"Ping Pong Show?"

The three key phrases you should arm yourself with before arriving on Bangkok's Koh San Road are: "No, I do not require a tuk tuk", "No, I am not in need of a suit" and "No, I would not like to see a ping pong show". With regard to the latter, the touts don't actually ask the ping pong question using words. Instead, they purse the lips together tightly until they're forced apart, creating a sound somewhere between popping and sucking.

So, this was Bangkok. We hopped off the bus and into the surreal world of Ko Sahn Road in the early afternoon, wandering around looking for a place to stay and, for the first night at least, we found it in Khao San Palace Inn just off Ko Sahn Road. With clean bedding, satellite TV and an air conditioner blowing out sweet, cold air, it was perfect and, showered and organised we ventured outside for a look around.

One of KSR's more unusual bars

In the afternoon and into the early evening, Ko Sahn Road does a roaring trade in tourist toot, pirate DVDs and CDs, vests adorned with the brand image of several local beers, knock off clothing and off-the-back-of-a-lorry-goods. We say trade roars into the early evening, but given the fact that when the sun goes down the road side bars pop up to offer "ice cold beer" and "bargain cocktail buckets", we'd imagine there's a direct correlation between levels of alcohol consumed and sales (not to mention profit margins from the reduced ability to haggle) on the road. Picking out some stuff we'd be coming back for once we'd had a good nights sleep and re-oiled our now rusting bartering skills, we sat ourselves down to our first Beer Chang. This was followed by our first Thai meal: a Chicken Pad Thai and Green Coconut Curry from Mr Yim's street food stall. The food across Thailand was and is incredible, generally safe - we had no problems and had meat with every meal - and outrageously cheap. That meal cost us less than £2. Later, we parked ourselves next to a lone Asian tourist sipping from a cocktail bucket for a couple more Chang's on Ko San Road itself, watching the utter craziness unfold: the guys who went too hard too soon, the lairy lads on tour and the prostitutes and lady-boys circling the tables of those that look just about drunk enough to say yes.

This one's self-explanatory

As we needed to get our visas for Vietnam, we had to stick around in Bangkok for a few days whilst we waited for the appropriate boxes to be ticked and stamps to be thumped, but we did a good job of filling our time. Having dropped our passports off at the Vietnamese embassy, we walked to what is meant to be an infamous mall of knock-offs, MBK (shaking off the touts that were telling us it was closed), but upon arrival we were pretty underwhelmed. We weren't hungrily seeking fake Rolex's and Louis Vuitton bags, but we were interested to at least take a peak and, overall, it was a poor show: bad Paul Smith fakes (imagine Richard's disdain - a fake Paul Smith. The audacity!), okay looking bags, Lacoste and Ralph Lauren polos...That said, Ashley came away with two 'Ralph Lauren' work shirts. Overall though it was distinctly average.

The real treat was a two minute walk from MBK, where, housed on two narrow lanes, were lines of small stalls run by local designers that produced amazing t-shirts and other clothing, as well as some excellent jewellery - it was like a Thai Urban Outfitters.

Speaking of shopping, each weekend in Chatuchak, a 30 minute journey on Bangkok's super-modern, air conditioned metro system, the world class Chatuchak Market takes place. 'World Class' isn't an accolade we've placed upon it - it consists of ten thousand stalls and is *the largest market in the world. We can vouch for that as we spent six or seven relentless hours delving into and finding our way out of this rabbit warren and didn't even come close to covering it all.

At Chatuchak, you can find everything you could possibly need. What is it you're after? Spices? Food? Fruit and veg? Fakes (T-shirts? Jewellery? Watches? Sunglasses? Bags?)? Electronics? Tableware? Tourist trinkets? Furniture (if so, indoor or out)? Snakes? There's a stall for that. There's even a large area dedicated once again to local designers who were flogging some awesome designs for outrageous prices. This bit was Portobello-esque.

 

Chatuchak street food: some of the best Pad Thai we had in Thailand

So, when we say we were able to amuse ourselves, we did so consuming. We took in some of the cultural sights too though. A short walk from Ko Sahn Road was Bangkok's Grand Palace, a large, gawdy, indulgent palace covered in gold, mirrored and brightly coloured tiles to create enormous mosaics. Before we entered the Palace, we had to cover our Western knees and shoulders with various items of stock clothing. We'd come a little unprepared as it was a palace and not a place of worship, so we didn't think anyone would be 'watching'. Not so, apparently.

