I was surpised to find that not many 'Farangs' got off the train (apparently they use the bus, not a comfortable but bloody cheap). I approached the only 'Farang' I saw. Luckily she spoke English (being from Glasgow) and we agreed to share a 'Songthaew' (a covered pickup with two benches in). Her name was Debbie and she was here to teach English for six months, she told me she'd been here before and that there is a large expat community here. We chatted for another 10 minutes or so until my stop, The Tha Pae Gate. I passed through the gate and found that where I expected everything to be wasn't there... The driver had dropped me on the inside of the gate and I'd been heading the wrong way. I retraced my steps and found the Guesthouse.

It was only around 8am so I showered, changed, splashed on the DEET and headed out. Straight away you see that the city is a hell of a lot more relaxed than Bangkok. Everything is a lot cheaper as well. And as for it being very cold as everyone said, I'm not sweating as much, but I am still sweating.

I walked around the inner city, it's not very big, you can probably walk from one end to the other in about 20 minutes. I found where the sights were, tomorrow I'm back with my camera. I was getting tired, the sleeper train may have been comfortable but it was rather noisy, so I headed back to the Guesthouse for a kip.

It was around 3pm when I headed out again. I'd got my long sleeved shirt out of my rucksack and it looked a sight. I'll have to get one of those loose cotton shirts that the 'farangs' seem to buy out here. I headed to where the map says are the markets. There were a lot of shops and stalls here, but mostly selling womens clothes and silk and cloth by the yard. I walked around for a couple of hours before deciding to head back to the inner city. The night market was just setting up in some areas and one of the stalls had just what I wanted. I pointed at the shirt I like and asked (in Thai!) 'how much' He said 180 Baht and then pointed at a plain white one, only 120 Baht, no I want the one with the black vertical stitching! It wasn't worth haggling (180 Baht is about 2quid50) and asked (in English) if he had my size. He dug around for a couple of minutes, completely disorganizing his whole stall before finding an XL.

Happy with my purchase I headed back. I'd just got into the inner city when I spied what looked like a nice roadside bar. I thought I'd have a beer and watch the world go by. They had a huge TV in the corner of the bar and nearing the end of my beer they put the Real v Roma game on so I kind of took root. The football over here is usually silent so they can play music (I'd heard the Thai radio commentators on the radio, you could hear the Sky Sports commentators in the background) so when I saw the ManU score and Rooney celebrating I thought he must have done something good.

It was still early and I decided to hit another bar. I walked into one just as the ManU match started. There were three couples in the bar, I got talking to the obvious football (and ManU) fan, he didn't know the score and asked me if it was good... 'An emotional rollercoaster! You'll laugh, You'll cry'... They invited me to join them. The two English couples were friends but doing the Round the World trip in opposite directions, the Canadian couple they'd met on the coach from Bangkok. We had a couple more beers together before heading our separate ways. I got the email address of one couple who will be in Cambodia when I am.