(Writing this in NZ…) Arrived in Bangkok in the early hours - 26 degrees C! Had a sleep and then went on a cruise down the Klong river. Mixture of huge houses, shack houses all next door to each other. Highlight was being given bread to throw to the enormous fishes (could have been Carp?) that swam by the riverboat.

Went to a “traditional” Thai restaurant in the evening where girls did some sort of fingernail dance. Of course most were ladyboys and, predictably, Sue won our game of “guess the bloke”. Pat Pong after - the main bar/red light district. I thought I’d have to protect Sue but it was more the other way round as girls kept trying to pull me into their shows, pointing at diagrams of the things they’d do and pinching my arse. How rude. We went into one bar, however, where there was a Thai boxing show. It was tamed down for the tourists (dodgy old men) and, amazingly, when the fights were over, they put up poles for the bikini-clad girls in the bars to dance around. Sue and the others later failed to find a male bar: the only ones on offer unappetisingly promised “man-on-man”.

The worst thing about it all was that all the women had numbers on them - even the waitresses - so that the customers could literally choose who they wanted. Much like a takeaway, really. We’d gone out with a few other BUNACers and we took a couple of the local three-wheeler “tuc-tuc” taxis back to the hotel - us in one and the others in another - and the drivers had a race between us, wheelying away from traffic lights. Still alive.

Went on a guided tour round the Buddhist temples and saw the gold-plated Reclining Buddha the next morning, despite our huge hangovers, worsened further by the heat. Even our Thai guide, “Adun” was moaning. Went on to the airport later to fly on to Auckland… or so we thought. Our BA flight was late and so, because we’d miss our connection in Sydney, we were put up in a swish hotel, all expenses paid, with a huge swimming pool, gyms etc. Sue was very impressed that they had a man to press the lift button for you. Went on the piss again after a night swim and played a few games of snooker. Barry won. Went on to a karaoke bar in the hotel where we were conned into being the stars of the show. When we left at 2.30am, we were the only ones left and had sung about twenty songs. Sue apparantly thinks that I wouldn’t give the microphone up and was so keen that I even sang some Thai songs. Remarkably they thought I was good.

Finally left Bangkok and had to fly to Hong Kong. This sounded great until we realised we’d have to stay in the departure bit for six hours without any Hong Kong Dollars.