Back on familiar ground, in familiar surroundings, on a patch we almost know as our second home - yup it's Thailand, Bangkok, Suk11 all over again. Plane journey was unsurprisingly empty, less than a hundred on a plane built for 260. Before boarding the plane we had lunch and spent a couple of hours with a Dutch couple who'd been living in Didsbury for the last 3 years, they have already been to South America and promised to help us out with any questions...in exchange we told them all we could remember about South East Asia - their next destination. Their plane to Singapore was even emptier than ours - 46 passengers, tourism is definitely not booming here at the moment.

On board everyone (including all staff) wore masks and we did so for the first time, figuring it would be easier to clear customs/immigration in Bagkok if we complied. I felt like I was about to enter an Altern 8 gig. The scene on arrival was one of (dis)organised chaos, half the Chinese hadn't filled in their obligatory health survey forms (to be fair it was in English and Thai script only - no Chinese characters) and thus there was huge confusion about who went where etc...eventually we found the right queue, were quizzed about our health, and had our temperature taken (Jen's was 36.5 - a degree lower than she should be!) and after passing through about 50 health officials in full surgical gear we were allowed into the reclaimation area.

So what to do in Bangkok? We're shipping another load of stuff, bought in China, back (we owe you some serious beer Neil) including Panbada who has become something of a mascot, but is a little cumbersome to lug round with us. It is Songkram (sp?) here which is Thai New Year. Basically it's an excuse for a huge water fight and tourists are the main target - I already got soaked last night, a day early - I must have a particularly irritating 'I'm a tourist come soak me' face, or I might just have looked like an American. Whatever happens it should be fun. Jen has vowed to win her pool crown back tonight so we will have to see. At this point I need to point out that when in Laos I lost rather spectacularly to a Swedish guy who Jen then promptly went and beat - she believes this makes her better than me at pool and has been nagging me to write it on here for ages. So there we go, happy now??!!

We have put our visit to the weekend market on hold until the weekend of my bro's arrival (May 3rd/4th) as most of the stalls won't be there anyway this weekend. After this we're not 100% sure of what we're doing - we got an email from Helen and Rich who have also decided against HK and The Philippines/Indonesia and are now going South through Thailand via some diving. They should be back in Thailand around 20th April and I think we're going to meet up and 'do' Phi Phi. With this is mind we will probably stay a couple of nights in Krabi (we fly on Monday) before taking the boat to Koh Lanta - another undeveloped island where you can also dive. this should mean we arrive in Phi Phi at roughly the same time as them.