Posting again at last!

First Shower !!!

So, A little later than expected due to a serious lack of internet, I've finally found somewhere so I can upload this.

Bon Voyage!: Thursday January7^th. Involved me getting far too excited and agitated just to get going, what I can only describe as the longest breakfast and lunch ever, it's “FINALLY” time to set off on my journey from Northallerton station, Mum, David, Oma & Opa are all there to wave me off, and not forgetting of course, the end of any credibility of any life I had in England, not only are the family there to see me off, but so is a big “bon voyage” sign that mum had been frantically making that morning...on the train iPod in (after initially forgetting it and having to turn back to get it) nothing can wipe this grin off my face, not even the guy opposite me getting merrily drunk whilst his sausage dog runs around my feet.

Taxiiiii!: 5:30pm soon arrives and meeting twiggy @ King's cross, we decide rather than take the tube to Heathrow we'll take the express train from Paddington. Both being utterly useless in London we call for a taxi to get us to Paddington much faster than it would be to locate ourselves on the given map. Stories of Christmas and new year are quickly exchanged, and it's as though we'd never spent the last month apart... now to find the Irish one, who'd been sat in Heathrow all day having flown in that morning from Ireland.

Check-In: We locate our check-in desk and yours truly starts the procedure of getting bags weighed and labelled, when Mr. Unhelpful decides he'll go out of his way to be awkward about bags, weight limits and weather or not we can actually fly to Bangkok from Heathrow (despite the fact we were stopping over in Delhi). After passports go walkies, and laptops are taken out of bags to bring down the weight (and promptly replaced when his eyes are averted) we've finally done it. Leg 1 of the journey is ready and we've got seats together. Lets hit the bar!

Foreigners are not able to exchange currency!: The flight is pretty smooth and in-flight entertainment, food and yes copious amounts of free drinks, Aileen and I had come up with a fool-proof plan to lure the air-hostesses into giving us free drinks seemed to work a treat, and finally getting a couple of “dozing hours” kip we hit Delhi, which is without too fine a point a dump of an airport, and we had 13 hours to kill. We stretched out our last remaining £10.00 sterling into 2 curry dinners 2 Pepsi's 3 cartons of Tropicana, 3 bounty's 1 Mars bar and a bottle of water (I challenge you to do that anywhere else).

Bangkok, broken bags and bed: Finally after the 13 hours drag by we check in, and get settled for the brief 4 hour flight, running pretty smoothly (but sadly no alcohol this time) we arrive in Bangkok, Customs takes forever and once I'm finally through It's off to claim baggage... or what's left of it. Yup that’s right my bag managed to have both straps come undone, leaving the bag open to the elements, I'm actually thankful for mum's OCD way of packing as having everything in clear plastic bags means that all clothes are kept together and so-far none seem to have gone astray.

Taxi !: whilst waiting to get a taxi another UK backpacker behind us ended up going to the same road we were on, so sharing a taxi soon finds ourselves getting across Bangkok for a bit less between the 4 of us, and life stories are exchanged, finally arriving on “(Find road name and insert later [EDIT: Ko San road]) road” we check into our hotel, a double room for the three of us is ample, a massive bed on the floor, and a shower....which after almost 36 hours was the best feeling ever. Being all clean and waiting for the other two to get up (As I write this blog), we're gonna hit the town, get some food and do some shopping, and end up watching the United v. Liverpool match tonight (you can take the boy out of Manchester, but you can't take the Manchester out of the boy), followed by what I'm only assuming will conclude in tomorrow being day 1 of the hangover diaries....