Thailand

We had a great two weeks in Thailand. Marc had a meeting in Bangkok so we got to stay in a nice hotel with an amazing buffet breakfast (you name it, it was there! Even Shepherd's pie!).  Then we went to Khao Sok National Park where we stayed for 5 nights in the jungle. It was fantastic. So quiet except for the incredible insect and frog noises every night. And so dark as well. You forget how dark the night really is without street lights. Dhaka is much darker than the UK, without that horrible orange glow you get above cities, but the jungle was black.  We saw lots of exciting wildlife - a scorpion, tarantula, hundreds of lizards and frogs.  Nothing big though. Marc was hoping to see a tiger as there are still some left there, but I was happy that we didn't!  We stayed in a hut that was very open to the jungle so at night under the mosquito net we could watch the lizards hunting the moths around the light.  The food was great, no one stared at us, it was clean and it didn't smell!

We went for some walks in the National Park and swum in the rivers, rode an elephant and we both had our first leech.  Marc's fell off before he noticed it, but I saw mine on my ankle as it tried to attach and I'm ashamed to say I reacted by leaping around yelling 'get it off, get it off!' 

After a relaxing stay we went back to Bangkok and stayed in a seedy place (pay up front, no windows and very thin walls!) but it was cheap and close in to town.  Then we went to the mall, and revelled in icecream, fast food and being able to go to the supermarket and the chemist and get all the things we can't find in Dhaka.

The moment we got back to Bangladesh you could tell the difference - there are hardly any women in public here by comparison to Thailand (or other non-Muslim countries), and although I think that the smell is a bit decreased now the weather is cooler, there are still those wafts of urine smell as you walk down the street!  And the first thing that happened back in Dhaka as that I got held to ransom in the airport toilet! The woman cleaning it wouldn't let me back out the door until I'd given her baksheesh!