Hour 0 - departing San Antonio at 5:45am on Monday morning local time.

Some three hours later after a rousing sunrise, we flew into the concrete jungle that is Los Angeles for a six-hour stopover.

And what did we do with those six hours? We went to Hollywood hahaha! Bit of a gloomy morning in LA so this was the best I could get.

Looking down Hollywood Boulevard, and the Walk of Fame - more than 2,500 stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard.

Star after star after star. We saw such names as Marilyn Monroe, Ozzy "Fucking" Osbourne, Cameron Diaz, Rugrats, and dozens of others. Even Lassie earned herself a star - good dog.

That's Reese Witherspoon between my legs, so to speak.

No shortage of homeless folk around Hollywood.

This dude had a hat on his back, and appeared to be sleeping.

And this dude rode his bike along the Walk of Fame stopping at every trash can to have a look inside.

Anyway, hour 9 and back to LAX to board Air China for the 12-hour haul to Beijing.

This was the view looking back towards LA. Photos shot out a plane window never come out too good, but what you see here is the massive cloud of pollution that constantly hovers over the city. *cough cough*

Another sunny day in China hehe. Not looking much better than LA.

During the flight, Kristina noticed a small, hard, and painful lump had formed on her foot. We found some first aid area at Beijing Airport and they identified it as a corn. A little further research on our part found it will have been caused by her tight-fitting shoes after she replaced the inner-sole with a softer but larger one.

Sleeping 'Beauty' ;) After all that foot drama it was hour 25 and onto our third and final plane for Bangkok.

Four and a half hours later we jumped in a cab that Barbie would be proud to drive, and are now at our hostel (at 1am local time) - phew!

Anyway, today was our first of two days in Bangkok. This is looking along the main drag near our guesthouse. Bangkok is the capital, largest urban area, and primary city of Thailand. The city itself covers exactly the same area as London, and squeezes in about the same number of people - some eight million. We're staying where most backpackers do which is the old part of the city, and that's where we set about exploring today.

With temperatures in the early-30s and humidity right up there, even short walks can feel long and arduous, so we hired this guy for the day - behold the tuk-tuk! I loved hooning around in these things (video here)! They have three wheels, are powered by a small motor, and are perfect for cutting through congested traffic. Some of the drivers are typical dodgy fuckers though who instead of taking you to where you asked will instead take you to their mate's shop (usually a restaurant or jewellers) and entice you to buy something (they earn commission on the deal). We encountered a few instances of this in Egypt. Our guy today however was awesome; he took us all over the show for about five hours, waited around for us while we saw the sights, and asked only 40 Baht (US$1.30) hahaha! Considering most of them start the bidding at 150 Baht we were pretty sceptical of this guy and were just waiting for him to pull into his mate's gem shop, but it never happened.

So what did we see today then? Buddha, and lots of him! Tall ones...

Sitting ones...

And most of them being prayed to (including by us - brings good luck apparently, and given the flooding making a mess of our plans already we might need some).

We also checked out Golden Mountain, a buddhist temple (Wat Saket) atop a small but steep artificial hill in central Bangkok.

The Wat itself is nothing to write home about (or on your website), but the views from the hilltop are pretty gosh darn good. Spot the skyscrapers off in the distance; that's the modern part of Bangkok which we plan to venture into tomorrow.

As a favour to our awesome tuk-tuk driver, we visited a couple tailors and acted as though we might be interested in a purchase. Bangkok has several of these, and I think they're reputed to make some pretty decent handmade suits. Anyway, the tuk-tuk drivers get a free fuel coupon merely for bringing tourists here. I dare say many tourists are brought here unsuspectingly as per what I mentioned earlier, but our guy was upfront about it and we were only too happy to help, unscrupulous though it was. Kristina thought she spotted Taylor Swift's head Photoshop'd onto one of the brochure models hehe.

Anyway, despite the revelation that we needed to re-jig our trip somewhat (and had to piss about at the tourist office to throw a new plan together for the next week), it was a pretty cool first day. We made a few random friends on the street who seemed extremely eager to offer advice on Bangkok (pretty much repeating what others had already told us), and raided Chinatown for dinner and made some more. By the way, we ended up giving our tuk-tuk driver 100 Baht for the day (US$3.30) rather than the 40 Baht he originally asked for, and that plus the free fuel we scored him appeared to totally make his day. Rumour has it they make very little income so for this dude it seems that today was a lucrative day. Having said all that, the next prick we asked to take us to Chinatown wanted 100 Baht and ended up taking us to his mate's Chinese restaurant, about 5kms from Chinatown hahaha! I suspected him immediately when he started heading along the main drag in the opposite direction from what I would have expected, and I watched my GPS with great interest the whole way hehe (which he obviously didn't notice). You just can't trust 'em, and needless to say this guy got 0 Baht and told to fuck off.

