We were staying on Khoasan Road and when we arrived it was as busy and as loud and as full of backpackers as I had expected. Although it was actually a refreshing change from the laid back islands we had spent 3 weeks lazing around on. We found our hotel surprisingly quickly amidst the noise and excitement of the place and we were actually pleasantly surprised as it was only a tenner a night on the notorious "tourist trap" backpackers road. Paul was happy as it had a TV, and even a mini bar and breakfast was included and you couldn't really hear the sounds of outside so overall pretty good. After a quick search for some proper food which didn't consist of rice we took our burger king feast back to our hotel and tucked in watching various films.

The next day we knew we had to pack in as much as we could as we only had that one full day to explore Bangkok...well until we returned after Chiang Mai for another one full day. Firstly we headed to the Palace, of course got lost and it took us quite a while to find but we eventually did all on our own without the help of any of the persistent tuk tuk drivers offering us a full day tour for 2p each.

When we got there, we realised there was a very strict dress code, which we already had anticipated so I whipped my sarong out to wrap around my legs...unfortunately though this was not up to their standards and I was swiftly pulled out of the queue and rearranged by a Thai woman, who then deemed me decent to go through. It was pretty magnificent and grand, Paul and I were very impressed but I was nearly dying from overheating so I couldn't appreciate it to its fullest. We had a good wander round for a a couple of hours and Paul took a huge amount of photos as you can see on the blog.

After the Palace we made our way to the river and I managed convinced Paul to take a trip through the canals which he seemed a little apprehensive about but enjoyed it in the end as I managed to haggle the lady down to half price and we got our own private boat...which was only because of the lack of popularity of the trip and nothing else. The reason I really wanted to do the trip was because of the famous floating market which was supposed to be a highlight...however they neglected to tell us that it wasn't actually on at the time we went on the boat trip in the afternoon so I was a little disappointed, however it was still a good way to spend an hour as we got to see a bit of the real Thailand and how the majority of Thais live, and we couldn't really complain when we has our own private boat.

That evening we decided to get a taxi to the modern part of Bangkok we hadn't yet seen...Siam Square and go to the IMAX cinema to see the new batman film. There isn't much to say about that apart from the fact that it was absolutely incredible!!! One of the best films I have ever seen ever. Amazing and Heath ledger was brilliant. So yeah we ended the evening on a high and got back to the hotel rather late and repacked our bags as usual for another flight..(2nd of 4 in that week) to Chiang Mai to sample a bit of northern Thailand.