Hey All,

Had a properly crazy night in Bangkok. Met some Welsh folk and went to club/ping pong show with them as most things were closed as it was the Queens birthday. Went back to Ko San and started drinking buckets on side or road, the welsh guy was smoking some spliffs with some Americans when the police showed up and started searching everyone. His girlfriend had hidden the spliff under the mat we were sitting on and the police found it and arrested her. Had to go to the police station and try and bribe her out. But the police wanted 20000 batt which is about 300 squid! Had to call UK Consulate and get them involved and then did some very impressive lawyer acting in the police station. The bf would not help as they could drug test him and he was in a bit of a state. Finally managed to get her out of 5000 batt after about an hour of negotaition. They wanted more and I pointed out that they only had circumstantial evidence and she was willing to have a blood test! Not the ending I wanted but glad to have been able to help!

Now in China and this place is one hard country to travel round. Everything takes time as almost nmo one speaks any english and u are reduced to acting everything out - sharades style. Spent 15 min this morning trying to act out the fact that i needed another towel for our room!

But glad that i'm with the rish at the moment as it's far easier if your in a group and wopuld be very lonley on your own! In a place called Hangzhou at the moment and heading to Shanghai tomorrow. Would have liked to see Yangshou but did not have time as visa took ages. Had a bit of randomn night in a club last night as some crazy Chinese guy called "Tiger" befriended us and we played dice with him and drank free beer. Beer was only 2% and mildly hammered after about 20!

Hope all is well back in the really real world,

Chris