Chapter one

After 24 hours of travelling we arrived on the noisy streets of Bangkok, completely exhausted and eager to get to the hostel. Jumped into the first taxi we could see and sat back to relax. The driver proceeded to give us a 20 minute story on tai 'soapy' massages and how he likes to get them daily. We laughed politely, and slightly nervously as we had no seat belts and were swerving through traffic at 70mph. This taxi ride also turned out to be the first time we got screwed over. When we arrived the driver tried to charge us 10 times the normal rate for the journey. After a 5 minute argument we gave him 400 baht and walked to our hostel depressed.

We ended up staying at Back Home Backpackers for a week, longer than we had planned as Henry had unfortunately been bed ridden for a few days. We learnt quickly how easy it is to meet other travellers. We met an American, two Dutch, a Dane, a Scot and two English travellers in our first few nights . Everyone was refreshingly friendly and social, although most were surprised we're travelling at a mere 18 years old.

Backpackers hotspot Koa san road is a weird place to be at night. There is a mixture of backpackers, locals and

expats getting shitfaced at a variety of bars. The first bar we went to was called 'we do not check ID's bar'. The second bar we visited we met 3 Tai girls, one of which turned out to be a ladyboy. The sex trade is also way more open than I had expected. Prostitutes roam the street all night hoping to catch drunk westerners unaware. We ate a scorpion, got drunk, and that was Koa San done.

The rest of our time in Bangkok consisted of the touristy stuff. We saw the Grand Palace and emerald Budda, ate at China town, had a drink in the sky bar, got a blessing from a monk, and saw the very impressive leaning Buddha. This Buddha must have been 40m long and 8m tall, it was incredible.

With all that done it was time to pack up and jump on the bus to Trat.