Brisbane to Bangkok Day 1 - 13 to 14 November

After all the hugs and kisses from friends and family at the airport we descended to through to customs. The line was huge, and we were glad that we went down early. By the time we finally made it to the gate it was time to board. I sent my final message from my phone to loved ones and that was it we were on the plane. I was surprised with the movie options - plenty of soppy girly movies for me and beat 'em up movies for Jono. The plane food wasnt too bad, considering it was plane food. At about 2am I was tired and tried to get some sleep. With the hum of the engine, Jono's stinky feet and the uncompfy chairs it was nearly impossible to get any sleep. Im going to guess that I got about two hours. We woke to breakfast being served. Not long after eating we were landing in Bangkok.

Going through customs in Bangkok was much easier than we had expected. We pretty much walked straight out the door. We stopped to declare some items, but they didnt want to know about us. Oh well. We wandered about the airport looking for our driver. I had emailed the hotel a number times asking if the driver would be holding a sign with our name or the hotel name - but no answer. When we couldnt find someone with a sign we decided to look for our own taxi. We walked towards the door and were hounded by so many people 'where you go?' or 'i know your hotel'. After such a long flight and barely any sleep I started to get annoyed. We finally found a taxi that looked legit, and headed to the hotel. We bartered the guy down a few hundred baht, but I am ashamed to say that I think he still ripped us off.

We asked for Khaosan Road, Thai Diamond Hotel. It was 7am, the street was empty, and our taxi driver said he didnt know of our hotel. He said that he knew a place called Diamond House, but it wasnt on Khaosan - I was sure our hotel was on Khaosan road. After some confusion (and my idiocy for now printing out our invoice) we got out of the cab and headed for an internet cafe. I logged onto my trusty email account and oops... it was Diamond House and it wasnt on Khaosan. Not sure of where to go to get to our hotel we hopped in a tuk tuk and made our way (all two blocks) to the hotel. We were happy to finally be at the right place. Luckily our hotel checked us in early. We had a good view of the street and the roof top gave us a good view of most of bangkok... Plus the fridge was full of water, chocolate, beer and other little treats. We didnt stay in the hotel long. We hit the street and started walking about town.

We were heading to the markets when we were greeted by such a lovely lady who helped us with some of the event happening over the weekend (the kings sister has died so there are going to be fireworks tomorrow night - woot woot). She even helped us get a cheap tuk tuk (10 bht each) to check out some of the temples. After looking at the temples the driver took us to some shops, which turned into more shops and even more shops! After the fourth shop we asked to go home, at which stage the driver explained that he gets petrol vouchers for taking us to the shops. Argh ripped off by lovely old lady and tuk tuk driver!! I thought 'Thats it, no more miss nice aussie'. So now I have a calculator and every time we go to buy something i wip out my calculator and figure out what they actually want to charge me and i make sure i know what i am paying for (with no hidden suprises). Grrrr...!

After such a busy morning we thought that a nice boat ride would slow things down a little, so spent a couple of hours going up and down the river on a long boat with a few beers, going into little channels, waving to smiling thai's and listening to music being played by the monks. It was a fantastic ending to an amazing day. We packed so much into today, and I am ready for bed!!

Naomi:-)