Greetings,

may as well start this mail as I wait for Bandy to get back from buying
his guitar, I think I’ll be regretting not getting one in about an hour. He’s
bought exactly the same one that Qatar Airways broke on my last trip to
Bangkok so he really knows how to annoy me!

Well I’m here, I think I’m not jet lagged, after getting up at 2pm and
working all night Sunday and then getting 2 hours sleep on the plane I didn’t sleep
last night until 2am, and I had to practically drag Bandy back out when we
somehow ended up back at the hotel at 11pm. The guy has no stamina! so
Sunday 2pm to Wednesday 2am on 2 hours sleep is pretty good :p
Yesterday was mad, got in at 7am and took a nice convoluted tour to Khoa
San Road. I was planning on ambushing bandy as I said I would be there at 11pm,
as it was he had booked the room in the place I wanted, but put it in his
name! SO the very helpful receptionist wouldn’t let me have it. Probably
just as well as I would only sleep and i needed to stay up and beat the jet
lag. After 1/2 of checking other hostels for my missing travel companion I
stagger back to the ‘New Siam’ and he turns up 10 minutes later just as I
persuade her to give me the key. Its 9am by then and the earliest he’s been
up!

Khao san hasn’t changed much since June, we have a wander, get some food at
the best Thai veggie place I know then set off looking for guitars. I knew
vaguely where it was and its nice to get away from all the tourists and
hassle of backpacker central. Of course, as soon as I told Bandy this ‘no
one speaks English round here’, the words had barely left my lips before
someone asked where we were going and what country we came from :p bloody
touts! Somehow bandy just attracts them like flies, I’m surprised he managed
to make it to the city. He got an unmarked ‘taxi’ with 1 guy, who was
joined by 2 others. They wanted 3,000 Baht, thats 45 quid!! I got my taxi on the
meter and it was 200B and I felt ripped off cos its usually 150! He got
away with paying 1000, I would have ran to the tourist police….. scratch that,
I wouldn’t have gotten in the car!!

Still, its nice to have a friend in a strange city, or it would be if he
wanted to go out. He stayed out a bit longer than me last night and now
he’s sworn off beer….. we’ll see.

We checked out the guitar shops and carried on through Chinatown, wandering
randomly, working up a sweat, but not too much as its rather mild. About 25
degrees or so. I might have to buy some long trousers! Eventually it was a
bit too tiring and we jumped in a taxi to legendary MBK shopping mall. We
even spent some money!! 8 nice new shirts, since i deliberately came with
one t-shirt so I would have to buy some. They have glass booths up on the 6th
floor, which are supposedly sound proof, you put it your money, grab a mic
and karaoke to your hearts content. I insisted we get the outer one, and
some western guys were killing themselves walking past as I was doing my best
wacko jacko impression while singing thriller. All the locals enjoyed the
show too.

Then we went bowling, and its not exaggeration to say I kicked bandy’s arse.
Strike on the first ball, and it was all over from then, I rattled him too
much :) We looked great in those white socks and blue shoes, while sipping
strawberry daquaris from martini glassed. Super!
More food at a great Tappanyaki bar up in the food court, god knows what
bandy ordered, ‘aki steak’ but I think it was squid… could have been
tripe…. oops! This trip should be much more interesting since i stopped
being vegetarian, I can stop being quite so afraid to experiment. Bit more
shopping, got sucked into the fourth floor which is a mistake, its
completely devoted to mobile phones, but I’ll be down there selling mine so
we needed to do some research.

Back on khao san its more of the same, cocktails, curry, pineapple off the
street and avoiding the lady boys. Wasn’t the best idea to try to make it a
big night after so little sleep but I had to try. Gulliver’s just didn’t
seem the same after my adventures last June, we found a nice bar with cute staff

to entertain us and hung out there until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. When
I say bar I mean a load of tables and chairs on the street, the toilet is
down an alley and go right, left, left, right, left and left, you can’t
miss it :p Come twelve o’clock because of Bangkok’s crack down on late night
drinking they remove the tables and get the mats out, but you still keep
drinking. I had a banana daquiri and a pink pussy, it was quite good!! God
knows what Bandy was drinking, I think he was trying to impress the cute
owner with his constitution (and wallet :p).
No reason not to drink tonight though. Wtf is he?? I leave him for 10 mins
and I’ll never see him again! Surely he’s still not testing his guitar!
I’ll have to get up early and get one tomorrow. Looks like we’re flying down to
trat so we can get the ferry to the Island of Ko Chang. Should be good,
I’ve never been. Then back to BKK on Sunday and off to Cambodia, I guess, who
knows….

So much for just starting this mail, I’ve finished it!! I better go look
for him, plonker sold his mobile, looks like I might have to give him a spare
so I don’t lose him all the time.



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