Yesterday we had the once in a life time experience of seeing The Calypso Ladyboy Show, a musical slash entertainment slash comedy where the greatest lady boys of Thailand dressed up in elegant dresses (and not so elegant ones), bikinis and even very revealing diamanté pieces. There were also men in bikinis (that was quite bizarre). Unfortunately Juliet and I were extremely tired having not slept properly in the last 24 hours and so had to face the ‘my fair ladyboy’ musical while trying to keep our eyes open, but it was a great experience and even the theater was dressed up for the occasion with red velvet seats beside small tables with gold and red lamps, there was even a red carpet on entrance.

The journey home was also an experience as the taxi driver demanded 600baht even though the journey there was 200 and we literally had no choice and so after a hard (and generous on his behalf…not) barter to 500 baht we started our journey back to our hostel. On the way, a huge amount of the roads were shut off or had police or police camps blocking them, again due to the riots, and so it was quite difficult to get back, however we did eventually make it back (and our taxi driver demanded 600 booh but we were just happy to be able to finally go to bed!) It’s like stepping into a different world when arriving at Kohsan road as it is filled with families, backpackers and holiday makers, every bar was full with loud music and every market stall had customers. (It even woke us up enough to make a list of what we want to do on our travels, play cards, and enjoy our personal radio we could hear very loudly from out of our window!)

Today, having made the decision to leave Bangkok, we had a lovely lie in, got some late lunch and headed to the train station to board our sleeper train to Chiangmai. There was an eery feel to Bangkok due to the riots, I feel like it’s more in my head than actual life but I’m glad I got to experience Bangkok with my family a few years ago and happy to have spent a night on the very buzzy and completely uneery Kohsan Road.

I am now on the sleeper train, second class, top bunk, tucked up in my bed (slash mattress thing), with my bunk curtain as my door, my suitcase wired to the staircase next to me and the two train attendants right outside having a nice natter. We have spent the first part of the journey trying to talk to the two Italians opposite but when the language barrier failed us, Juliet and I watched two films, had some dinner and as it’s now 11.45 are planning on getting some sleep… How that plan will work out is yet to be found out. (Trains rock around quite a lot, I never realised!)

Very much looking forward to the next part of our journey!