Tuk Tuk Rally

The Josh Franco section
Today we saw two cute puppies. They were brown with white spots. I like cute puppies.

Due to his learning difficulties Josh refuses to read anything longer than three sentences so I had to post this for him. Non morons please read on.

Greetings Sports Fans

How are you? (Wait for response). Awesome, I was hoping you'd be well. We're here in a small internet cafe / travel agent in Kho Samui between two bars filled with old white men looking for young Thai ladies. Good times.

Last time I left you we'd just arrived in Bangkok and oh boy does that seem a long time ago. After the initial shock of arriving we set out in the next two days to see more of the city. Our chosen form of transport was the Tuk Tuk. These are basically three wheeled bike / car jobbies with a carriage on the back. From the outside they look incredibly dangerous but inside they seem safe as houses. Kind of like a Fantasyland ride at Disney - Mostly smooth sailing but with enough turns and sudden stops to keep kids and adults interested. Plus they can dodge through traffic and for the most part are very cheap. On Monday we chartered one and he took us around the city's Buddhist monuments. As this was a Buddhist holiday all the monuments were free entry and the tuk tuk driver gave us an extra low price. We saw the giant standing Buddha, the smaller sitting Buddha (he was sitting) and the impressive great mound which were 400 steps to a temple overlooking the city. I don't know about you but I think Christianity could benefit from a few 100 foot giant golden statues of Jesus. On Monday before we left Bangkok another cheap Tuk Tuk tuk (get it? us to see Siam and its labyrinth shopping centres. Unwilling to spend our money on crap we decided to go see The Final Destination in 3D! Oh yes. A trip to the cinema in Thailand is similar to the UK except its cheaper (thats not saying much. The giant golden Buddha statue was probably cheaper than a UK cinema trip), it has trailers for crazy ass Thai movies (one seemed to be about an old man making out with his daughter) and before the film you have to stand whilst a short film of the king plays soundtracked by the national anthem. Weird.

There was only one downside to our Tuk Tuk excursions.

FACT: The Bangkok economy is entirely reliant on tailors.

It seems to be difficult to walk along any Thai street without someone trying to summon you into a tailors with promise of making you a cheap yet high quality suit. I don't doubt their good intentions I JUST DON'T WANT A SUIT! It seems that Tuk Tuk drivers keep their prices cheap by being sponsored by said tailors. Any good priced journey will result in a trip to a tailors (or in one case jewelers) where you have to go in and feign interest in their product. We didn't know this at first and our tuk tuk driver was quite put out by our flat out refusal to buy many fine suits. He got over it. My favourite of these forced trips was to the jewelery shop. We asked questions about birth stones and made up relatives who needed presents (No diamonds for you Mum!). On our way to the train station the driver who was already charging an extortionate price because of rush hour tried to take us to a tailor. I thought Nicki might sock him in the mouth. Luckily he responded to our refusal to go in by taking us to our destination without any argument.

Following Bangkok we took the night train south. It was nice to see the area by train and despite being in Second Class with no AC and just a fan it was very comfortable. We had bunk beds like in prison! We then took a boat and ferry and now find ourselves on the tropical island paradise (Like Jersey!) of Kho Samui. We are staying at the Tropical Garden Hotel and have a lovely little bungalow and 24 hour pool which we have been merking night and day (With Poolside Jenga!). Today we had a look around the island heading to the main tourist beach area. I thought our hotel was nice but some of the places down there were something else. You can tell the clientale they are looking for. Some English people approached us to do market research for their new property. Once being told we were under 25 they weren't interested anymore. Anyway, after the beach we explored more of the island and visited a giant Buddha on a beach. 50 Bah (about one pound) bought us a brick in their new temple with our names on (Nicki wouldn't let me put 'JOSH FRANCO SUCKS' ON IT). We also saw some cute puppies.

We have another day in Samui and then off to explore a few of the other islands where maybe if you're good you'll get another update. Nic has put the photos on her Facebook page and hopefully I can soon convince her to put them on the Photo Bucket account she set up.

Wish you were here,

Steve & Nicki

xxx

PS - We saw a 7-8 year old child wandering round in Bangkok holding a picture of Sam Tannas weeping 'Papa, Papa' over and over again. It was probably a coincidence.