Hi everyone, we're going to have to write this in the third person so we can both contribute - hope we don't sound stupid...

So on Tuesday after months of saving, a week of goodbyes and a brilliant party, it was time to leave for Bangkok. Everyone was very emotional, but it was nice to have one last goodbye. The mood was picked up by Grandad Wilf and Grandad Les singing the Maori goodbye song! When we finally got through bag checking (we went in the longest queue as usual) we thought we had 40 minutes until boarding, so we went to chill in the bar. About 15 minutes later our drinks were rudely interrupted by the final boarding call and we had to run for the plane! We had a change in Dubai and proceeded to Bangkok.

We arrived on Wednesday in Bangkok, our hotel room is small but modern and clean. We decided to explore the local surroundings, after walking for about 15 minutes in the humidity (it's like a sauna here) we decided we needed a map and made a quick retreat back to the hotel where we found one. We then decided to head towards Lumphini Park. Bangkok is mad! It's really hectic with people and traffic everywhere! We made our way down various streets with street vendors selling all different types of foods - each step has a different smell. One of the smells is horrid - we haven't quite worked out what it is yet! We got to the park, which was lovely, nice and green and lots of space compared to the streets we had walked down. We then noticed that while we were chatting away walking along, everyone had stopped still and was staring at us. It was really weird like something out of a film before the aliens come. Anyway someone blew a whistle and everyone continued on their way. Still not quite sure what happened, we guess it was a minutes silence or something. There was a man throwing vegetables into a lake in the park, we went to have a look what he was doing and realised he was feeding lots of big fish and a turtle! (we've got some good videos)

On Thursday we decided to use the river boat to explore the city. We first stopped off in China Town, which is as mad as the rest of Bangkok. They sell all kinds of tat there. Shops purely for the purpose of selling scrunchies and stickers and things like that - no idea how they make any money! We had some really nice food in one of the cafes though. We then proceeded up the river stopping at various places and looking at various temples. Every time we got the map out a friendly Thai person would come up to us and suggest places to go. We soon learnt that this is a scam to get you into a tuk-tuk! We had some time spare before we wanted to go for tea, so we decided to go in one of the tuk-tuks to see some sights that the friendly Thai person suggested. We went to see a lucky Buddha, then he recommended that we went to the tourist information centre to get some information about Chiang Mai - he obviously had an agreement with the travel agents to get as many people in as possible (it was not a tourist info centre like in England!), however we stood strong and didn't buy anything much to the dismay of the salesman. We then went to see a temple, we got back to the tuk-tuk and the man then recommended we went to a tailor shop. We explained that we didn't want to go to a tailor shop and to take us to the next sight. We then got into a bit of a row - he refused to take us, insisted that we went to the tailors and eventually revealed that if he took us to the tailor shop they would give him a petrol voucher. Needless to say by this point we were both getting annoyed, so we paid him, got out and walked back to Khao San Road. Khao San Road is the main road where all the tourists go...it's basically like the generic place in any country that you get for tourists - lots of bars and people trying to sell you laser pens and things. Josh decided to become at one with the locals and ate a scorpion on a stick - it tasted like the smell of a dog biscuit! We weren't overly impressed with Khao San Road and actually preferred the neighbouring road, which still had lots of bars and restaurants but more chilled out, with less people trying to sell you things. We had a few drinks and some nice food and then got the last boat home. It was lovely as all the temples and boats along the river were all lit up.

Today we had a lie in (partly due to Christina taking a paracetamol with caffeine in the middle of the night and being awake for most of the night). When we finally got up we realised the sun was out! We decided to make our way to one of the big shopping centres. The walk was long and hot, but we did see a big lizard/crocodile type thing which Josh thinks is called a Salamander swimming in some water. We were looking for a pharmacy on the way as Christina had an allergic reaction to an insect bite (as usual) and looked like the elephant man. We finally found one by the shopping centre a few hours later! The shopping centre was huge - at least twice the size of the Bull Ring. After all the walking in the last few days, we opted to get a tuk-tuk back. The driving is scary and hectic, the mopeds don't seem to follow the same rules as the cars, and happily drive along pavements and things - but we haven't seen any accidents and all of the cars are in good condition compared to some of the places we have been to.

We're off to Kanachaburi tomorrow so just chilling out tonight. We will put the photos up on Facebook shortly. Hope all is well at home. Lots of love xxx