tired looking 7Eleven and countless stalls of street cooking stalls, dubbed “Streetbeef” the hotel was surprisingly luxurious considering its surroundings with people in matching outfits and lots of marble, wasn't until we explored Bangkok a bit more you realise that this was as good as it was going to get.

Daylight still shining through cloudy polluted skies, we head out to see what Bangkok had in-store for us, grabbing a few beers and Red Bulls in medicine bottles we flag down a couple of tuk-tuks, and proceed to aim for Chinatown for whatever reason.

Riding in a tuk-tuk is quite possibly the most fun you can have on a three-wheels, racing each other through the streets of Bangkok in an over-exposed machine that has been cobbled together with scraps, noisily weaving in and out of traffic with a beer in hand, the wind in your hair and feeling bugs hitting your teeth as you smile. At that point, I was ready to leave Thailand, as far as I was concerned it would all be downhill from here.

We got dropped off and not knowing what to expect, this is not what we expected from Chinatown, although, I'm not even sure if we were heading into Chinatown, in fact, I have no idea what was going on, a theme that would be a common factor with this trip, it was fine, after leaving Perth it was refreshing to see people outside using these things like side-walks and green spaces.

Wandering around for bit to give each other reassurance like this was exactly where we wanted to be, we all faulted and the others asked a nice man in a hat for directions as I snuck out from the conversation to join in with the adjacent temple's ritual of lighting incense and looking at a gold buddha.

It was decided we'd get in another tuk-tuk and go, somewhere. More streets and back alleys later, we were confronted with a man with a small bar and a boat, putting the pieces together I came to the conclusion that Chinatown wasn't going to happen and we were instead going to go on a boat trip.

After some bargaining we hop on a boat with some beers and surged down the river looking at other boats enviously with their V8 engines carving their hulls to the river bed with their speed as we were on the equivalent of a snail drawn aqua-rickshaw, as our boat chugged along with all the gusto of a corpse.

This gave us plenty of time to take in all the sights as we drifted down the main river and into the canals looking into these tatty waterfront properties that were slowly subsiding, with people milling about on their balconies in-amongst their freshly washed sheets, trying to make it a home with some plants, children jumping off bridges without a care in the world about where they are all they had to do is avoid boats and floating litter.

Passing this temple we make a pit-stop as we were ushered into buying some bread to feed the fish for good luck, paying the costly sum of 20p for a loaf of bread, my expectations of this event was going to be like feeding ducks at the lake, all very calming and rewarding like a childhood memory should be, but this in Bangkok.

Ripping off the first chunk of bread and flinging it in without too much care, a torrent started in the water as hundreds of carp rose from the depths and went absolutely ape-shit at the surface, jumping over each other, splashing around getting us all wet and generally causing an enormous rawkus as this delicious bread entered their domain.

As we got braver with the bread, so did the fish with taking it, their mouths popping out as far as their bodies would let them, just snatching it from our hands as we neared the surface with it, it was exhilaratingly frightening, that something as tame as a fish could become vicious doughnivores.

With that fun experience we were riding on a high and we get to our next stop where one of our friends wanted to go, The Snake Farm, sounded interesting and judging by his enthusiasm for the place as a 'thing we had to do', we had to do it.

Paying an entrance fee we walk into this filthy, disgusting, god awful zoo, small concrete pens with giant crocodiles, bears, birds etc. all looking like they could quite happily be given a shotgun or a couple of cyanide pills. I found the whole thing way too distressing and made me very angry that places like this exist and I paid and fucking entrance fee, I wanted nothing more than to get out of that stupid fucking hell hole, as soon as possible but we had a show to go to.

The 6 of us sat in this circular arena as we were presented some nonsensical thing about snakes, 3 snakes were taken out their cages and their handlers would annoy the snakes in turn into attacking them, then they'd draw the poison from the cobra, did something to another snake and made us wear the python. The only highlight from this zoo was our friend who is completely and utterly scared of snakes and freaking out over them, even though there were quite some distance away, behind a fence and have no wings in order to fly over and attack him.

We hopped on the boat and navigated out of the canals passing some big water lizard munching on a freshly caught fish along the way and we reach our final stop at the Temple of Dawn or Wat Arun as it's known locally, we walked/climbed up these precariously steep and shallow steps to the top of the central prang and were be greeted with a late afternoon sun soaked view over Bangkok, was a great way to end what had been a horrific experience prior at the zoo.

Yada yada yada and some stuff happened in between the Temple of Dawn and such as food, walking through a green space with lots of kites and more incredibly dangerous driving and getting over a minor incident involving shoes, we arrive to the State Tower Rooftop cocktail bar/restaurant.

This was chosen by the guys of the group as this was one of the locations used in the film Hangover II, and it was pretty obvious to tell the guests, the ones with money dining at the restaurant enjoying the entertainment and quoting Shakespeare, from the tourists, squashed onto a small corner of the roof with the bar enjoying the view quoting Alan from Hangover I.

Only having one drink there we headed to the complete polar-opposite of Bangkok's social scene, I don't know it's proper name, but it this entertainment goes by the name of 'Ping-pong show'.

Entering the street where this happens you're harassed by guys with menus and prices of what particular thing you want to see; Pussy opens bottles, pussy plays flute, pussy read book, pussy paints picture, pussy renders bricks, pussy pets cat, pussy fucks dick and other such things.

God knows how anyone would bother with this, but they would and we did. We walked around looking for the perfect place to have this act burnt onto our retinas, we latch on to some Americans that look like they know what they're doing and join them into their second show.

Walking up into this seedy room that looks and smells like a horrible dark social club where the great unwashed come to make themselves feel better cause they're not as bad as these guys, we sit down on a long bench with a lit podium and in front of us watch these girls dance with as much passion, as the caged animals we saw earlier, wanted to live.

Then from amongst the shadows this girl/woman/female person that could only be best described as 'AIDs-ridden-ropey-roadkill' started to open bottles with her special talent (her parents must be proud) and everyone was disgusted as that was the point our drinks turned up.

AIDs-ridden-ropey-roadkill, came up to us all asking for tips and everyone refused and as me and my friend were at the end of the line of these people, and also refused we got the most grief for not tipping. So, another mange-ridden girl took to the stage and did something 'elegant' with ribbon, again the same tip scenario happened.

AIDsy took to the stage again and this time had blow darts and started to pop balloons, fairly impressive and again came up for tips and everyone said no, this was when she lost her temper.

She collected up her darts and sat down on the floor next to me and my mate and uttered something in Thai and fired a dart into the wall to the right of us and it had so much force it stuck in, she then menacingly turned around 90 degrees towards me and my friends and fired off a couple of rounds at up, like some sort of perverted action film.

None of this was fun, but was fine having AIDs darts showing down on us, it only became really a problem and a time to leave when one dart pounded the gap between me and my friend and stuck into the seat, that was when we both said together, 'Time to leave'.

That would be the big grand finale for our first day in Bangkok, as we got a taxi back to our hotel to pass out, recover, recoup and get tested for any STDs.