A small part of the Grand Palace

Ashley modelling the sexy clothes

Inside the Grand Palace

After the Grand Palace we walked to Wat Pho, the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok famed for it's giant reclining Buddha - the biggest in Thailand. In our travels thus far we have seen alot of Buddhas, be they reclining, seated or standing. We know it sounds ridiculous, and when we heard people use the phrase 'templed-' or 'Buddha'd-out' before we left, we just thought they were being ungrateful, but it does happen. So, when we heard about this Buddha, we didn't expect too much as we'd already seen a lot of impressive ones.

However, at forty six metres long and eighteen metres high, this Buddha was enormous and he just lay on his side, chilling out. We walked around with our mouths open trying to take it all in. The figure itself was made of plaster covered in gold leaf and in the eyes and on the soles of his ginormous feet were mother of pearl inlays. We were beyond impressed and clearly yet to be Buddha'd out.

We also found a beautiful little cafe just ten minutes from Kho Sahn called Niras Bankoc where they made an excellent iced tea and a tasty green tea mousse cake. It was totally worth the walk. Plus, they looked as though they had some cosy, reasonably priced rooms if you wanted to be away from, but close enough to, the craziness.

In Thailand, they love their King. His image is everywhere

On the streets of Bangkok: a group of monks making for a taxi

Speaking of rooms, after a good nights sleep and a day back on Asian prices, we concluded that our first night in Bangkok was rather expensive and so decoded to pack our bags and move to the cheaper and infinitely inferior New My Guest House just around the corner. The room was the epitome of a sweatbox but, for half the price, we thought it was worth the move. It wasn't until the next morning, when we woke up at 10am thinking it was still the middle of the night, that we realised just how much of a hole it was. With no windows, there was no natural light and so you awoke in complete darkness no matter the time of day. Hole with a capital H.

61 floors up: we visited Vertigo Rofftop Bar for an evening cocktail

Vietnamese visas in our passports (which are becoming incredibly exciting to flick through - stamps everywhere!), we headed north on an overnight train to Chiang Mai. Overall, there was little difference to the countless overnight trains we became oh-so familiar with in India, but with one exception. At about nine o'clock, a train employee whizzed through the carriage with your bedding and made your bed up at lightning speed. We half expected him to tuck us in.

We'd been recommended a place to stay by one of the guys we met in Hampi and, always keen to have a recommendation, we spent the next five nights at Spicythai Backpackers. Run by Pong, a Thai guy that had travelled though Europe extensively, he knew what he liked in a place and just created that in Chiang Mai. It was nothing fancy, it just did what it did incredibly well. The dorm rooms were clean and air conditioned, the shared bathrooms spotless, there was a decent breakfast included, a social area full of cushions and sofas where you could sit and choose from hundreds of films and TV programmes and watch them on the huge TV in the evenings and they had free wifi. What really made the stay though was the friendliness and helpfulness when it came to booking things, finding your way around and, above all, the nightly activities that were organised.

For instance, on our first night we were taken to Wat Suan Dok, a nearby temple. We had happened to have turned up on one of the holiest days in the Buddist calendar, Wisakhabucha, the day that Lord Buddha was born, reached enlightenment and died (across a few decades, he didn't just have a busy day). Here, we were given a lesson in Buddhism before being invited into the temple to sit and watch an hour of what had been a day-long sermon before we followed the procession of orange-robed monks outside. As we circled an enormous golden stupa (we say we but Ashley, as a female, couldn't walk directly behind the monks and so followed about ten minutes behind with the other ladies), the monks and the Thai's around us chanted. We did this three times, as with the Fountain of Wealth in Singapore, before going to light some incense and lay down a waterlily. It was a fascinating experience and one that we wouldn't have been able to participate in otherwise.

Wat Suan Dok

The ceremony

Worshippers offering incense, candles and waterlilies

Even on those nights where there was nothing as exciting going on, Pong was more than happy to take us to a local haunt for dinner, pointing out dishes he liked - always good to eat what the locals eat - and getting few beers in (ice cubes optional).

Casual beers with Pong

Chiang Mai was a wonderful, laid back place where you could have quite easily spent your time doing very little, but there was a hell a lot to do as well. Fighting the temptation to just loll about in the old town enjoying the bars and cafes created to serve the University city, we signed ourselves up to do a couple of things. The first was a cooking course.

After a visit to the market to buy our ingredients, we spent the day whipping up various Thai favourites, including Chicken Satay, Thom Yum Soup, Pad Thai and Green Curry. We even covered dessert, Ashley making a steamed banana pudding and Richard choosing to cook sweet sticky rice with mango. Having honed our Sri Lankan and Indian cooking skills, we can now add Thai to the repertoire. There were a couple of Amish girls in the class with us that were staying with a Christian family in the city, which made it that little bit more interesting. Unsurprisingly, they didn't say much, but their long, potentially homemade dresses and bonnets reflected their conservative attitudes.

