Bangkok Part 2: Our final week in Asia was bound to go quickly, and it did! Seeing the sights on the first visit there wasn't alot left to do, so we spent most of the week wandering around the many shopping malls. Checking into the Nasa Vegas hotel, we mentioned that it was our second visit and they upgraded our room for free. For £9 a night we had checked back into a little luxury and a TV, fridge and AC was once again at our disposal.
MBK was our first port of call and as it's so huge and full to the brim of many different stalls, six hours had passed before we knew it! We walked away with a few new copied DVDs and computer software: some software worth upto £3000 to buy and we got it for a bargain of £3! Shopped out we stopped at the Sushi restaurant: All you can eat Sushi for £6.50 including drinks and ice-cream. We have only ever seen these restaurants on TV and we was desperate to have a go. A conveyor belt moves around the whole restaurant and as you tuck into the different Sushis, you also cook your own seafood spicy soup. Clams, prawns, fish, squid and a number of meats and veggies go past and you grab whatever you want and chuck it all in! A very fun dining experience which was so fun and tasty that we went back a second time a couple of days later!
The day after we ventured to China town. A whacky place in Bangkok that is bursting with stalls selling all manor of goods with a Chinese influence. Here is the place to buy birds nest soup and sharks fin soup. We settled for roasted chestnuts which were an extremely popular street food choice and also extremely yummy! After wandering around the many alleys we decided to head to the Siam discovery centre to see what this mall had on offer. A more modern mall than the MBK centre that is connected to two other huge shopping malls:
Siam Discovery = Slightly Posh,
Siam Centre = Posh,
Siam Paragon = Cant afford it unless I'm super rich posh!
These shopping malls could give Dubai a run for its money as the Siam Paragon is filled with many beautiful designer labels! After another spot of excellent street food/mall tea we headed back to the hotel.
The rest of the week continued in a similar fashion with us wandering around looking for last minute bargains. Luckily the hotel we stopped in was next door to the sky train so we could hop on and off with ease and be close to pretty much everywhere we wanted to be. After one last venture to the famous backpacker road Khao San (another famous place that features in the book 'The Beach') for a few drinks we finished off the week content that we had seen everything in which we had wanted to see. Packing for Australia we cannot believe it is here already. Asia has flown and although completely different to South America it was still completely worth it.

Now to Summarise:

Top 5 experiences of SE Asia:
1) The Wedding: Everything about our wedding week was amazing and considering everything was planned on the go throughout South America, I still can't believe everything came together the way it did on the day! Seeing our families made it extra special and sharing this experience with them made Vietnam a very special place for us all.
2) Halong Bay: A fantabulous way to spend my birthday! The junk boat was brilliant and it felt like a little bit of luxury cruising around the beautiful bay and taking in all the sights.
3) Angkor Wat: Definitely the prettiest temples we have seen throughout the whole of Asia. The temple sight is huge and you are amazed at how many temples there actually are. Each one is unique and ornate in it's own way, and the way they are surrounded by the Forrest gives it a movie set type feel- like something from the Jungle book!
4) The Fantasea show: A great night out for everyone. This show is nothing like you have ever seen and they must spend a long time training all the animals used in this show. It shows how clever the animals are and they are definitely the stars of the show. Everything from the stage decorations, costumes, song and dance leaves you mesmerised. It's all got a very dream like quality about it.
5) The Full Moon party: An experience in itself! Probably best either getting completely drunk here so you don't realise whats going on as much, or staying completely sober so you can remember the daftness of what you saw. Either way it's definitely worth a look and it's great fun getting dressed up in fluorescent clothes and glow in the dark body paint!

Some facts about our trip:
1) Just under 14 weeks in total in South East Asia.
2) Vietnam Cambodia and Thailand visited.
3) 13 towns/cities in total. (41 in total including South America)
4) 95 hours on the bus! Making around 300 hours in total, counting all types of transport (buses and domestic flights) in both South America and SE Asia

Places to stay best:
1) Sunrise Hotel, Nha Trang, Vietnam
2) New Riverside Guesthouse, Siem Reap, Cambodia
3) PTK Residence, Koh Samui, Thailand

Places to stay Worst:
The Crepe guesthouse in Ko Phangan! Boiling hot and Mosquito ridden! No sleep and turned into a human lollipop for bugs!

Worst bus: Phuket to Koh Samui, 11 hours - getting robbed on this bus didn't help the situation and as it was our last ever bus journey it made our traveling experience end on a sour note!

Best bus: None of them! Not a comfortable way to travel at all, as the buses in SE Asia are not as nice as in South America! No Champagne and three course meals on these buses!

Favourite Towns:
1) Hoi An, Vietnam
2) Siem Reap, Cambodia
3) Chaweng, Koh Samui, Thailand

Places missed: (To note for in the future as unfortunatly we couldn't do/afford everything!)
1) Hue, Vietnam
2) Laos, the country
3) Chang Mai, Thailand

Best food (No particular order as all was yummy)
1) Lobster in Vietnam, The cheapest lobsters in SE Asia!
2) Tom Yum soup, a spicy Thai soup of prawns and vegetables.
3) Thai Street food, a huge selection to choose from and everything is cheap: big meat/veg skewers, tempura prawns, big corn on the cobs and tasty pancakes! All for around 50p!
4) Rice with fat, Vietnamese street food. Sounds a little wrong but is probably the tastiest and most flavoursome rice we have ever eaten.
5) All seafood! Fresh tasty seafood: Clams, Mussels, Squid, Prawns, Lobsters and a variety of tasty fish including Snapper and Barracuda. Vietnam being the cheapest and greatest value for money for seafood! Asia also has the best Sushi- Out new favourite restaurants!

Top tips for touring:
1) Carry all loved possessions with you to prevent them from being stolen.
2) On the night buses make sure you are on the bottom bunk bed for the extra floor space. That way you do not need to sleep with your rucksack on top of you. Also avoid the beds near the toilet!
3) Bring extra money and extra suitcases for the excellent tailors in Hoi An, Vietnam.
4) Walk very slowly across the road to avoid being hit by mopeds. Also the mopeds have started driving along the pavements in Thailand so be aware there also and develop eyes in the back of your head!

Best sights:
1) Angkor Wat- Siem Reap, Cambodia
2) Halong Bay- Halong, Vietnam
3) The Coasts in Thailand: The coastline, beaches and sunsets in Phuket, Koh Samui and Ko Phangan

All in all another great continent visited!

Vietnam is our new favourite SE Asian country and we enjoyed our time there the most. Every place in Vietnam had it's own Character. Hanoi and Hoi An had a traditional oldskool Vietnamese feel to it, whereas Nha Trang and Saigon was slightly more modern. The green country side of Da Lat in comparison to the sandy desert of Mui Ne. Also the history of the war and the beautiful Mekong Delta. Vietnam was also amazingly cheap and excellent value for money. A great country and easily lived up to our expectations.

Cambodia is a great place to pass through! The temples are a must see, so a visit to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap is highly recommended. Again it is great for history and the killing fields and genocide prison definitely leave a Mark.

Thailand is still extremely beautiful although we have noticed a change in the years since we have last visited. Our third visit here and although we really enjoyed it, we feel that it is becoming far to touristy for us now. Everything has doubled in price and you can no longer haggle or buy a bargain. They want your money with giving little in return, and they don't seem to care about it anymore.
However Bangkok is still full of charm and is one of our favourite cities, also you cannot fail to be impressed by their beaches!

Off to Oz! Hayls and Jonathan x