OK well if you'd told me 2 months ago I'd play Jenga and Connect 4 (and lose) at some point this year I'd have believed you. But if you'd told me we would have played said games with three 'ladies of the night', in a brothel....hey but first things first I'll come back to that story later (now I've got your attention...)

Finally we have a plan - we went to the floating market today, and are off to Kanchanaburi tomorrow to see the Bridge Over the River Kwai (which isn't actually over the River Kwai) and to see a bit of the countryside. It is meant to be idyllic. We have also booked our ticket out of Thailand (our Visas run out on Monday anyway) - we are flying to Vientiane (capital of Laos) on Monday with Thai Airways. The best news is that they've got a promotion on at the moment so if you book 1 business class seat you get one free so we have and it was about 20 quid more expensive than economy - BARGAIN!!!

Back to the floating market, and time for a guest write for her description - 'ladeez and gentlemennnnn I give you Dr. Jennifer Cornwell':

Well, I had been looking forwad to this trip since arriving in Bangkok, we got up early 6am for this trip. We were in a mini bus of no english speakers, hence no flowing conversation. The first stop was a demonstartion on how to make sugar from coconut flowers and buy expensive tacky tourist souvenirs. Onward, we arrived at the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, to be greeted by Longtail boats, hundreds of tourists shipped in by coach for a tour of the canals. we did get a slight insight of local life, washing, cleaning clothes and pots in the river. we then arrived at the "floating market" to be faced with paying a further 200B each for a paddle boat around the market. This annoyed us as we had paid to see the floating market, but yet again the Thais take you for every penny they can get. After negotiating separately from our group we had a boat to ourselves for 200B. This involved a trip up and down the canals being taken to various stalls to buy some more expensive souvenir tat. At this point we asked if we could go to other ares to see life without a thousand tourists and found out that there is no such area. The whole market is put on for tourist (we need a up to date Thailand lonely planet), we also met a couple on their honeymoon repeatedly throughout the day who were also disillusioned. The highlight was some freshly made noodle soup from a boat and the buying of a model tuk-tuk (that even moves of it's own accord when you pull it backwards - Dan).

Next we were taken to a cobra show where surprise surprise we had to pay more money to see a cobra fight with a man, and other creatures - we declined and had an ice cream instead. After this it was to a wood carving demonstration where you could buy carvings for 10 times the price from elsewhere in Thailand.

After feeling suitably fleeced we have vowed never to go on an organised trip again - it is bad enough paying FARANG prices for everything. On the way back to Bangkok our driver had a massive disagreement on his mobile and we had to swap buses. The trip around Bangkok took forever and after 40mins we were no where near reaching our hotel so we did what we should have done all along and made our own way back.

It has made me want to leave Thailand I am fed up of being fleeced.

Strong words indeed but hey it was THAT BAD....

Anyhoo, back to those women of ill repute. Last night we went back to Patpong, principally to hunt for cushion covers for Jen and Gameboy games for me. We managed to find a bar with a decent pool table (Jen briefly held the title of Cornwell family pool champion but not for long (although as a footnote she has vowed to win back this coveted award this evening...)) and spent a really nice couple of hours chatting, playing pool, and generally having a good time. Incidentally the music was also excellent AND the bar sold alcopops so Jen was in pre-mixed heaven! After being bitten (by mosquitoes) for the umpteenth time Jen has switched to Tiger Balm to a) deter them - it works! and b) help take the edge off the bites. At some point before the pool hall we'd lost her pot of said lotion and she wondered off to buy another one. On her return (I was by this stage taking the locals (well an English bloke, an Israeli and a Thai national, but all whom seemed to be well known in the bar) on in a kind of mini-tournament (won 1 lost 1)) she exclaimed (very excitedly) there's a bar up the road (near the pharmacy) with a live band and they sound really good. Now, given that neither myself nor my wife could be described as musically talented I was not 100% sure of her ability to judge whether a band was good or not (especially after a couple of bacardi breezers) but I thought what the hell and off we trotted to said bar. Now there was a band, yup, and they were, to be fair, pretty good. What we didn't realise (until we sat down) was that it was a kind of bar/club/brothel. We, obviously, decided to befriend the ladies and to while to minutes away they brought out (it's only when writing this now I realise how bizarre this actually sounds) a set of connect four and a jenga tower. We proceeded to play with them, and although I got stuffed, Jen came out on top (quick fetch the innuendo police...)

We gave them a tip (I said NO MORE...) and left - hopeful that they had enjoyed an hours distractions from all the sweaty fat Germans in the bar...

We have now got to sort out our accommodation for tomorrow and thus I'd better go do some research...

Probably no internet in Kanchanaburi and almost certainly none/limited availability in Laos so this may be the last update for a while - either way keep checking and keep them emails flowing.