The first class train was a definite step up from the second class one we had tried from the southern islands to Bangkok earlier in our trip. At the time we had been impressed by the bunk beds which lined the train carriage but in comparison these bunkbeds were much wider and the mattresses were a lot comfier. I would even go far as to say that these beds were better than some of the ones in hostels we had stayed at. The main benefit of first class was having your own cabin, it meant that it was dark and you weren't interrupted by people walking down the aisle constantly. While travelling you appreciate these small luxuries.

For mine and Lexi's last destination together we treated ourselves to a hotel with a pool. It had been recommended to us by a few people as it had a rooftop pool with great views over Bangkok but it was also right on Koh San road. This was good and bad because by being on the party street it meant that it would be impossible to get to sleep before 2am. This fact was even acknowledged by the hotel through the provision of free earplugs in the room. Originally we thought the loud street would not affect us as we would be out partying. However I had starting feeling unwell toward the end of Chiang Mai and during the night train my cold had got much worse. Despite this I made the most of the evening, we found a nice place to eat. Lexi had a brilliant idea which was to approach a girl sitting on her own. We asked her to join us for dinner, she was Dutch and only at the start of her travels. We were able to provide her with lots of advice and recommendations. In addition as I didn't feel up to it, she took my place and went with Lexi to the floating market the following day. In retrospect, it was probably the best place to get ill as I was able to rest all day in the nice hotel room.

That afternoon we got a taxi to meet David in town. He had again kindly offered to let us stay at his house so we had arranged to stay there for our last few days in Thailand. That evening he treated us to a huge sushi meal - Lexi was over the moon - she loves sushi and hadn't eaten much of it since being in Thailand. David told us that Japanese food is in fact becoming very popular in Thailand and is as good quality but a lot cheaper than the equivalent in Japan. After many dishes of sushi we were very full. But we had to try the Korean dessert that David had told us about. We went upstairs in the shopping centre and ordered a large portion to share. It was a huge bowl filled with snow textured icecream. The icecream was covered in fresh fruit and within the mound of dessert was banana icecream and cornflakes!

The next day David had organised a taxi to take us and Yuree to some temples. The first temple was the most expensive temple paid for purely through donations. It was impressive, made of millions of bhatt of granite. We followed Yuree and she took us through the traditional prayers. We gave flowers and put gold leaf on the Buddha statues. We also took it in turns to shake a cup full of chopsticks with numbers on. Whichever number fell out would correspond to a fortune written on a piece of paper. Another part of the prayer was to put 1 bhatt in each of the small Buddhas' bowls. It was very interesting to be in the midst of local Thais. We didn't see any other tourists and a couple of Thais asked for selfies with us.

The next temple was set on the river with some colourful statues on the mainland and a feature with petals surronding it actually on the water. We had lunch at a restaurant right on the river. Yuree ordered for us because for the first time we were presented with a completely Thai menu with no English written anywhere. The base dish was a large portion of egg fried rice. Then we had many seafood dishes including BBQed prawns, battered fish, peppered fish, squid and a papaya salad. It was delicious and the food was so fresh! The final temple we went to was in the form of a large elephant statue made out of some kind of stone.

On the way home we kept stopping at the side of the road to buy things. First we bought fresh coconuts still attached in their bunches. The taxi driver bought lots of coconuts because his wife is pregnant and coconut water is meant to be good for pregnancies. Next we stopped to buy some live prawns and fish because Yuree wanted to try their new BBQ that evening for dinner. We also bought bag loads of small pineapples and corn on the cob to add to the BBQ.

The BBQ was delicious. Yuree knew exactly how to cook everything, she threw the corn on the BBQ whole and the outer leaves caught on fire. To our surprise it all cooked beautifully. The prawns went on for a few minutes each and we managed to eat our way through 2kg of huge prawns! Yuree also made cabbage and minced beef salad and also a very spicy lemongrass sauce for the prawns. Lily told us that the sauce contained 30 chillis! Lexi and I were careful not to use too much of it. It was a great end to Thailand to be able to see things from more of a local's perspective. We also got the chance to see the outside of Lily's school when we picked her up in the taxi. All the school children dashed into the 7/11 supermarket as they were let out of school.