So we arrived into the futuristic city of Bangkok in the late evening and took a sleek AC taxi across town to the infamous KoSarn Rd. After trudging through a hoard of party travellers stubling through the market, bucket of SamSung Wiskey and coke in hand, we found a cheap cheap guesthouse just off the main road, but close enough that Lady GaGa would always keep us up untill 4am!

Bangkok was such a change from India and Nepal, I knew it was going to take a while to adjust. Firstly, the heat is pretty relentless, and the only real cool spots are the all too numourous 7-11's, strange american convenience stores that sell everything from notepads to slurpys to soft-shell crab flavoured crisps.

Secondly, Thailand in general has (apparently) changed from a shoestring wonderland to almost as expensive as home! Which was such a shock to the wallett, especially after India and Nepal being so cheap.

What I soon discovered is that, despite popular belief, Tuk-tuks are not the way to travel in Thailand, especially in Bangkok, where they won't take you anywhere without stopping at at least one tailor/travel agent/jewellerers, or charging you at least the same price (if not more than) a infinately more confortable AC meter taxi.

Once these small adjustments were made our lives became much easier. We caught up on the big film releases at the iMax, went to the ridicyulously hot and crowded weekend market, partied hard on KoSarn with our new Thai friends and some Eastern European guys we met, and after a week pourin money away in the capital we made a dash for Koh Pang Ngan off the South-Eastern coast.

After a 12hr bus journey and a 3hr boat ride we hit the island of Koh Pang Ngan, famously the home o the Full Moon Party on Haad Rin beach. We planned to spend a few days chilling out before the Black Moon Party so we headed to the only-accessable-by-boat-kinda-secluded Haad Thien beach on the SE coast. However, after the first, pretty expensive night on Haad Thien we realised we had overshot a little and I moved to a 3pound a night bungalow on the rocks between the two beaches.

This turned out to be the best move yet as I made a great group of friends during that week, including my Thai brother, and bungalow owner, Gang. This guy was an absolute legend. He treated us all like family during our week there, taking us out for Song Kran (Thai new year) a celebration where everyone takes the day off and throws water on each other. I can't describe how much fun it was driving around Koh Pangngan on the back of a pickup with a huge bucket of water, a bottle of wiskey, and 8 of the coolest people I've met throwing water over the locals and tourists, and getting completely soaked in the process!

The week was spent chilling, partying, and making new friends. And we had so much fun there, we didn't even make it to the Black Moon party! However, after a week was up we all had to move on, so it was back to Bangkok after some sad farewells!

This visit to Bangkok was quite different from our previous visit. we were a bit more savvy on where to stay and how to save a bit of cash getting around, so this time we did a bit more sightseeing. We visited the famous floating markets (pictureque, but pretty same-same as a market), the ancient capital of Ayutthaya, and also met up with my cousins friend who is living out in Bangkok, and showed us a good time taking us to trendy little bars and an awesome night out to see DJ Zinc and MC Dynamite, followed by an entire day spent catching up on LOST!! (only 3 episodes left!)

So after what was probebly too long again in Bangkok, we escaped the escalating redshirt protests and caught a bus up to Chiang Mai, to seek out a nice guesthouse reccomended to us called, Nice Place 2 (no no one knows what happened to Nice Place 1?!) but I will have to save North Thailand for another internet session.