I was a 21 year old girl from a little Valley in South Wales, that had made the big decision to leave the Country I'd lived in my whole life to go out and explore the world. The longest I had ever been on holiday was 2 weeks, so this was a huge step for me. It was time for me to become an independent woman and venture out to experience new and exciting things. July 16th, 2011 had arrived and it was my day of departure. First stop… the city of Bangkok.

Our journey had began. I was travelling with 2 of my friends, Liz and Elena and we had planned to meet Sarah and Seran (another two friends) out in Thailand. We had a 15 hour flight which, (for me) included 6 films and very little sleep, (3 hours to be exact.) Does anyone else have trouble sleeping on a plane? I find it so difficult, squished up in the smallest of spaces. What's even worse is when you enter the plane you have to walk through first and business class to get to economy. It's like torture! When you're finally sat in your uncomfortable economy seat you have the image of the lucky people at the front of the plane with their reclined chairs and champagne! The thought of reclining your seat(in economy) to get that extra bit of comfort goes through your mind, but you never do because you always feel bad for the person sitting behind. Well I survived the flight, that's all that matters and we had arrived in the land of ladyboys and full moon parties.

"Welcome to Thailand!" the Thai people said as they welcomed us into their country. New experiences were ahead and I was excited. Here's a quick tip for you though: what NOT to do at Bangkok airport: don't book a taxi from inside the airport, always get one from the queue of taxi's outside (on the Meter…MUCH cheaper. We paid way more than we should have.

It was a 40 minute drive to where we are staying so a bit more travelling for us but we were to excited to care! We checked into Khoasan Palace a hostel on Kohsan Road and went to explore. Khoasan road is a very cramped street and it just looks like a place of clutter. There are lots of lookey lookey men trying to sell things, there's street food everywhere and a number of bars. We knew that it was going to be a wild 3 days for us.

Whilst waiting on Sarah's arrival we took some time out to chill by the rooftop pool, which is where we made our first friends. They were very chatty and boasted that they had met lots of celebs. It was a little annoying but I suppose some good contacts to have. After very little sleep on the flight I was fighting not to sleep. I needed to stay awake so that I could adjust to the time difference.

Later on in the day Sarah had finally arrived…but not alone. She had turned up with 3 new friends. One if which is 40, gay and has a ladyboy as a lover. She had a number of stories to tell. One being that she had boarded the flight with no underwear. She was dying for the toilette and before she could pull down her underwear she sneezed and a little pee came out, which then resulted in her removing her underwear and binning them. Aboard the flight was where she met her 40 year old friend and they began to have a few drinks (from the free bar on board) and she decides to share the no underwear story with him. Well I think they giggled and drank the whole way to Bangkok because when she arrived she was in hysterics and a little tipsy and still with no underwear. It was worth waiting for her arrival just to hear that story.

So the four of us were captives of Bangkok now and it was our first night out on the town (well dirty street). We discovered a new game after watching 'Hall Pass' on the plane. We called it hall pass…How original of us. So the aim is if you see a guy you think is cute, scan and check out the people he's with, His friends could be the ones making him look good and he could actually be a minger close up. It was a pretty mean game, but I have to admit it was sort of funny.

I tried my first local beer "Chang" in la Casa restaurant, which was delicious but very strong, if you ever visit Thailand, watch you don't have one too many of those. This is where we met with Matt and Fred(2 of the boys Sarah met on the plane) for drinks and we ended up partying all night. And what a night it was!!Absolutely amazing.

We partied with lager fountains and buckets, danced in Irish bars. We took a 40 minute ride on a tuck tuck, which took us to the most seedy place I've ever been in my life. It was where we experienced our first ping pong show!! Everyone who had been to Thailand before told me, "You have to go and experience it!", "It's a must do in Bangkok!" Well it was the worst money I had spent. What a horrible thing to see. The women had no smiles on their faces and it was as if they were forced to do these horrific things. What was worse was there were two people having sex right behind me in public, holding my chair and making noises. It was GROSS to say the least.

Sarah woke up the morning after with no memory of the night. It seemed like the night out was a remake of the hangover 2 for her. We also bumped into Fred and Matt In the lobby and both had Thai women with them. It seemed they had got lucky on their night. We went with them for some breakfast to get the gossip, but they also had no memory of the night. If you have no memory of a night out…You know it's been an EPIC one!

That day we took a crazy ride in a tuck tuck again to go and book a few trips. Randomly the guy who served us was a guy from Wales(not far from us)and he got us a few deals. He was very high on weed though so we were slightly worried about what he had planned for us but very excited at the same time.

