Tom Yong Goong

8 September - had a nice day in bangkok - booked a ticket to Ko Phag Nang and had some pancakes and a banana shake and replaced the lonely planet that i'd left on the bus from Cambodia (grrr....). Me and Oliver, an Englishman who's emigrating to Australia who I met on the bus previously, wandered the Khao San for a bit before heading to a differrent tourist part of the city where he'd booked a guest house. He needed to do some shopping and I wanted to find a movie cinema so we took the sky train (very pleasant way of travelling) to a few upmarket malls where I felt very out of place in my dirty travelling pants and sandles before finding ourselves in MBK, a highly recommended shopping and complex in Siam Square. Found the movie I wanted to see, Tom Yong Goong and had Tom Yong Goong for luncheon beforehand - it was so hot as to be inedible so I ended up having a big mac instead (it tasted like a big mac at home). The movie was all i'd hoped it would be - absolutely incomprehnsible story about a boy and his elephant, mostly set in Sydney. In Thai Town (not sure where that is but perahps near the cross) - the worst acting you'd ever see but it was all just a stage so that Tony Jaa could perform the most electrifying martial arts you;ve ever seen. Two stand out scenes are a 10m Russian Ark stlye unbroken shot where TJ crashes a building and singlehandedly fights off about a hundred baddies - and another scene where he breaks the arms, legs and vertebrae of dozens of black suited nemeses. Also starred the colossal Nathan Jones, the friendly chap I met at bangkok airport on my first day.
Movie ended at 10 to six and I had to be at Khao San at 6 so hopped on a moto and sped through peak hour traffic to get there. was in the middle of a three moto pile-up at one stage which wasn't very pleasant but eventually made it, and had to run after the group to get to the bus. Once on the bus we waited for half an hour before leavng. Reasonably pleasant journey to get to Ko Phag Nang and got a very cheap bungalow on a beach (far away from town though) when I got here. Went for a run and almost died - very hot and the whole island is nothingbut hills. Very pleasant outlook tho.