7,700 miles34 Celcius31 hours in transit and 5 or 4 timezones depending on which way you look at it4 beers and a couple of steak kebabs, and 4 breakfasts1 FIFA World Cup vest and accreditationBrazil 3 - 1 Croatia1 dead bodySo runs my tally for one of the more weird days of my life. I've totally lost track of what day it is already, and it's only day 1. The flight from Manaus was a cramped affair, but made much more bearable by being able to watch Brazil float by below. Leaving Rio it was quite mountainous, then changing to lots and lots of farmland, and then into jungle proper.It was a 4 hour flight to Manaus and the plane was absolutely chocka. Luckily I'd boarded early and got my highly dense hand luggage in the rack with plenty of room to spare. Following me on were a bunch of TV camera and sound guys and their kit weight and volume put mine to shame so I didn't feel too bad. They were from ESPN and we had a good chat en-route which alleviated the boredom.Stupidly I hadn't bought a bottle of water before getting on the plane and was feeling pretty dehydrated. My excuse was that I was sending some urgent fan pics into the papers when the gate opened, leaving no time to get a drink. It's really important to keep drinking in this sticky and humid atmosphere, especially as the planes also dry you out a lot. Happily some very helpful TAM stewardesses were on hand to help out with nunmerous cups of water.As we flew along, I kept taking pictures of big rivers thinking how big they were, but they just kept getting bigger and wider until we hit the Amazon which, one has to say, is really very large.Landing at Manaus was uneventful and we all piled into luggage reclaim (no passport control being an internal flight). We were assaulted by the by now wearisome multinational branding on arrival. Subtle this isn't.I knew I had a pile of stuff to do as soon as I got to Manaus, chief among them being to get my photographer's accreditation from the Stadium Media Centre. But first I wanted to check into my hotel and have a shower. The taxi to the hotel from the airport was a moderate £20, no doubt more expensive than usual but I'm not complaining (not yet - I will shortly though). Checkin was nice & easy, and the hotel is clean and comfortable, though the double bed worries me slightly when Ben Queenborough comes to stay for Friday night.The it should have been off to the Arena Da Amazonia, newly built for the World Cup and standing somewhat incongruously amongst some rather shoddy housing. Pics of that to come tomorrow.  But after hearing roars of excited crowds and fireworks going off I realised that I'd skipped another time zone and Brazil were playing Croatia in the opening game. I followed the noise and found a couple of bars hosting big screens and LOTS of yellow and green clad people.The atmostphere was really sensational. Loads of shouting and screaming and waving of arms, but no hint of anything unsavoury whatsoever. I had to take a few pics so here you go.A quiet evening down Wetherspoons this is definitely not. Thankfully Brazil won so everyone was majorly happy, resulting in more fireworks and craziness.Anyway, I did have to get my creds sorted out. A quick £4 taxi to the stadium dropped me in front of a small (20 people) demonstration against the world cup. Behind this motley crew was about 30 armed police and several buses worth in reserve. Nobody taking any chances then. It was all very peaceful as far as I could see, so I took a few pics, said "ola" to everyone (and they all said "ola" back including all the police) and eventually found the media centre after wandering round a hastily tarmac'd new car park.Thankfully the accreditation centre knew who I was and printed out my tournament creds for me after taking my picture (hideously underexposed - Daniel would not be happy). They then sent me around to the SMC to get my vest/bib sorted. This is a large marquee type affair with loads of desks, lockers for kit (nice!), a canteen, wifi and wired LAN and pwoer points, camera repair centre (2) and a big information area.There was some delay while they found the guy who had the key to the cupboard with the bibs in, so I headed out to try to get some general views of the stadium. Unfortunately it was fully dark by now, but you do the best with what you've got.I had also had the forethought to take a thermometer with me. Bought for £2.99 at Robert Dyas, I reckoned that if any of my pictures sell it will be this one. Everyone is concerned about the heat in Manaus, but at the time England will be playing on Saturday evening it was actually a very pleasant 80F or 26C, having cooled from 34C or so. I don't think they'll have a problem at all.After sending a few pics off to the papers from the snazzy media centre, and grabbing a Coke Zero (no Diet Coke here so far) for 8 Reals or Reis (about £2) from the canteen, I set about getting a taxi back. There were a couple of FIFA folk looking for a taxi as well, so we agreed to team up. My hotel is only 1.5km from the stadium so I figured they could drop me off and then be on their way to their swish FIFA hotel quite some way off.However, the driver had other ideas, and decided to drop them off first, then take me back to my hotel. What? Really? It was too late by the time I'd twigged this and we were off down towards the river to the FIFA hotel, which of course is exactly where the FIFA Fan Fest (a sort of free big screen match showing and party) was. Obviously the streets were crowded, jammed with traffic and generally mental as seems to be the way here. I was getting increasingly irate, pointing out to the driver that he was shafting me good and proper, using my phone's GPS to illustrate the point in very First World fashion.In actual fact, I was getting a good tour of Manaus that the FIFA folk were paying the majority of the cost of.Which brings me to the dead body. Flashing police lights and a few cars & motorbikes had gathered and some poor bloke was lying dead in the gutter, I suspect from a scooter accident (unsurprising from the way they ride). Clearly dead unfortunately. Not the prettiest sight to behold on your first night. Needless to say I took no pics, and the taxi driver eventually got me back after a horrendously circuitous route that meant I was in the taxi for an hour instead of 5 mins, and R30 instead of R10 (£10 instead of £3). Still I'd had a tour of the city and seen a corpse so what more could you wish for.By now I was starving and thirsty, so I popped back to the bar next to the hotel that had the big screen thing going on, and chatted to a couple of 25 year old chaps from Bristol who were following England. Several bottles of beer followed, and I had a couple of gorgeous steak kebabs, as did they (I ordered 2, which I thought was 2 kebabs, but was 2 lots of 2 kebabs). Suitable quantities of beer for 3 plus the kebabs came to R70 including a tip, which is about £20. Nice.Bedtime now, once I've figured out how to charge all my stuff from one adapter. England and Italy open training and press conferences tomorrow - the real work begins.