Shit! Here I am in Thailand. I`ve travelled 8000 miles and 543 years. This is really happening!

Had problems finding the car that I had booked to take me to the airport. I when to the "hotel taxi pick up point" but should have go out the normal exit. My mobile works and I phone the hotel, they tell me what exit to take. There is a woman with my name on a card. She takes me to the car. A bloke drives us to the hotel. She tries to book me on a return trip, when I say I don't know what hotel I`ll be in, when I go back to the Airport, she doesn't understand and tries to book me on loads of excursions. I say I am very tired and just want to go to the hotel so I can go to sleep. Get stuck in a big traffic jam. Welcome to Bangkok! Finally get to the hotel after being stationary for about 20 minuets.

Meet the bloke from Bournemouth and his parents at the desk. He says they got a taxi for only 300 abut (£5). My taxi I booked in England cost £8. The hotel is very nice but quite expensive, I asked how much it was to book another night and they said £27! Eak! I`ve got a budget of £20 a day. Will have to move out tomorrow.

Try to phone my Thai friend Maun, at his workplace Colour Zone, but its 6:10 on a Friday evening and his gone home. The receptionist says he will be in on Monday. I will try again then.

Go for a walk to see what's around the area. Two touts out side their neighbouring restaurants try and get me to go to their respective establishments. Let the one from an Indian take me into his one. Have a chicken curry and rice for 200B. It's very nice. They have A/C rooms for 350B (£6) a night, bit different from the hotel I'm staying in but is worth considering as it looks clean and safe.

On the way back to the hotel a taxi driver called Jacky (well half of the taxi drivers are called that!) starts to talk to me and offers a "free" sight seeing trip around Bangkok. He will take me to three tailors, to get this commission, then on to some of the sights and finally a sex bar. As I didn't have anything to do for the rest of that evening and liked the idea of the "free" bit, I said yes.

The Taylor "Mickey's" was the best value, brilliant workmanship. Sports coat + 2 trousers £110! My dad is a Taylor and is about to retire and should look into getting him to make all his stuff for him. Could be quite a winning combination! The other two tailors were good but I didn't think they were quite up to Mickeys standard. I was glad that there were only three to go to as I was starting to tune out after the second one. I had no intention of buying anything from them so did feel that I was wasting all our time.

After we had been to the last tailor, Jacky took me to straight to the Sex bar, no sight seeing at all! Well, that will teach me. It was 600B (£10) to get in but that did include a "free" watered down rum & coke. The stage show was about 5 girls who did tricks. They started off by just dancing around with only a bikini on, then after a couple of minutes they would untie one side of the bikini bottoms and tie it to the opposite leg, thus allowing them to do the following, pulling raiser-blades out of them selves, shooting Ping-Pong balls into a glass and, in a Christmas mood, pulling a string of fairy lights out as well. Before the next girl would do her trick she would wipe the stage floor. That killed most of glamour for me. Most of the performing girls didn't look very happy. Occasionally they smiled falsely but most of the time they just looked board. One girl who had just pulled a whole string off fairy lights out of her self obviously didn't think we paying her the respect that she deserved, so she started to clap and wave her arms for us to join in. The crowd did, but only in a half hearted way. You could see she vas very pissed off that we didn't show much respect for her "talent".

The grand finally was a live Sex show. A naked Lady came on stage and was joined by a man who was just wearing underpants. They started to kiss then he went down on her. She took his underpants off and gave him a blowjob. Then couple went through a set routine of positions. In each one they did an "in and out" twice, you could almost see the girl count, One, Two, change position, One, Two, change position… some of the acrobatics were quite impressive. The one where he was standing and she leaned over backwards so her head touched the floor was the best. Then it was back to the Ladies and their tricks.

The audience was mostly European with the rest being Japanese. About a third of was female, which surprised me. A threesome of English blokes in front of me asked a "pimp" if he could get them 1000B (£15) "girls". The pimp produced a line-up of girls that they could pick from. The one bloke said they were only 500B (£7.50) ones and could he get some proper ones and the pimp didn't bat an eyelid. He sent the line back and a new procession of beauty turned up to take their place. The girls in both line-ups were just as pretty, I could only think that it was what "tricks" they did that determined the price.

After my second rum & Coke, which wasn't watered down, I decided to leave. After you have seen the "show" twice, it starts to loose its appeal. Outside the club were a bit seedy, lots of Thai men "selling" girls. Was glad to find Jacky waiting over the road for me.

Once I was safely in his taxi he asked if I wanted to have a "massage". I said I was suffering from jet lag and needed to go back to the hotel. Which was all true, I was starting to feel very tired now. It had been along day with the time change. He asked me what I wanted to do tomorrow and if he could take me around town again. I said I was too tiered to think now and maybe I would call him tomorrow. He took me back to the hotel and gave me his card.

At the hotel I decided that I needed a nightcap so went down to the bar to cash in the free token for a cocktail that they had given me as part of the hotel welcome pack. The bar was just like all the other hotel bars I`ve ever been in. The entertainment, alive band, was OK in a karaoke way. Was starting to feel very tired so went up to my room at 23:00. TXTed my sister, Claire, that I had arrived safely and went to sleep. It had been a long, long day.