[Arun conserved energy by only seeing 1 Wat]

Our last afternoon in Delhi could not have gone better. Once we got out of the Internet cafe, we wandered round Connaught Place outdoor shopping hub about 7 times. On each rotation we changed our trajectory everso slightly and if it wasn't for the burning bright McDonalds sign we wouldn't have noticed we were lapping the same place. Delhi is bustling. About 20 people said "nice hat!' to Arun.

We met up with one of our friends from AVS school where we taught 4 years ago, Gaurav, and his friend from Hong Kong via King's College London Gabriel and had a great catch up over lunch at Haldiram's. Gaurav, ever the organiser, made sure that anyone we might know in the area knew we were there, and with an hour left he ushered us into a small blues bar to meet another AVS student, Kishan, and his university mates. We were bought beer after beer and challenged to a 'bottums' up competition as we were in a rush. These guys can down a drink. We were royally humbled but suitably drunk, and with that we hailed a tuk-tuk and headed back to Guest House. The driver from the day before was forgiven everso slightly as this driver could not find the room either. After a kind of landmark-lucky-dip in the dark, we managed to find it all of our own accord, which went some way to making us feel more like badass travellers.

It was straight to the airport to catch our nightmare flight to Bangkok; we checked it at 10.30 and took off at 1.30 am. As we flew towards the sunrise over desolate southern Burma, "All Along the Watchtower" burst into my ears and through exhaustion i suddenly realised how amazing this was going to be. It was smooth from the airport to our accomodation, and I only got more excited after chatting to Sebastian, the Parisian adventurer who says he'll meet us at the Half Moon Party.

Once we got to Khao San Road via a bus that drove past 5 or 6 temples ('Wats') we wandered up and down the street, trying to acclimatise but actually just dazzling ourselves with all the colours and choices of places to go. We slept through most of the day, having planned to wake up for dinner and beers later.

We hit one of the half-empty bars at 7, and from that point on the street just got busier and busier, until it was full of everyone. More beers and more chats with friendly tourists followed, as we indulged in more football on tele, not a particularly anti-social thing to do on Khao San Road on a Saturday as the time difference makes a full Premier League line-up more like a good ngiht out. As United smashed Brum, we got talking to Magnus, the English bar/restraunt owner from Manchester, and Scott, the Aussie non-football fan. We all had a great laugh watching the street roll by and we couldn't help but wander out in to the mire every so often to purchase one kind of treat or another. I personally rejoiced at finding Rizla, although it became obvious that you can get anything here if you look hard enough. Khao San Road is clearly set up for first-timers, and we found it to be the perfect start; we mentioned to the guys that whilst it was tricky to avoid the scammers and touts on the road, our few days in Delhi had made for great practice in avoidance. It's simply not as desperate here.

My exhaustion got the better of me around 1, so i left the guys and headed back to sleep. Arun stumbled in, heavily, a couple of hours later having apparently had an amazing time, which i'm going to have to fill him in on when he wakes up in a couple of hours. We're both buzzing about our time here, though it's hard to say exactly what we're going to get up to as new opportunities exist at every turn. We wouldn't want it any other way.