Another late night meant another lie in and the first time we missed breakfast at the hotel. Which was daft really, as after the last few days we really could have done with food! Sleep won, though, and we got all packed up and shifted to Joy’s house in Bangkok to await Sharon.

When she arrived, we packed all our kit into Nacho’s classic VW Camper Van (Riff and Colin would drool with jealous rage, until they found out it has no working aircon) and headed for the open road. Only the roads were blocked with traffic, so we didn’t go anywhere particularly quickly.

Eventually exiting Bangkok (and waking up once or twice) the roads were noticeably different. Slightly less well tended but with the same massive difference in housing alongside it. I also found out that what we call the “hard shoulder”, Thai’s call a “moped lane” and don’t really worry about what side of the central reservation it is – they go both ways up it regardless, as if it’s a road in its own right.

After 3 1/2 hours we made it to Hua Hin, drove straight through and 12kms later arrived in Khao Tao with one hot dog (Eddie) and a bag of very soft Celebrations. Bad choice of travel food with no aircon. Ah well.

We settled into the beach house (literally – open the back gate and at high tide you have maybe 5 yards of sand then the Pacific Ocean) and headed into Hua Hin for dinner.

I saw my first ladyboys, who really are as wholely unconvincing as they appear on the TV, and had a flyer foisted on me for the next night’s Muay Thai.

A quick wander to the shops to sort out some flip flops for me resulted instead in a purchase of milks and suntan lotion (close…) and a night was called to proceedings. Travel wipes you out, especially in 35 degree heat. No worries, by Sunday it’ll be a gentle 30.

I can’t complain as I’m still using private transport for the long journeys. This isn’t to last!

Today was Tim & Tracy’s last day in Thailand, with them heading out on a near-midnight flight. We spent the day dawdling around Bangkok (after recoving from the night before which took some doing, I can tell you) and I even managed to find an A & W selling root beer. Lovely!

We sat and enjoyed the sun (and bandaged Sharon’s blistered foot) in Lumpini Park. This is a huge park in the centre of the city where people gather in the early hours to exercise, do Tai Chi and basically chill out before work. It’s about the only public “no smoking” area in Bangkok (tell that to the farang sat on a bench near us – the Thais were too polite to) and dogs aren’t allowed in at all.

Dinner, once again, was at the Bull’s Head (I heartily recommend… erm… everything on the menu). On a Sunday they do a 2-hour promotion called Toss the Boss where the bar manager tosses a coin for each round you buy. If you win, you have to buy him a drink (usually a token 100Baht) but the round is free. If you lose… you pay for your drinks as normal. We paid for one round out of 6, and that one was only a single G&T and half a lager.

Tears were shed later as we were pummelled 1-3 by Liverpool. Oh, and when T&T left to fly home. Both events pretty much expected, though.

Today was Lou’s birthday so we had a little party for her and deluged her with many gifts and cards that were rude about her age. Even the hotel joined in, turning up at the room door with a cake and a card. Admittedly the card was meant for a guy 5 floors below, apologising for a cockup with his limo hire (he had Lou’s card, much to his consternation) but we sorted that.

Lunch was at Muy Thai, Joy’s (you know who she is by now) new “healthy eating” noodle bar. Sadly, the front is obscured by people queueing for “Rotti Boy”, the latest fast food craze in Thailand. So we walked past making comments about how rottis are made from rotted baby parts. I don’t think the queue understood, but we tried.

Brief shopping was done (genuine CD in department store roughly £5.63, knock-off on street corner £1.40) before heading hotelwards to get dolled up for Lou’s birthday night out.

One of her friends had organised dinner at the Sofitel’s V9 restaurant – 39 floors up and offering a stunning view of the city. Mind, you pay for that view with the menu prices. The food was outstanding (I’ve never eaten nicer duck), but really expensive. Lou got another birthday cake which I devoured most of. Sorry for that, but it was nice.

The taxi ride back (at 2:30am – they kicked us out) was a lot shorter than the one there, mainly as we got a driver who knew where he was going. A word of advice – always know where you’re going when you get in a cab in Bangkok, that is where your destination actually is as these guys don’t sit “The Knowledge” to get a license!

Today meant an early rise (5:30am) despite the beer… I mean jetlag telling me I didn’t really want to get up. We’d booked a coach trip to Ayuthaya, the old capital of Siam, and it picked up from the Davis at 6:30.

Once we were on the go, it was OK and the guide was informative and cheery is a little paranoid about tourists wandering off and missing the coach. Lots of trivia was learned, such as Bangkok meaning “City of Olives” (historically it was a major source of the fruit and oil), each day of the week in Thailand has a colour (the king is associated with yellow as he was born on a Monday)… that kind of thing. Our first stop was at one of the royal palaces and, boy, did it put Buck House to shame.

Similarly to Bangkok, architectural styles clashed everywhere. The king had certain parts built as he’d been to, say, Italy and liked their footbridges. Yet it all hangs together beautifully, with pagodas and dining halls and bedrooms and what looks like a lighthouse. The grounds are enormous and we really could have done with more time to walk around. Tim, Tracy and Sharon (Lou’s other cousin who’s in Thailand right now) visited an area we missed, and the ladies had to don sarongs to enter. The lakes were all full of fish and again, it was possible to hand over a few bhat to feed them. I suppose typically for a royal family, it shows how the “other half” live but it genuinely is much more impressive and better tended than the royal residences in the UK. Of course, I’ve grown up with them so they’re slightly old hat now!

Next stop was Ayuthaya itself where we saw two sets of ruins (destroyed by the Burmese when they sacked the city 350 years ago), a temple and several elephants. And ate pomelo, which is some weird cross between grapefruit and orange. Kind of. It’s lovely anyway. Following on from great traditions worldwide, one of the temple rooms had bats in its belfry. Sadly, it was too dark inside to get decent pictures but I did avoid being pooped on.

Finally, we drove to the Chao Phaya river and sailed down it in a 3-level boat with lunch and do on provided. Very relaxing it was, too. Especially indoors with aircon! Tim, Tracey and Sharon went varying shaded of red on the sun loungers on the deck.

On our return we once again headed for The Barbican for dinner, then on to O’Reilley’s for some classic Irish muic for St Paddy’s night… a Thai Beatles cover band. They were good till they stopped for 15 minutes for a beer and failed to recover.

After much random taxiing and wandering we located another pub with a one-man acoustic guitar “band” belting out pretty much everything he knew. Huge crowd, great atmosphere, nightmare to get served. Just like home.

Much sleep was needed that night. Thankfully, Tiger Beer helped me drift off nicely.

Breakfast in a hotel was just that – a typical hotel breakfast. Nice and I did get to try some new fruits. Rose-apple and dragonfruit (which when out of the skin looks more like Dalmatian-fruit) both pass muster. The fruits and fruit juice over here are fantastic. Fresh, juicy, tasty and in much greater variety than back home. If you get a drink in a bar, it’s made from fresh pulped/crushed/juiced fruit and you can really taste the difference.

We made our way to Saphan Taksin on the Chao Praya River by Skytrain. This is the city’s rapid transport system (it also has a subway) which opened in 1999. It’s fast, frequent, clean and cheap. The traffic was even worse before it opened, though chaos while it was being built as the track follows the major roadways through Bangkok. This, apparently, is because when a person in Bangkok buys a property, they buy the land it is on and all the land below. Therefore the laws would have to change and masses of money spent to build underneath properties or to buy them out for building on. The land owned by the transport authorities (i.e. the roads) was used instead.

A one-day pass for the Skytrain is 100Baht. At the time of writing this is roughly £1.40, and for the quality of service is outstanding compared to the rubbish we have in the UK. Of course, to a Thai this may seem pricey.

Once at the river, we opted for a small long-tail boat trip around some of the canals to look at the buildings, houses and so on. The water is filthy, it has to be said. Yet as you plough round, you see children playing in it and adults using it to wash. Tim spotted one snake swimming around as well. Lou almost experienced the river close up and personal as she slipped backwards getting into the boat. That would have utterly spoiled our day as nobody was videoing at the time. What a (potentially) wasted opportunity for &pound250 from You’ve Been Framed.

We made one stop on the way round where we paid 20Baht for a large loaf of bread each with which to feed catfish. The water round the boat turned into a slippery seething cauldron of open mouths, Tim even managing to feed them by hand. Catfish don’t look scary until you realise they can jump a bit and you’re surrounded by roughly 500 of them. The Thais have clevery managed to create a small industry whereby Farang (foreigners) pay money to feed their livestock for them. Which they then catch, slaughter and serve to farang in restaurants. A smart way to increase your income and save work at the same time!

Some of the buildings on the way round were stunning – because of the “how can people live like that?” factor and also from the “wow – how luxurious” factor. One thing about Bangkok is that there’s very little division (geographically at least) between the classes. People in shacks live next to people in 7-bedroom classically-built villas. Skyscrapers are next to temples. The architecture is varied but in all cases eyecatching in some way. Stupidly tall and glorious, or a miracle of hodge-podge; metal sheeting bolted to wood leaning on some old framework that gravity seems to have ignored, at least for the time being. There’s more diversity here than I think I have ever seen in one place before.

Another thing that’s noticeable is the extent to which Western culture has seeped in. Partly, it’s beneficial as it brings in tourists and gives them a little bit of familiarity. Conversely, it spoils things a bit when you can’t walk down a street without seeing BK, KFC, Dunkin’ Donuts, Boots, Tesco, 7-Eleven…

The Thais are also a 90% Buddhist nation (5% Christian and 5% Muslim, the latter mainly in a small area in the south of the country), which means they don’t harm animals for any purpose other then eating them. This is shown by the number of dogs and cats wandering around that are utterly oblivious to the constant flow of people. They don’t walk up begging for food, act savagely or run away scared. They’re just so used to people and generally will just lie in a corner and watch the world go by, unlike in the UK where chances are a stray dog has been abused and will attack or flee.

Dinner this evening was in the Bull’s Head (Lou’s cousin Joy’s western pub) which was rather nice. We then just got wasted and retired for the evening.

This week is becoming rather expensive on the food front! Oh. And the beer.