AKA Century Eggs. These were on offer at the market. We gave them a miss

Ashley adopts her best concentration face whilst making Pad Thai

One of several dishes; Chicken Satay

The following morning, we were picked up by a sawngthaew, which translates as 'two benches', perfectly summarising this 'taxi' that offers the easiest and cheapest way of moving within a town or city. A pick-up truck drives in a particular direction and, if he's going your way, you flag him down, get your price and then join the other passengers in the covered back, which has one bench on each side. Our sawngthaew was taking us for a day of Mahout training, where we would learn to ride elephants bareback. First though, we stopped off at a roadside stall to pick up a big bunch of bananas for our soon-to-be companion. It's always important to make a good impression.

At the elephant park, after the elephants had inhaled the bananas we'd fed them, we got a proper introduction, during which we found out that all of the elephants were previously used by local logging companies to hall trees down and lug them around. Needless to say, the loggers treated them terribly and the life they lead now - being fed, ridden and loved by tourists - is infinitely better.

We spent the morning learning the necessary commands to control an elephant - how to get them to lift their right leg to create a step so you can jump onto it's back (taking a tight hold of the back of their ears), how to tell them you've got sugarcane treats to give them (as if they need a signal to figure that out), how to tell them you've run out and how to drive them forward and backwards and steer them left and right. The most fun command, however, was the one we learnt that caused the elephants front legs to bend, sending it's backside into the air and bringing it's head towards the ground. This was the alternative way of getting on: essentially leap-frogging over the elephant's enormous head, you straddle it's neck, facing the wrong way. Once upright, you then had to rotate so that you were facing the right way. Given his height, this was no problem for Richard, but Ashley's leap-frogging was less successful. On her first attempt, she just slid down the poor elephants face. The instructors therefore thought it would be easier for her to just hold the back of the elephants ears and get carried up.

One of the Mahouts showing off

This was a visual treat. Almost as soon as Ashley had a hold of the ears, the elephant started to get up and all that could be heard was a high-pitched "Oh Jesus!". From the ground, it looked as though she had run, jumped and tried attacking the elephant. The picture really speaks for itself.

Ashley 'attacks' her elephant

Sitting on an elephant for the first time is a strange feeling. On one level, you're excited. You're on an elephant! But there's a level of trepidation as you get used to its big, heavy movements. Once you learn to relax though, it's a great way to 'travel' - like riding a high-up, slightly hairy, tough skinned tractor.

We look like 80's throw-backs, but we had fun

Over lunch, we got chatting Roy, who we'd been watching with interest all morning anyway. He clearly loved animals and was chatting away to the elephants, scratching the backs of their ears and saying "yeah, that feels nice doesn't it darling" using the same voice people talk to their cats or dogs. A big, loud and friendly freelance journalist from LA, he told us how he'd spent the last five months travelling through Southeast Asia covering gigs and festivals for Rolling Stone Asia, which we thought was pretty cool. On his way round, when leaving Malaysia in fact, he contracted Dengue Fever and ended up in hospital. Whilst there, his leg got infected and swelled to double its size, getting to the point where the doctors were talking about amputating it. Not so cool.

Fed, we both hopped onto our elephant, with Ashley on the front and Richard behind. In a four elephant pachyderm, we followed the leader and directed Srisoi, our elephant for the afternoon, down to the river, where we bathed her using the bark from a tree, which, once wet, creates a lather. She sat in the river basking in the attention (and we made sure to get behind her ears).

Before heading back to Spicythai, we were given a certificate for our days mahout training, which we can only assume means that we're now allowed to drive an elephant anywhere in the world.

Eighteen kilometres out of the centre of Chiang Mai was the Doi Suthep temple, which sat at the top of a hill and offered amazing views of the city. Not fancying an epic, uphill trek in flip flops, we decided to hire a moped for the day. For just 250 Baht (£5), we hired a surprisingly modern 125cc motorbike from an incredibly effeminate vendor. On our way up to the temple, we passed Mae Sa waterfalls and thought we'd go and have a look. We found a completely isolated plunge pool with water pouring into it from the waterfall thirty feet above. Richard was determined to go in despite not having brought any of the necessary attire. Down to his boxers and in the refreshingly cool water, he was able to persuade Ashley in too. We tried to stand under the waterfall for a Peter Andre 'Mysterious Girl' photo or two, but as we got closer to the fall, we decided it was so strong it'd probably hammer us into the silt of the plunge pools bed like a nail and so we just posed on the rocks instead.