The first trip was to see a traditional Thai show on the biggest stage in the world. It's even in the guiness book of world records. WOW!!! The reviews on the show said it was a MUST see, and that it was the greatest show in Thailand, so we were looking forward to it. Before taking our seats we filled our tummies with an all you can eat buffet which was delicious and included, so we took advantage of it. Then it was show time, and i can honestly say that after about 20 minutes I had started to fall asleep. I did not uderstand the show at all. The guy who sold the tickets was probably laughing at us and thinking, "suckers!" He must have been high when he went to see it and probably hallucinating, the entire time. Aside from the show being absolutely terrible, the stage was pretty incredible. It had a river flowing through it and to be fair there arent many theatres big enough for an elephant to walk on stage. Yes they had elephants as characters in the show! Even though it was a mind numbingly boring show, we saw the funny side and had a good night.

We continued the night back on Khoasan Road, where we met two French boxers and an Italian who loved himself, plus an ex catdiff city player. It was a very random but great night to start the celebrations for Liz's birthday. It involved Shisha and Lots and lots of alcohol. It was safe to say we were loving life in Bangkok.

On the walk back to the hostel we saw many prostitutes walking the streets which was not nice. They were trying so hard and getting nowhere. Sex trafficking is just crazy there, I still can't get over it.

For our third day we had an early wake up call from our human alarm clock,Elena. Getting up was a difficult process after our big night out but we freshened up and were ready for our day trip. We had so much planned for one day!

We had the coolest taxi driver, well chauffeur booked for the day. Mr Suchart was his name and if I had to describe him to somebody I would just say Mr Chao from the Hangover. He was exactly like him. His mannerisms were hilarious. He had the best tunes for our journey. We had a bit of Celine Dion and then some Cliff Richard playing. What a legend!

Our first stop of the day was at the Floating Market and even though it was expensive it was pretty cool. We had our own little canoe shaped boat and floated around from stall to stall. There wasn't really anything other than souvenirs there to buy and all stalls were selling very similar things but it was quite relaxing. Plus I got myself an anklet as a little souvenir. After an hour or so we strolled back to the taxi where there were lots of treats waiting for us. There was beer, water, crisps, sweets and cans of COFFEE(which I still find a little weird). I felt like a celebrity having a chauffeur drive us to all these cool places, showering us with treats. It was great.

We had a 3 hour long journey to our next stop, which was the tiger temple. Part of the Tiger Temple was a Monastery which meant we had to dress appropriately and cover up. We had to purchase some beautiful long, green trousers, which weren't the most fashionable pieces of clothing, so that we could enter the temple.

All it had done all day was rain, rain, rain. It was lucky we had Mr Chao's umbrella and some rain coats. He had everything in the back of his little car. It was very handy.

Seeing the tigers was an awesome experience, and getting to stroke one was even better. I was too scared to go in and play with the bigger ones though, and i'm honestly glad I didn't after watching the people who did. Two of them were launched at by one of the tigers. It was scary stuff!

As we were soaked already a trip to the waterfall in Kanchanaburi wouldn't have made a difference. So that was our next stop. It was such a beautiful place and great for some photo opportunities.

I braved it, and climbed up the slippery sides to get to the top of the waterfall where I saw the biggest spider crawl into a hole in front of me. I completely FREAKED out and almost fell.

Mr Chao took all of our photos and carried everyone's bags everywhere. I definitely felt like a celeb, I had my very own bag carrier. Liz and I had to have a dip at the bottom of the fall. Luckily we had our bikinis with us, so the clothes came off and we had a nice little swim.

It was a long drive back to Khoasan Road, but the days was far from over. It was Liz's official Birthday night out. As soon as we got back to the hostel we got ready, had some grub then we went for a few beverages at the very elegant Sky Bar and then back to Khoasan Road once again.

The cocktails were flowing and the rain had stopped. It was a great night for us to head to the sky bar which is where the hangover 2 was filmed. It was the most beautiful place I had ever been. The views were incredible! Bangkok looked like such a beautiful place at night. This topped off the day. I felt like royalty for the hour or so we were there but after about an hour, it was back to reality. It was a bit pricey up there. We might have felt like celebrities for the day, but we didn't have the cash to keep living like them. It was extremely embarrassing getting a taxi back to Khoasan road from such a beautiful hotel. It was like getting a taxi from the best hotel in Cardiff to grangetown or splott(Not the nicest of areas). We soon got over the embarrassment, it was 2am and there was still time for us to party!

We met a few Irish guys out who were absolutely hilarious and joined us for the whole night. The drinks kept flowing and before we knew it we rolled in at 6am the sun was up. It was an amazing night all round and a great way to end our time in the city of Bangkok.

The time had come to leave the crazy city and head to our next destination, the beautiful island of Koh Samui, on the sleeper train. 3 hard days of partying was extremely tiring, so were looking forward to a relaxing couple of days there, before heading to chaos at the 'half moon party' on Koh Phanghan.'

So far its been an awesome trip with the best people!

More fun times ahead

Bye for now J.L xx

Tune of Bangkok: The A Team- ed sheeran.