Hello from Thailand, we landed fine and then came straight to Khao San rd and to the D&D inn (thanks for the tip Nicola!) its more expensive than some of the other hostels as its more like a hotal but it has air con and a pool on the roof so its good for us! and the price is still half of what we were paying in HK for a tiny box of a room with no real ammenities.

Anyway once we'd arrived we jsut dropped our bags and then had a walk up Khao san rd which was busy full of tourists and market stalls selling clothes, CDs/DVDs, shoes/flip flops and doing hairbraiding. So on a whim Vic and I decided to get our hair done (i also had extentions added in as i thought my hair was too short to have braids without) so for both of us it cost 1200baht (about 20quid), so we sat on the street while the girls braided away for about 2 hours. Vics was finished before mine and then it started raining (actually pouring down!) so we had to take cover in the stairwell of the building opposite whilst they finished my hair.

Once it was finished we went to have a shower after having sat outside in the heat for so long and then we went out to look for some food. We ended up just going in a bar and getting a salad each and watching all the passerbys then we wandered again along the market stalls - i can see me having to expand my case to fit some new clothes in!!

Yesterday we decided we needed a day just to chill and not sightsee and we also needed to get a tan - everyone here is sooo brown!! So we just sat around the pool all day and actually got sunburnt - especially my thighs and tummy - so quite uncomfortable now! In the evening we just went out and grabbed a bite to eat in a bar and had a few drinks before Vicky having a funny turn while we were in one of the bars so we left and went home.

Today we got up had breakfast (i forgot to mention that its included in the room price) and then went and got a Tuk-tuk on a mini tour of Bangkok which was a bargain as long as we went to his 'sponsors' shop for a look around so as we were in no hurry we agreed as it was a good price overall and we knew we weren't going to buy anything. So he took us to the big golden budda (sorry cant remember the name its on my map in my other bag) which was quite spectacular. Then we went to another temple that we could have a look inside at which was really ornate and sparkly. We then went to his 'sponsors shop' which was a silk tailors where we said yes lovely suit no thanks we dont want to buy one and then we got on our way to the Grand palace. Where we paid our entrance and said goodbye to our driver and then had to borrow a long skirt as we were both wearing trousers, see the pictures for the attractive long wrap skirts that were soo hot to wear! we walked around the palace which was so decorative and sparkly and ornate. We also saw the 'emerald' budda in its' temple then we got soo hot we had to leave.

We got another tuk tuk back and then went in the pool to cool off and sat out for a bit even though it was a bit more overcast today it was still extremely hot.

We've just had showers and are  updating our blogs/emails etc in the internet room of the inn before we go out to grab something to eat.

Love to you all

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx