Next we wanted to head north which meant going via Bangkok. This time, we found a guest house which did not turn its fans off at night. Tiny and I set off for the American Express office as they have a service whereby they will accept mail for anyone who has American Express Travellers Cheques. Tiny had fourteen letters from his girlfriend back in England, which considering how long we had been away was pretty good going. We got back to find the others in a snooker hall. That place occupied a large proportion of their time in Bangkok, which, given that we were in one of the most exotic cities in the world, struck me as being a little sad.

We knew there was an area in Bangkok where all the shops and market stalls sell all the dodgy cassette tapes and fake Rolex watches, but we had no idea what it was called. We tried for sometime to explain where we wanted to go to a tuk tuk driver, but he ended up taking us to some huge hotel. We tried again to explain where we wanted to go and, after talking it through with some colleagues, he concluded that we probably wanted to go to the sex district - not an unreasonable assumption for a group of blokes in Bangkok.

By an amazing stroke of good fortune, the sex district is also where the shopping is. I got a Rolex for my Dad and a Cartier for my Mum, but what really caught our eye was the ubiquitous tacky red facade of a McDonalds. It was very sad I know, but after several weeks of healthy Thai food, we were dying for some stodgy western crap. The next night we found a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Cobsey thought it would be a good idea to visit the Bangkok Crocodile Farm. We saw crocodile wrestling and blokes putting their heads in crocodile's mouths etc., but it was generally a complete waste of time. The crocs were so doped-up that they probably didn't know that they had a mouth, let alone that some prat was putting his head in it. I suppose it beat watching Mike and Alan play snooker.