After a nights stop back in Chiang Rai we were on our way to Bangkok for my 30th birthday weekend with our friends Ella and Besty! After arriving a little later than expected we got a taxi to their lovely apartment in an area of Bangkok called Aree. The night was spent catching up over beers and wine. It was a welcome relief seeing happy familiar faces after such a long time away. 
 
The next day was pretty relaxed in the daytime. We organised our visas for Vietnam, shopped in the many MASSIVE shopping centres of Bangkok and then most importantly went food shopping in a massive supermarket for dinner ingredients. This made Hannah very very happy as they had many ingredients we'd expect to see back home, albeit quite pricey. Most importantly though they had a large selection of CHEEEEESE! Now originally our intention was to have a few drinks in the flat in the evening and basically have a quiet one as we were going to party the next day. Weeeeeeell, after 2 or 3 beers it suddenly seemed like a really good idea to go out that night as well. So we got ourselves into a taxi and headed to Khao San road. For those of you who haven't been, Khao San road is a small road in Bangkok which has lots of little bars mostly selling “buckets” of alcohol to a mix of backpackers and hip local Thais. These drinks are little sandcastle buckets filled with booze and some sort of mixer and usually shared between a couple of people. So me and Besty had one between us and so did the girls. Then we all had another and the night became a bit of a blur after that. We ended up going home about 2am (apparently because I looked a bit too drunk). However I was the least of our worries on the taxi ride home! Poor Hannah and Ella seemed to go from sober-ish to puking out of the taxi uncontrollably in the blink of an eye. Although concerned, it was quite funny! 
 
The next day was a bit of a struggle for the female contingent although not much better for the guys if I'm honest. Eventually we pulled ourselves together and went for some bowling which Hannah very fortunately won. After that it was all a bit of surprise for me. I was told we were going for dinner but not told where. We got on the sky train (think the London tube in the sky) and just as we started to walk down the stairs to ground level I spied an English pub called the Black Swan. That was where we were heading! It was AMAZING. It was just like being in a pub back home. Then, just as we were about to order food in walks my friend Matt from back home! Shocked was an understatement. I knew he was in Thailand but he hadn't said anything about coming up. All this was the lovely Hannah's organising and it was a fantastic birthday present... being sat in an English pub with lots of friends. Perfect :) 
 
After some dinner and much catching up we headed back to Ella and Besty's for a few more drinks and to Skype some friends from back home. Once all the catching up was done we all headed out again to Khoa San road and the night took on a very similar theme as the night before. Although the girls were much more sensible as they wanted to be in a fit state for another birthday treat the following day. The boys however were less restrained and we ended the evening by eating some deep fried grasshoppers and then a double big mac in McDonalds. Where for some unknown reason there was a couple eating with a Guinea Pig on their lap! Not something you see every day. 
 
So after another hectic night we were far from bright eyed and bushy tailed come Sunday morning. Luckily though Ella had made reservations for a champagne Sunday brunch in a posh hotel in central Bangkok. I'm not really sure what I was really expecting with this as I hadn't done any investigation into what it actually entailed but to say it was impressive does not do it justice! Pretty much every type of food you could imagine was there including caviare, roast beef, spider crab, smoked salmon (in fact a massive slab of the stuff!), dozens of different breads, meats, cheeses, salads, curries, sushi, the list was endless! That was before you even got to the whole room, yes room, of desserts! And that wasn't even the best bit. You could have as much wine, champagne, beer and soft drinks as you desired. In fact as soon as you took a few sips from your glass someone would top you up! We spent 3 hours gorging ourselves with as much as our stomachs could take. We were the only people left in the restaurant whilst the cleaners were hoovering around us whilst we tried to finish all our drinks we'd collected on our table after the buffet closed! We were having too much fun being silly, ha! We finally we made our way back to the apartment to watch a film and go to sleep.
 
The next few days we were supposed to be going to see the floating market an hour outside Bangkok and also to the ruins at Ayutthaya about 2 hours away. We ended up missing out on both however due to the market being open only on weekends and Ayutthaya being so far away that it wasn't really feasible given the time we had, i.e. we woke up a bit later than expected that day! This meant we ended up seeing yet more shops but did manage time to visit Wat Pho, home to the world's largest reclining Buddha image and take a nice boat trip. We also went to Yaowarat Road in China town one of the evenings to check out all the delicious street food. Hannah loved it here, so many interesting food stalls selling and cooking all sorts. All in all, not a very cultural trip to Bangkok but amazing for all the right reasons. Amazing times with some amazing friends :)