Traffic is pretty chaotic in Bangkok, and its buses look as though they're about to either collapse or blow up at any moment, but regardless you'll always find at least one cyclist :)

As for us, we've fallen in love with the tuk-tuk hehe. These things hoon through the traffic like it's not even there, and I enjoy haggling with the drivers. You tell them where you want to go, they quote a price, you respond with a more realistic price (usually 50% of whatever they said), they refuse, you walk away, they change their mind. Later while driving they say "We make one stop?" (meaning "We visit tailor so I get free fuel coupon?"), you say "No", and they drive on. Sometimes they take you somewhere you didn't ask to go (a friend's shop or restaurant in exchange for commission), you demand to be taken to your destination or else you don't pay, they give up and take you there, and you walk away and still don't pay hahaha! Love it :)

Today we headed across the fucking filthy Chao Phraya River; abandon all hope ye who fall in here. The river cuts right through the city and is apparently referred to as the River of Angels. God (or Buddha) only knows why that is - it's disgusting!

Our destination was this - Wat Arun or Temple of the Dawn, a Buddhist temple on the west bank of that filthy river.

Various other bits and pieces around the grounds of the wat, including the Wat Arun temple, and the Ordination Hall guarded by two demons.

Dress code is pretty strict in the wats, and at a minimum your shoulders and knees must be covered with no exposed flesh in between (in other words this isn't the place to show off your belly button ring).

The main feature of Wat Arun is its central prang, surrounded by four smaller prangs, and the detail of the work is amazing! Construction of the prangs began in 1809.

Where's Waldo?

Impressive stuff. The prangs are decorated by seashells and bits of porcelain which had previously been used as ballast by boats coming to Bangkok from China.

Steep steps lead up to two terraces, although "steep" is an understatement.

The most common method adopted to climb these things was basically just hanging on for dare life hehe.

And everyone was exhausted by the time they'd hauled themselves to the top.

The views from the top are worth it though, and that was Wat Arun in a nutshell. From there we took another tuk-tuk for another hair-raising hoon across town to MBK Center - a massive shopping mall in the modern part of Bangkok with eight floors of every last piece of crap you can think of. This is a popular spot for tourists looking for cheap knockoff items. Kristina bought herself some wat-approved pants since her short-shorts are too revealing for the monks, we both bought a pair of sandals for an upcoming three-day trek we've booked, Kristina bought herself a folding fan because she sweats like a fireman's hose, and I bought a spare battery for my camera and a lens hood (reduces glare and prevents lens flare, because you wanted to know that).

Quick wander around our little Bangkok neighbourhood in search of brunch. Note the power lines and phone lines everywhere hehe.

That all looks perfectly safe and manageable.

Anyway, this afternoon we said goodbye to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok (awesome though it was) for the time being - we'll be back again in a couple months.

Amid talk of possible flooding at our destination, we boarded our plane for the one-hour flight north. Everyone except us seemed to have tray tables in their arm rests, so we got given these wee things instead to sit our coffee on hehe. One of the male cabin crew walked past and noticed this, and said "Oh, nice one" in a thick Thai accent which sent Kristina into eye-watering hysterics.

There were some pretty impressive cloud stacks around - no shortage of moisture in the air. I hope it bloody stays in the air too, though as I write this is it's absolutely pissing down outside.

An hour later we were coming into Chiang Mai, and sure enough there was a lot of water where there shouldn't be water but the centre of town is apparently ok (for now).

We got collected at the airport and this was our limousine - the back of a truck hahaha! Pure Thai luxury ;)

Our guesthouse is another luxurious affair. You flick the light switch and somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes later the light will turn on, the shower has about as much pressure as an old man with a bad prostate taking a piss, and the fan sounds like it's about to fall off the wall. Plus if you go into town and pick up a hooker, you have to pay 150 Baht (US$3) to bring her back!

However, there's a nice little temple next door...

The area seems nice enough...

