So here we are, back under the cold grey skies of England & having completed a whole year away from home travelling across 9 different countries! But before we round up our blog we need to update what we got up to in those last few days:We left Pai, in a minibus back through the winding mountain roads to Chiang Mai which took four hours of the most hair raising (if I had any) driving we have yet witnessed! In Chiang Mai we then boarded a larger VIP coach for the journey of 12 hours back to Bangkok. Fortunately the seats were comfortable & we also got talking to a really nice Oz couple called Eliot & Nicole who are travelling around Asia for a few months. We arrived in Bangkok exactly on schedule the following morning. Feeling a little hungry the four of us headed to a restaurant & grabbed some breakfast. After saying goodbye to Eliot & Nicole we began the un-enviable task of finding somewhere to stay for our third stint in Khao San Road. Lots of places were full or were charging silly prices for rubbish rooms. We ended up at the Khao San Palace Inn, in a room that could never be described as fit for Royalty with toilet humour graffiti scrawled across the bedroom wall, however it did have a pool on the roof with some impressive views across the city. We spent the rest of the day around the pool & then in the evening we headed over to the MBK shopping mall in Siam Square for a look around. It felt good to be in an air conditioned building after the heat of the day & Kerry wandered around while I watched the Arsenal vs. Man Utd game on the huge TV! Afterward we crossed over the road to the swanky Siam Discovery Centre & chilled out watching Stardust at the hi-tech cinema there. Sunday we headed off early & got a tour booked up for the following day, then we headed over to the huge weekend market known as Jatuchak. The market sells everything & is massive, so big in fact that by the day's end we'd only managed to walk about a quarter of it. Monday we were picked up early in the morning in a small minibus & we were driven 3 hours out to the province of Kanchanaburi. First stop was the War Cemetery where thousands of POW's (Prisoner Of War) & civilians are buried, having died at the hands of the Japanese during the construction of the Death Railway. 16,000 POW's are estimated to have died while being forced to complete the 415km line from Thailand into Myanmar, although even this number pales in comparison to the 90,000 - 100,000 civilian labourers who died in the area. The cemetery itself was a beautifully tranquil place, with small plaques naming each soldier surrounded by immaculately manicured flowers & gardens. Next stop was the JEATH War Museum, before walking across to the Bridge over the River Kwai, an unremarkable looking bridge if it wasn't for it's unbelievable history. Next up was a train ride along a section of the railway line that included some of the wooden bridges that took so many lives to construct. Some of the views across the river from the train were incredible. After this we travelled down to a restaurant by the river to quieten our grumbling bellies & then we were herded back into the bus for a 40 minute drive to Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannasampanno, otherwise know as the Tiger Temple. This was the part of the tour we were looking forward to the most as the temple provides sanctuary to a number of tigers rescued from poachers. We both got the chance to play with a baby tiger cub, which ended in me getting playfully bitten on the bicep, which actually really hurt but was cool to show everyone that i'd been bitten by a tiger! It's incredible how powerful their jaws are even at such a young age. We also got to stroke & take pictures next to some more grown up ones as well, which was a pretty incredible experience. That evening we chilled out at a local bar watching a brilliant local duo that we have come to love & we randomly bumped into Amit & Aderet, the Israelian couple that we met in Vietnam. Our last day was spent by firstly having a wander around the huge GrandPalace in Bangkok & then rushing around trying to get everything done before our flight home. I enjoyed one last massage while Kerry got pampered. We had a sad farewell drink with Junia, the sweet Thai waitress we'd met on our first stay in Bangkok & then we soon found ourselves grabbing our backpacks & heading to the airport for the last flight of our journey, the 14th flight in a year! The flight was really smooth & once again we had some great films to choose from on the entertainment system & in an attempt to get some sleep Kerry drunk way too much alcohol & ended up drunk! 12 hours later we touched down in a considerably colder England &, feeling pretty emotional to be home exactly one year to the day from leaving.