After leaving Phi Phi we took the boat to Phuket. We spent the night in Phuket Town as we wanted to stay away from busy Patong Beach and wanted to catch the bus the next day to Bangkok. As we arrived at our guesthouse in Phuket town disaster struck. Lauren realised her handbag containing her purse, phone and camera was missing. She made a desperate journey back to the harbour in order to track down the mini bus that had dropped us off. Luckilly the bus was tracked down and Lauren's handbag returned to her complete with all possessions. Phew.... she was very lucky. That was a pretty stressful couple of hours!

We didn't do all that much in Phuket. We managed to find a nice restaurant in the town. Had a really nice meal then went back to our guesthouse for an early night. The next day we took a wonder around the town, booked our bus tickets for later that day and had a look round the local shopping centre.

Early that evening we boarded the overnight bus to Bangkok. It was not the most comfortable journey ever and I got very little sleep. We arrived very early the next morning and made our way to the popular backpacker spot, Khao Sam Road, to find ourselves somewhere to stay for the next couple of nights. We managed to find a room so payed to stay for the next couple of nights. I dont know whether it was due to lack of sleep and complete exhaustion but after a couple of hours sleep we realised we were staying in a room much resembling a prison cell. We were firstly woken to a couple in the next room having a brawl. We could hear every single word! Our room contained nothing but 2 beds, not even a plug socket! So no hairdrier! Our beds were uncomfy too, had big wooden ridges running through the mattresses. At this point we were so tired we didn't care.

We got to see lots of sights in Bangkok. We saw the Grand Palace which was really impressive. It was really colourful and had lots of jewels built into it. It also had lots of unusual statues. We went to see Wat Pho. Really interesting to see the big reclining Budha. On the Sunday wew went to the Chatuchak weekend market. It was very busy. Cant believe how many stalls they have there! Despite the number of things they had on offer we only came away with one pair of shoes!

We also managed a couple of boat trips up and down the river. This was a good way to see some of the sights. I also had to buy a camera in Bangkok. We spent a lot of time in the shopping centres. It was all very stressful as most of the centres had their prices at the exact same price, which was still more expensive than the UK! We eventually heard of a centre where you can bargain so made a dash for it. At last I had my camera. Got it down in price by quite a lot and now I'm once again able to take photos so I'm happy.

At night there was always so much going on along our road. There were lots of bars and backpackers everywhere. It was chaotic and just how I imagined Bangkok would be. On our last night in Bangkok before getting on the train to Chiang Mai we went to the night market where the more seedy part of Bangkok is. It was pretty shocking. Took a swift exit from there and boarded our train to Chiang Mai.

Im definitely glad of our Bangkok experience although it is definitely not a place I would hurry back to. I'm glad we got to see the sights we did as they were all very impressive. There were a lot of things we had to do in Bangkok like buying my camera and changing our RTW tickets so felt we were constantly rushing around. Getting from one place to another always seemed to take forever! There was so much traffic and people everywhere. Bangkok was fun but I was definitely relieved to be getting on the train out of there.