This morning we decided to go for a little look around Bangkok. As Jade didn't get much sleep on the overnight train, she decided to have a nap at the hostel. As she has been to Bangkok before, Sally, Ruth and me decided to go and see the Grand Palace as Jade didn't want to go here again. The hostel puts on a golf buggy to shuttle us to the nearest sky train station, which is about a five minute drive away. From here, we took a couple of sky trains then a river bus up to the palace. On arriving here, a man told us the palace was full and we should come back at 3pm to buy our tickets. But in the meantime we should take a tuk tuk to a local temple and giant Buddha. As this was well advertised around the palace, we decided to go. The temple was, like most of the others we've seen in Thailand, very nice. Plus the Buddha was giant! On getting back in our tuk tuk, the driver asked us if he could take us to five shops, we didn't have to buy anything, just take a look. The shops then stamped a card for the driver, entitling him to some free petrol. A few people we met on the islands earlier in our trip told us the drivers here do that and there's no harm in it. As we had some time to kill we decided it was fine. We went to a couple of tailors, a jewellery shop and factory and some precious stone shops. The problem was, the shops were all miles apart and we spent ages sitting in the notoriously bad Bangkok traffic. After a few visits we asked to go back to the palace and go to the last couple of shops afterwards, but our driver suddenly could no longer speak English! So, we reluctantly went to the last shops, spent two minutes in each then got taken back to the palace. We got dropped back off at 3.30pm, which was the time the palace shut! If we had opened our eyes a little, we would have seen the massive signs telling us when it closed and we never would have left in the first place. At least getting conned in Bangkok only cost us 30Baht (just over 50p) split between 3 of us! Plus we got a full driven tour of the city, so I guess it could have been worse! Lesson learnt! We will try the palace again later this week.

We then headed over to the boat stop to meet up with Jade. She had also had a drama coming to meet us. The golf buggy shuttle service only runs from the hostel at certain times, so Jade was walking the 20minute route down the road to the sky train. However, around the corner from the hostel, she started to get chased by some stray dogs so she had to run and hide from them! Then like a superhero, a man in a mask (a lot of people wear them here due to the high pollution levels) pulled up on his motorbike and told her to hop on to escape and took her to the station for free! The people here can be so friendly, we've seen people offering the elderly rides on their motorbikes simply to get across busy roads! They've helped us out a lot! I also think between us, we have now taken every mode of transport Thailand has to offer!

That evening we headed over to Khoa San Road, which is a busy area of town with lots of restaurants, bars, shops, market stalls and street food. We had a mooch around and sat in a bar with some live music which was nice and chilled out. We also got plenty of offers to go see one of Bangkok's famous 'ping pong' shows but we politely declined!

We came back for an early-ish night but have ended up watching the film 'Hangover 2' to get us in the Bangkok mood as the film is set here!

We also got some good news as Jade ha got into her masters course at Sheffield for September so we're all really pleased for her!

Hopefully we will have a more productive day tomorrow!

Amy x