After a very short night we found ourselves back in the brand new international airport of Bangkok. The heat and humidity fell as a blanket over our heads once outside the terminal.

During the transfer to the hotel we noticed the most colourful taxi's - never thought about the possibility to combine fuchsia with red!. Since it was Saturday, they were hardly any traffic jams according to our driver, only around the shopping malls. Turned out that there were quite some shopping malls on our way to the hotel, which is on the west bank of the ChaoPraya river, close to one of the many boat piers. As we will discover during the next days, boats are apart of the metro the most efficient means of transport in this eternally traffic jammed city.

Anyhow, once arrived in the hotel we enjoyed the pool and we managed to stay awake or at least in some state of consciousness during the rest of the day. More than a stroll around the hotel and a benchmarking study of the local beers was not on the program for today.

And what about August? Well, 3 main things about him. First of all he is doing fine, really fine; seems not to have any jetlag and adapts well to the new day/night schedule. Secondly, he is a real attraction here! People tend to talk with him, try to touch him all the time (there is where my Crocodile Dundee knife is very useful). I hope I will get the locals so far in near future that we get discounts in shops and restaurant just for bringing him there. The only thing is the heat - now you should watch him when he desperately walks (never runs, he remains a Salon Baron after all) from ventilator to ventilator in the non-air conditioned rooms of museums, or wiping away his sweat with his little sunhat (as preview of our visit to the national museum).