Ok folks, sorry for such a long wait. We are now in Cambodia! We are in a town named Siem Riep, which is the closest town to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. So very touristy, big hotels etc. but it seems like a nice enough place even though we have only been here for a few hours.

Let's roll.

Bangkok. Day 3

In the mourning we went to the mall central world with Fai. We had a look around (the place is massive) and had a casual ice skate on a rink they have inside the mall. We then went to see Jim Thompsons house. He was an american man who exported silk from thailand to the west in the 20th century. His house is a co0llection of bits and pieces of old Thai traditional teak houses, and he was a great collector of thai arts and crafts. 50B for a guided tour which was very good!

Ice Rink in Central World

Jim Thompsons house courtyard

After this we met back up with Fai and went to the tourist police station to see if we could do anything about the whole suit scam. It was obvious that the police were paid off to keep the heat off them, we were told to go back by ourselves and "discuss" the purchace we had made with the tailors. Back to the tailors and we had a heated discussion in which we were told that lying about the material quality was a "sales tactic", that the company Top Ten Tailors did not constitute a buissness, that Top Ten was "just a building" and that we had to talk to Mr Ram who was our tailor (who was convientiently the only tailor on holiday that day. I say conviently because the tourist police called top ten whilst we were at the police station, and top ten knew we were coming). In the end we walked out with the situation unsettled and the price still the same. At least we tried though.

SO... after this we were all pretty pissed and frustrated, so we went somewhere easy. Back to the mall for a Japanese dinner at Fuji and then to see Harry Potter at an IMAX cinema. Touristy we know but we werent in the mood for the muay thai boxing with our cameras and bags etc., because we were told that the people there can be quite "rough". So harry potter it was. had a bit of a wierd moment when we were walking into the theatre, the thai national anthem came on and everyone stopped. I didnt know it was the anthem but had read in the book that everyone must stand to attention when it was played, luckily I clicked and made us all stop, avoiding an embarrasing moment.

Walking off the skytrain to the underground on the way home, we saw a street full of neon and thought we should check it out. As we got closer we relised the street is a place called Soi Cowboy. It originated when US marines were stationed in Bangkok during the Vietnam war (i think), who were after some lovin on thier time off! Now its just a full on red light deistrict/street. The picture we took is from one end (we thought we would be severly told off if we took one as we walked down the street). But pretty much it was a bunch of sleezy old white men and a whole lot of thai girls dressed in black dresses with numbers on the front. yes numbers. Crazy. So that was a wierd ending to another full on day.

Soi Cowboy

JJJ