rough guides, jumpers and outer mongolia

and the tough guys tumble.

well, 5 nights actually while we wait for laos, cambodian and vietnamese visas to be processed.

first day in the hotel and in behaviour that my youngest sibling would be proud of, i managed to break a window in our room. owned up to reception straight away and all seemed hunky dory. but come the next morning, events took a turn for the worse.

being a classy establishment the hotel was demanding we paid for each night as we went along. except now they wanted payment for the window. this we accepted, being as it had been my fault (however bad the design of the room - i contented myself with boring ms love about this). however the dragon on reception now wanted twice as much as she had asked for the night before, and about 30 times the price of a pane of glass in thailand. upon pointing out the former (but accepting that the latter was inevitable), the dragon immediately ended all further negotiation, strutted over behind the desk and called the police. sure enough, 10 minutes later 2 policemen arrive, clearly under the impression that we were the modern incarnation of liam gallagher and courtney love and no doubt expecting to find the streets beneath our balcony littered with broken glass, televisions and the bathroom sink.

the dragon had now scapered from the scene of her heinous overreaction, leaving her bemused footsoldiers to handle the police. 6 of us went to inspect the room. yes the window was indeed broken. sadly the policemens total lack of english meant it was difficult to explain that we had been happy to pay all along and had merely wanted a bill or some confirmation that the price was what it was. anyway, much as i'm loathed to admit it, we paid the asking price and avoided a lengthy stay in the bangkok hilton.

only other event of newsworthiness has been ms love's (the make believe one, not the real one) first ever visit to a strip bar.

being one of 'the sights' of bangkok, we decided on a visit to patpong. the arsenal v united game didn't start till 3am so we got suitably oiled and then took a tuk tuk over to the red light district. tout after tout tried to thrust a piece of paper offering various 'pussy' acts at their clubs to which i amused myself by telling them we were sorry but nothing they offered sounded dirty enough for ms love.

anyway, finally we made the plunge. safe to say this club was nothing to impress the landlord. the only depraved thing on site were the fat western blokes around the edge. on stage 10 or so thai ladies, dressed in far more than a northern english lass on a night out, lent onto poles and chatted with each other. the only saving grace was that they were so ugly as to verify the fact they were actually birds - none of the infamous 'thai lady boys' would ever be that ugly...

on the way back to backpackerville (khao san road) we came across out best example yet of backpacker spend thrift. a couple, despite it being 2am, were hanging around on the street looking for suitable people to share the $1 (yes, $1 for 20 minutes) tuk tuk ride with. as i was in the process of telling them to get a life and take their own, ms love was agreeing that the 4 of us could all squeeze into a vehicle designed for 2. every cloud has a silver lining though. it turned out the girl was australian and her boyfriend (they'd only met 3 weeks before - a backpacker romance!) german. i spent the entire 20 minute ride back asking the girl if she really couldn't do better than a german for a boyfriend. and he had a beard.

and, finally, courtney even made it to half time in the football before deciding that bedtime called.

no photos - literally haven't taken any so that'll have to wait to the weekend.