Bah.

In Bangkok and I've just booked my flight home. Not that I'm not looking forward to seeing people, but living and working in London isn't adventuring around foreign soils and meeting excellent new people everyday.

Having said all of this I am especially lucky. Lucky in the standard sense in that I have been able to do all of this, but especially so because being a Londoner means I get the opportunity to reunite with many of the friends I have made on my travels. I have met dozens of fellow travellers who either live in or near London, plan to live there, or plan to visit at least once in the near future. Some of these people I made a real connection with.

And I will go home a changed and improved man. Literally - yesterday I was told I had better than twenty-twenty vision, which is a definite improvement on my myopic astigmatised vision upon leaving Britain. And I'm probably more confident now as well. Which might sound strange to those who know me as I've always been a confident type anyway - not yet aroggant though; not even sure if they are part of the same sliding scale mateys.

So generally speaking this whole adventure has probably been good for me. And good for my personal possesion count. Yesterday I took in Bangkok's Chatuchak Weekend Market for the second time. I try to avoid unnecessary usage of swear words here but: fuck me it's big. The biggest of its type in the world with in excess of 9,000 official stalls covering over 26 acres. Click here for some piccies... It's not enough of course that market stalls cover pretty much the rest of Bangkok which also hosts a superb floating market and a marvelous night market in Patpong (the area that is largely famous for other more lurid trades). The weekend market isn't the cheapest place to buy goods in this city but definitely offers the best choice, and if your bargaining skills and patience are well honed you will find some excellent deals. I bought five excellent quality t-shirts for less than ten pounds and three fake Rolex watches for about 12 pounds each. Always good. Gotta be careful where I flash my supposed bling though in London.

But anyway the point is, Chatuchak Market is insanely big and one could never hope to see all the stalls given even every minute of its opening times during one weekend. But should you want to shop that much - you deserve shooting frankly.

So like almost everybody else who comes travelling in this region, I'm leaving via Bangkok and I'm stocking up on the shopping before I do so. I have met countless people who have done the same - my purchasing is really quite tame in contrast. And my return ticket was a bargain too - 11,300 bhat is about 140 pounds. I think one could buy a flight to Bangkok, spend a shed load at Chatuchak Market, come home and find that money has been saved had the same purchases been made in London.

Well maybe...