Getting out of the airport was no hassle at all, having been before, and done my research before hand I knew exactly where to head to get a regular everyday taxi into the city.

A note about Thai taxi drivers. They have obviously heard that every Italian drives like they are in the Ferrari team for Formula 1, however they may have contenders in Thai taxi drivers. Either that or they think they are in car-chase scenes in Hollywood movies.

Anyway after a couple of near-death experiences I finally found myself at my guest-house and lugging my stuff up 4 flights of stairs, which finally proved how unhealthy I am, but never mind that, I’m sure a reduced diet, heat and lots of walking over the next few months will cure me of my extra baggage. The place itself is pretty good, its cheap and has a pretty good location that is especially handy for the river boat services that plough the Chao Prayha river. It also turned into the unofficial guest-house of a Facebook group of which I am a member, with a decent number of us from it all staying here for some or all of our time in Bangkok. I really do recommend it if you want a good place to stay off the KSR and is still close enough to that area and the big sights of the Grand Palace and Wat Pho, that little effort is expended in getting around.

I have met and spent a couple of fun days and nights with a group of people from Facebook (Hi Fabian, Lucy, Rachel & Simona), after they approached me hoping that I was who they thought I was from my image on FB. I’d thought about yelling across the restaurant when they walked in to it on Tuesday evening but after nearly 40 hours of wakefulness, I just could not find the energy. Roll forward a couple of hours later and the 5 of us are – as usual with long term travellers – very merry and very much acting like we have been friends for much longer than a late night.

Being an old Bangkok hand I took it upon myself (it could be said I just decided what the 5 of us would do, but that just is not how it is at all.) to show them a couple of places they had not thought about visiting. We set out to do a few fun things over the course of the day including visiting Wat Thawit – home of a 5tonne SOLID GOLD Buddha:

exploring Chinatown (not easily helped by the river not staying where I wanted it too and as a result we may have gotten a little turned around), spending a good [sic] few hours at Suan Lum Night Bazaar, which has vastly improved since I was last here, even if shopping with 3 women was the worst idea I’d ever had! We managed to do all of this using local transport – both the riverboat and the sky-train – which was surprisingly for Bangkok, still as excellent as they had been on previous visits.

There are still things I need to do here, including see Wat Arun, get out of town to Kanchanaburi for the day, get my hair cut and maybe do some shopping (you just can not do stuff for yourself when herding three women around so they don’t spend all their budgets in 1 night!), but I know I’ll continue to enjoy myself here.