"Woah-oh, Woah-oh, Woah, Mysterious Girl!"

With no towels, we just sort of shook ourselves off, a la le chien, and used the motorbike as a tumble drier as we continued our ascent to the top of the hill, where we parked up and went inside Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. One of the north's most sacred temples, Doi Suthep was apparently chosen to hold a Buddha relic when an elephant holding the relic wandered to the top of the hill and collapsed and died. The temple is reached by a large staircase embellished with dragon heads and their scales are made of beautifully painted tiles.

The stairs up to Doi Suthep

We also visited Chiang Mai's reputed night market. Building up to our trip to Thailand, there was quite a lot of controversy surrounding the night market. Within the space of two weeks, around ten people had died in the city, a lot of them from Australia and NZ. The age range of the victims ranged from the early twenties to the late forties and, despite the Thai government insisting that there was no connection between the deaths, all had died of heart failure. There were a number of theories flying around and one of the 'favourites' was that it may have been the food at the night market. However, when we left NZ, the cause still hadn't been pinned down.

We went to the night market with two girls we met at the hostel - Bree the Canadian and Marnie the Australian - and, over a plate of Pad Thai, Marnie updated us on the spate of deaths. Thankfully they had nothing to do with the food. It transpired that despite the Thai governments insistence, all of the deaths were very much connected. All of the deaths had occurred inside the same hostel, where, after an outside investigation, the owners had been spraying the bedding in the rooms with insecticide. One of the chemicals possible side effect? Heart failure.

The prices at the night market were pretty inflated, probably due to its popularity and so haggling was hard going. Richard had to approach four or five different stalls before they even started taking his price for a couple of t-shirts seriously. One lady was so so 'insulted' by his opening price, her response was:

"Okay, bye, see you NEVER!"

Richard's attempt of explaining the haggling process - "you give me an outrageously inflated price and I give you a ridiculously low price and we meet somewhere in the middle" - didn't seem to help matters. It was a good market an a nice way to spend and evening though

Flying into Bangkok, slap bang in Thailand's centre, and wanting to visit places in both the north and the south of the country meant there was always going to be one long journey. Chiang Mai to Surat Thani was the one. Having decided on which Thai island we wanted to stay on, Koh Phangan, we booked ourself onto an early morning bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, where we'd get on another bus, this time overnight, to Surat Thani. From there we'd still need to find our way to the port and get a boat over to Koh Phangan.

The views on our way to Koh Phangan

The buses surpassed our expectations. The seats were fairly wide and comfortable and onboard throughout was what we suppose you'd call a bus hostess. Much like an air hostess, she walked from the front of the bus to the back handing out bottles of cold mineral water, cartons of iced green tea and boxes of snacks. We didn't sign up for this special treatment, we just booked a ticket at the bus station. The overnight bus, however, was a little harder to bear. All day, our first bus had been playing terrible Thai pop music, which are all - seemingly without variation - slow, whiny ballads about love. We were able to handle it in the sunlight, but on the overnight bus it seemed as though every time we were just starting to nod off, we were awoken with this monotonous, self-indulgent din. We've heard bad things about Thai prisons and we're not sure if this is a utilised torture method, but if it isn't, they should certainly consider it. It's up there with bamboo shoots under the fingernails.

We rolled into Surat Thani at the less than ideal time of 5am and, after sitting on a bench for a while to come up with a plan, we got into a sawngthaew that took us to the boat and bus booking office.

'Booking office' substantially oversells the place we pulled up in front of. It was literally a dark and dirty hole in the wall, containing a few decapitated chairs and a tired desk. This is where we discovered that the Thai islands, or at least the business of getting to them, suffered from certain levels of collusion. The port was still eighty kilometres away and, as the only viable option of getting there was on a bus provided by this company, it was expensive. They then tried to tie in a bus-boat deal for a 'reduced rate'. Knowing the actual price of the boat, we bought the overpriced bus ticket and saved ourselves 100B (£2) each by turning up and buying the boat ticket ourselves. We (and Richard especially) have become exceptional tight-arses.

