Day 1/2: three flights, free drinks, Bangkok and tuk tuk trauma

Day 1:

TRAVEL DAY

Are you ready for this long load of text?

The day of 3 flights: From Birmingham to Dubai, from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur and then a final flight to Bangkok

Our day started with a block of cheese and a pint in the airport, classy travellers that we are. Then we boarded the flight of KINGS... Emirates. On Emirates you can order any food and drink and they don't say no, which means we enjoyed a lot of whiskey and beer whilst watching films, bliss. Only thing is, when you order a double Jack Daniels and coke, they give you two bottles of Jack Daniels and one of coke... this makes for a strong drink! I have never felt so classy when having to scrape the empty drink bottles off my table at the end of the flight to a baffled member of staff!
Once arriving at Dubai airport we also managed to go to the first class lounge with our fancy priority passes (thank you co-op bank) so more free food and drink! This all amounted in our first error of day 1...

A seven hour flight and alcohol could have been our downfall.
Basically, we thought our next flight was at 3am, so with a few minutes to spare we stroll up to the assumed gate feeling a bit proud of our stop-over VIP moment. However, we were greeted by a man telling us we were at the wrong gate and we should hurry to make our flight. TERRIFIED we ran the entire length of Dubai airport (this would probably have been a lot easier if Dubai airport wasn't so LONG!). Out of breath we arrive at the right gate only to find our flight is actually at 4am and we are an hour early. ha!

The second Emirates flight was a little less manly. Basically our plan to keep awake and drinking was foiled by sleep and a dark cabin. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur to only find we needed to take a 30 minute bus to the other terminal/airport and then our final 2 hour flight to Bangkok with Air Asia which Josh noted "had a nice colour scheme". Excellent.

Finally arriving in Bangkok we made our second error of the day.

Turns out when you are tired and maybe a little drowsy and late for a shuttle bus, taking out cash results in the card being left in the machine. OOPPS. We quite happily left poor mister card in the machine and boarded bus number one to the coach station, then bus number two to a random bus stop (the bus driver kind of kicked us off just outside Bangkok) and a final taxi to the Khao San Road. Arriving at the D&D hostel we discovered the card was missing but were able to skype the bank and sort it all out before heading out for a VICTORY BEER and spring rolls in Bangkok and crashing to bed.

And our final error... air conditioning in our room (that's right... we were fancy on our first night and had air conditioning) seemed to be too warm so we bunked it up to a cold temperature only to absolutely FREEZE all night! haaa! 

Day 2:
Our very touristy day in Bangkok

I may call this 'day 2', but in reality we think we may have lost a day due to our many flights. So R.I.P. Day 3.

Bangkok is one of those places that is sticky hot. Its so sexy like that. We woke up and had a lovely breakfast. Breakfast at the D&D is included, and its pretty amazing. For me, part of the reason I loved it is because of the giant fishies in the nearby pond and the delicious melon.

Now, to see the city we decided we would just kind of walk around but after a few minutes a man had approached us and told us everything he thought we should see and even drew us a little map with PICTURES. We jumped in a tuk tuk with a man who loved to overtake like a mad man and pull up next to women and try to chat them up... what a lad! However, we liked his style and ended up bartering a price of 40 thai baht for the whole day (which is like 80p). 

A wee hint, if you want a free tuk tuk ride most drivers will take you anywhere as long as you go for a stop for them, which includes either a suit shop or a massive jewelery shop. Josh and I decided this was worth it so managed to get the tuk tuk for free by going to two suit shops. At first I was a little uncomfortable as we knew we didn't want any suits, but by the second one I was pretending we wanted a yellow suit for Josh to wear and the sales man was so confused by our crazy demands I think we scared him more. 

We managed to see the (in the Thai man's words) 'the big standing buddha', 'the stairs to see bangkok', 'a sitting down buddha' and 'a pretty temple'. Yes, this was all on our handmade drawing map, and I have no idea what they are really called!!

By the evening we were still in the mood to explore the city so we walked for hours before coming across this little cafe place full of locals and knew we were onto a winner. However, we had gone during Vegetarian week so all the food was tofu. (Stupid Rosie - hello Rosie if your reading this) I have to admit, it was still delicious but I am a girl who loves her meat. HA!

That evening we were due to catch the sleeper train to Laos, so we popped to the bars to get some beer and cocktails down us. We met a lovely Swedish lad and stocked up on some Chang before heading to the train. Oh Chang beer, you delicious downfall.

AND THATS THE END OF THIS CHAPTER