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Erewan Falls. We swam in the pools which was good but there are fish in there that eat you. Literally chowing down on your feet. No amount of reasoning would convince them to stop.

“Argh! A lion!” Well a tiger. Check me out stroking some, uh, cat.

On the River Kwai.

So, we’ve travelled down via bus, moped, train and boat to the island of Koh Toa off Thailand’s East Coast, where we’ve put in some serious beach action.

Lewis – recovering from malaria – wasn’t feeling so swell the first night so Rosey and myself decided to go for a couple of beers to let the big man get an early night. As the beer flowed we came to the logical conclusion that the more we drank and the later we stayed out the more quality sleep Lewis would get and the quicker his road to recovery.

Needless to say he wasn’t particularly thrilled when I stumble in at half two, utterly toasted. He was even less happy when I decided the room needed some re-decoration courtesy of my stomach. Oops. The less said about that nights proceedings the better for all concerned…

We have been enjoying ourselves in Kanchanaburi near the bridge on the River Kwai. We have met elephants and tigers and gone bamboo rafting. Yesterday we woke up to realise that the military has staged a coup and THE GREAT ARMY CHIEF GEN SONTHI BOONYARATGLIN HAS TAKEN CONTROL OF THE COUNTRY. WE ARE RESTORING POWER TO THE PEOPLE UNDER THE COMMAND OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THAILAND. LONG ENOUGH HAVE WE BEEN SLAVE TO THE DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM – IT IS NOW WE GIVE THE COUNTRY BACK TO ITS PEOPLE.

LONG LIVE THE KING. END TRANSMISSION.

P.S. Lewis has malaria.

Christ on a bike (or should that be Buddha on a moped?) they drive like absolute lunatics in Bangkok. The place is also FULL of middle aged, overweight, balding men with tiny, beautiful, waif like Thai women. Well, at least I know where I’m going for my mid life crisis.

We decided (with slight apprehension) to go to the notorious Pat Pong market. If Bangkok is generally seedy, then Pat Pong is seedy on steroids. It’s also the place to go to see ‘Ping Pong’ shows – so we did. Let me tell you, I had no idea the vagina was so versatile. For years we have mistakenly equated it simply with sex, but we are quite wrong to do so. Smoking, projectile launching, writing and general storage of items are all within the remit. I politely declined the offer to eat the banana when a young girl launched it at my head. Another girl got Lewis to write his name down and passed it to another girl on stage. The girl then ‘inserted’ a pen, squatted down over some paper and began to carefully write out a message. After a minute she stood up and proudly held up the sheet of paper – “Hello Lemis”. I wondered if she had any tip-ex up there to correct the mistake.

We also went to see some Buddhism related stuff. This is a gold building in the Grand Palace.

And this is a Buddha reclining.

I wish to be Buddhist now.