Our scepticism of the company turned out to be completely justified as well. We had been told stories about how common it was for your luggage to be tampered with on long bus journeys, a little Thai man sitting in the luggage compartment of the coach and, as the bus rolls along overnight to its destination, he has all the time in the world to rifle trough each bag in turn, taking his sweet time. We were even told that people found other peoples clothes in their luggage, so these thieves weren't desperate to hide what they were up to. Having travelled a good majority of the country, we didn't experience any problems. Then, picking up our bags and getting onto the boat to Koh Phangan, Ashley discovered that the clips on her bag were undone. Someone had tried to get into her bag and pulled her lock so hard that she was unable to open it. Thankfully nothing was taken, but after four days of squeezing her belongs in and out of her bags, she eventually had to ask the hostel owner to cut the lock, which he did using a cleaver and a rock in the space of two minutes.

The outrageous prices continued as we docked in Koh Phangan. To get across to the place we were staying, we had to get in a sawngthaew. We've already explained the normal protocol for using these things, so when we were quoted 100B each for a fifteen minute journey we laughed and moved onto the next driver. After hearing "100B each" several times, we realised that this was the going rate. This meant that, rather than these things running full and economically, they were treated as glorified taxis, carrying two people around instead of ten. It was ridiculous.

Koh Phangan is renowned for its Full Moon Parties, but we'd missed this by a week or two, which meant that the island was wonderfully quiet. We stayed in a lovely little beach-side bungalow right next to Hat Rin Nai, AKA Sunset Beach. With a great restaurant attached and at less than £10 for the two of us, it was a great find. The restaurant/guesthouse also had a small collection of dogs who would join us for our evening beer on the beach each day and, after dinner, follow us back to our hut and sleep on its porch like our very own guard dogs.

Sunset Beach living up to its name

One of our guard dogs coming for some loving

Our hut was also just a short walk from Hat Rin Nol, or Sunrise Beach, where the Full Moon Party normally takes place. Given the fact that every month approximately thirty thousand people gather on the beach to drink buckets of spirits and amphetamines, as well as a lot of other stuff, we assumed two things would be the case here: a) It'll be a big beach; and b) It might be quite dirty.

Neither of those things turned out to be true. The beach was amazingly small and we can't imagine how squashed together everyone must be, especially at the busier parties. You could dawdle from one side of it to the other in fifteen minutes.

It was also seriously well kept. Each day at around 4pm, a tractor with an attached rake would come down to the beach and run it through the sand as a group of ten men followed behind it, picking up any rubbish it kicked up. What's more, the sea was calm, unlike in other parts of the island, and so ideal for swimming. Needless to say that on day one we found our spot and went back everyday bar one until we left for the airport, picking up the odd Chang to enjoy the sunset with.

60p from the 7-11

The day we didn't go back to our spot was the day we went scuba diving. About forty five minutes off of the northern coast of Koh Phangan is Sail Rock, a large, round rock sticking out of the sea. Mark, our long-haired, moustachioed instructor from Belgium, took us down on our first of two dives. As we circled the rock, looking at the clown fish, blue ring angels, rainbow runners and banner fish, we both turned to look for Ashley and she has disappeared.

Naturally, Richard crapped himself as he stayed down with Mark for a minute or so to see if they could find her, but when they couldn't, they ascended to the surface. There she was, bobbing away in the water, the air in her BCD having gathered into the back and taken her up suddenly. We went back down to finish our first session, Richard being sure to stay alongside Ashley at all times.

Sail Rock

Back on the boat, we had a Thai lunch waiting for us and we happily chowed down on the delicious buffet. Lazing around on the upper deck of the boat and waiting for lunch to go down, we basked in the early afternoon sun. Then it was BCD, air tank, fins and mask back on, feet over the edge, step out and - splash - back into the clear blue sea.

The sea was incredibly warm, even at eighteen metres, and the only reason for the super-tight shorty wetsuits we were wearing was to avoid any abrasions on the rocks or sea life. Despite the necessary precautions being taken, Ashley still managed to place her hand directly onto a spikey, black sea urchin. One of its spikes came off in her finger and, for a few weeks after, didn't look like it was coming out any time soon. It actually drew a little blood, making it look far worse than it was, the globules of blood floating around in front of us.

We were fine to carry on though and we finished our second and final dive of the day by entering a naturally formed chimney in the rock. At the bottom of Sail Rock, you swim into an archway and, once inside, you swim up what is essentially a narrow vertical cave, passing coral scallops and starfish as you go, heading for the aqua-blue light at the end of the tunnel. It was very cool!

One more overnight train, and one more speedily made bed, took us back to Bangkok, where we hoped to pick up a couple of pairs last minute, cut-price sunglasses. A word of advice; do not go haggling on Kho Sahn Road at eleven o'clock in the morning. The stall owners will aggressively tell you that "you are crazy" and to "go back to England".

Unsuccessful, it was onto our Lufthansa flight to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.