Thailand

It was very hard leaving Vietnam as both of us fell in love with the place, but all good things come to an end. Thailand is very different, much more developed and people don't stare at you for being a westerner.

We landed at Bangkok airport and stayed the night at a hotel nearby so we could decide where we were going next. Bangkok will be the last leg of our Thailand trip as Andrea has said that's where she'll be buying loads of stuff from. I think it's a favour so i don't have to carry so much around Thailand, i just have to carry it from then on ;) We decided on Phuket as geographically it seemed like the best place to start. This was the first time that we've ever turned up at an airport and not had a flight ticket, and we didn't have much trouble getting one. Bangkok airport is massive by the way and quite impressive. This was also our first taste at seeing some UK shops for almost a year. Andrea was all in a flutter when she saw a Boots Chemist !

Landing in Phuket the weather was really bad, the rain was very wet. We managed to book into a very classy hotel at Patong Beach called "PS2 Bungalow" it's about 8 pounds per night, has a pool/aircon and is our cheapest hotel yet ! woo! There are no PS2's in the room though which i think is blatant misadvertising, there are however a team of cute kittens that come up to us when we're outside. Patong is a dump really, it's very touristy and full of fish and chip shops and tacky shops...Not that any of this is bad, Andrea loves a bit of tat (or "classy tat" as she calls it).

Walking about here is pretty scary, not by the fact that you might get mugged or anything, but in the sheer number of Massage Parlours. They're all genuine and most of them have teams of thai ladies ouside and will shout, grab, probably flash their bits too, just to get you inside them. We've discovered that "Oil Massage" is the code word for the "extras" that may accompany a massage (how delicately did i put that !). Walking on my own it's ten times worse for me as that's when they start blocking your path and grabbing you. Andrea has it easy.

After three days here we finally hit the main street where all the action was. Before this we were spotting ladyboys (can't believe they have a link for ladyboys)here and there, but when we got to this street...oh my! It's on the street where the Thai boxing stadium is, and you can't swing a dead cat in this street without hitting a ladyboy or a go-go dancer. Most of the ladyboys are really easy to spot...they're just to butch, beardy, or hairy. Some of them however are really hard to spot. Andrea and I spent the night in the main place where they all are drinking and trying to come up with a system to spot them. We found one, their feet size if their weakness, they're massive bloke feet. That took all night to figure out in the mean time there are some sights to tell about.

Firstly, the ladyboys on the poles/podiums are quite bitchy to one another. One ladyboy got into a bit of an tizz and the removed one of his/her chicken fillets to mop her brow ! They are quite open in showing their bits to everyone, alowing photos and everything (we forgot our camera thankfully). It's all very entertaining. Other occurances was this 60 year old man turning up at the bar we were at with 3 "ladies" with him !!! Andrea was amazed and had a chat with both him and the girls. There was also a time when i needed the loo, upon my return, Andrea was swamped by a ladyboy and a waitress who were asking Andrea if she was a ladyboy. Everyone in the bar was laughing and the waitress even felt Andrea's boob to see if it was real! Andrea couldn't communicate with me very well as she was laughing so hard about it all, so waitress told me all this.

We left our ladyboys here and headed for a go go bar. This was just as entertaining as the place we were in was more like a go go market with one path that went through about 20 bars. Blokes here were really getting grabbed loads by the girls and getting a lot of hastle. Andrea and I went through it all unscathed. We found a bar where the girls were dancing on the bar and then waited for some sights, there was only one and that was a really drunk westerner who came in with his "lady" she then proceeded to get him to buy all the bar staff and go go girls a few drinks...they really were fleecing this guy for all that he had.

After a few days weathering out the storm here, the sun finally came out today...Andrea has already ordered a load of chip fat for her upcoming sunbath'o'thon.