After 2 long 7 hour flights and a short wait in Dubai we finally arrived at Bangkok airport. Here we met up with 3 others and caught a mini bus to our hostel (Feel at Home) which was on an extremely busy road and close to the famous tourist hotspot, Kho Sarn Road. We dumped our bags and grabbed a shower (cold water and shared with cockroaches of course but we didn't care) and headed out to explore and find some food. Trying to cross the first road we made friends with a Thai lady who saved us from being run over, we were going to have to learn to jay walk and fast! The first street was lined with market stalls selling everything from clothing and jewellery to food and fake ID! The first street food restaurant we saw we stopped and dived under the shade, here we managed a portion of chicken fried rice and a large Chang for 85THB, about £1.80! Well originally we paid 50THB each and went on our way up the road, after about 5 minutes we heard some shouting and the restaurant owner was running after us with a bill and basically we had under paid her… woops! Back at the hostel we showered (again) and headed out for the evening trying to stay awake to combat the jet lag.

The next morning we had decided to head down to the river and were wandering in that general direction when we were stopped by a Thai teacher who told us we shouldn't go down that way today as there was a protest happening because it was a Buddhist public holiday. Instead he told us to jump in a government Tuk Tuk (funny little bike things that fit about 4 people at a push) and that we could pay the driver 20THB for 3 hours of driving. He drew on our map the Temples and other places the driver would take us to and set us on our way. So here we were thinking this is great, first ride in a Tuk Tuk and so cheap! He took us to a temple and said he would wait while we looked around. The temples are phenomenal they really take this Buddhist thing seriously! After the first temple the driver suddenly said "We go to here on the way to here" and pointed at my map, so we say okay and off we go. The first place we went to (which turned out to be the first of many) was a tailors shop where we were ushered in and given catalogues of all types of clothing and asked what we wanted to buy. Of course this wasn't in our plan and nobody could bear the thought of wearing anything more than a vest and shorts at the very most. There was another tourist, an ozzy guy, (who had clearly been conned into the same thing) being measured up for a shirt. One of the boys took one for the team and bought a silk tie, we then felt like we could leave and piled back into the Tuk Tuk and set off for the second attraction, the lucky buddha. This was essentially a room full of Buddha's, not sure which was the lucky one but they were nice to look at and it was out of the sun! Being stuck in traffic in the middle of the day in extremely busy Bangkok is not something that is easy to deal with on only your second day in the heat! Back into the Tuk Tuk we piled and again the driver suggested we go somewhere! This time he took us to a gem shop which was lovely and cold and had some amazing things although nobody was going to buy anything, turns out the driver got a fuel token if he took people to certain places! At the end of the gem store there was a little gift shop where we bumped into the ozzy guy from the tailors shop. At this point we all realised that we were on the same 'tour' and had a laugh about it and said we may bump into him on Kho Sarn later on. After getting back into the Tuk Tuk we were taken to our third destination another temple in beautiful grounds. We had a quick look and took some photos and decided we'd had enough and wanted to head back to Kho Sarn Road as we were tired, hot and hungry! And in need of a beer of course! Unfortunately the driver had other plans and took us to another tailors shop and 2 tourist information places (for another fuel coupon and a food coupon) before finally dropping us back at Kho Sarn Road. We headed straight for the same little restaurant again, this was soon to become our favourite place, and a voice said "are you following me?" it was the ozzy guy we had seen at the gem and tailors shops! After arranging to meet him later on we headed back to the hostel to meet up with some others who were part of our group. Chatting over some beers that night we decided that one day in Bangkok was enough and that we would go away for the weekend and experience Pattaya.