First day: Bangkok, Friday 18 April 2014.

Ian Neuss writes: We, Gerry and I, got the cars out of customs at about 2pm after signing our lives away to customs and agreeing to get them out of the country or pay a tax. We were able to wait in the warehouse while customs went over the cars and took film of every number on them. The Land Cruisers engine number on the tag was different from the one on the registration certificate but the same as the one on the engine, luckily. We eventually, with a few more forms, got the cars out of the sauna temperature warehouse and were allowed to take them out of the docks. So we set out and got them 50km north of Bangkok to Rangsit, fuelled up, put air in the tires and got ready to take them into the traffic on the main drag north. Most successful. Thai drivers are not aggressive and are too polite to use the horn. So after settling in it wasn't as bad as I had imagined, except the trucks doing a U turn on the freeway can bring the road to a standstill. All allowable. Darkness came upon us and we had no accommodation and no ideas so we called into the first one we could locate, the Good Inn. It had rooms and parking. The rooms were beds and TV, bath and lots mirrors, little else and no key Having a beer outside when we arrived we realised where we were. People were driving up for a short time disappearing into these VIP, SUPER VIP or PARADISE labeled rooms. A team of women were walking around pushing a trolley of sheets, towels and cleaning gear. They would descend on a room as a car left and before the next arrived. Now we could work out what the sign said at the entrance. A walk to a nearby restaurant and some food restored the body. By morning some rooms were occupied by travelers or at least occupied.