Exploring Chiang Mai will have to wait a few days however as tomorrow we're doing a day-trip to nearby Chiang Rai followed by a three-day trek up in the jungle starting Sunday. Good times! :)

So today we set out on a day-trip as part of a tour group. This will probably be one of the few times we'll be doing this. Tour group excursions around these parts generally receive poor reviews and comments such as "We didn't get to spend enough time at such-and-such place". While that's not what left us a bit disappointed with this one, the fact it involved about 500kms of driving in a hot and stuffy people-mover packed with ten people certainly did - it was ridiculous. The trip is basically a jaunt around the area outside of Chiang Rai city - some 150kms northeast of where we are in Chiang Mai. Really, this should be an excursion for folk actually based in Chiang Rai, but nevertheless and as is often the case, we weren't made aware of certain specifics such as the driving distances and times involved. Anyway, over the course of 12 hours, the randomness we saw was as follows...

First up, Wat Rong Khun, also known as the White Wat for obvious reasons. Most every other wat (buddhist temple) in the country is colourful and comes with a rather long and interesting history, this one is just plain white and comes with all of 14 years of history hehe. Nevertheless, it's a pretty impressive sight, even more so on a sunny day I'm sure.

The little walking bridge leading up to the wat crosses over this sea of begging hands - very creepy.

And the even creepier heads probably rounds off why this place would scare young children.

Right next door to all the whiteness is this - some goldness hehe. I have no idea was this is, apart from where the toilets are.

Second stop after another long and boring stint in the van was the Golden Triangle, an area covering 950,000 square kilometres that overlaps the mountains of Thailand, Laos, Myanmar (formally Burma), and China. We were at the point where Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet along the 4,900km-long Mekong River.

There's Laos across the water...

And there's Myanmar further up. Groovy. The Golden Triangle is one of Asia's main illicit opium-producing areas. Most of the world's heroin came from the Golden Triangle until recently (when Afghanistan became the world's largest producer).

The rest of the group took a boat across to Laos for an hour, but as this wasn't included in the tour price Kristina and I decided not to bother since we'll be crossing into Laos ourselves next week. Instead we got a drink, admired the river, and went wandering.

No idea.

Big gold breasted Buddha overseeing the proceedings.

Texas necklace, greenstone necklace from New Zealand (birthday present from me), and the locals' headwear - very cultured lass ;)

For our third stop we headed somewhere for lunch, though no one bothered to tell us where exactly we were. Though in fairness, since it was now 2:30pm and everyone was picked up around 7am, no one gave a shit where in the hell we were as long as there was food! Turns out we were in Mae Sai - Thailand's northern-most town and one of the border crossings into Myanmar, and the queue of traffic to get across was huge. Apparently every Saturday is duty free day, so all the Burmese pile across into Thailand, buy a great wad of crap, and take it back into Myanmar tax-free.

We then came to the only really worthwhile and interesting part of the tour for my money. We ventured off the main drag, along some random dirt roads...

...and into a gorgeous little remote village.

Though they see them probably every day, the young children of the village were thoroughly fascinated by us weird-looking people.

Elsewhere the boys ran around in the nude, and couldn't care less about the tourists hehe.

Anyway, this village is home to a Padaung tribe of long-neck women.

The neck rings are one long brass coil, which is first fitted at around five years of age. The length of the coil is gradually increased to as much as twenty turns. We were given a coil of about 15 turns to hold, and they're pretty damn heavy. Contrary to popular belief, the neck is not actually lengthened. The weight of the rings twists the collar bone and eventually the upper ribs at an angle 45 degrees lower than what is natural, causing the illusion of an elongated neck. The custom of wearing neck rings is related to an ideal of beauty. The rings are seldom removed, as the coiling and uncoiling is a somewhat lengthy procedure - they are usually only removed to be replaced by a new or longer set of coils. When the coils are removed, there is apparently no medically proven health danger. Interesting stuff!

The ladies of the village make and sell scarves (as well as selling other odds and ends) to generate an income from the copious number of tourists that stop by on a daily basis. The men meanwhile head out into the 'real' world each day to work.

After we'd completely invaded their privacy for a while we finally left them in peace, just in time for the next bus-load of white people to rock up. By the way, check out how lush it is here! The drive from Chiang Mai took us through the mountainous jungle and it was bloody spectacular, though not really possible to photograph too well from the van screaming around the bends. Not to worry though, tomorrow we set out on a three-day jungle trek so there should be plenty more of that. So far the rains have mostly held off for us, but I'm not optimistic that they'll hold of for three whole days hehe.