Bangkok

After a horrible 11 hour flight with 2 screaming kids next to Dan and I we finally arrived. Very tired we got off the plane into 35 degree heat and made our way through the airport. First challenge was to get a taxi to Khao San Road where our hostel was. We grabbed a cab out side the airport and the driver threw our bags in the boot (which didnt close) and tied it shut with a bungee cord! We set of on what was the best cab driving experience ive ever had. The driver was a mad man, the rules didnt apply to him. I dont think he touched the brake pedal once on the whole trip. Cruising on both sides of the road inbetween traffic, on the hard shoulder, other side of the road over taking police cars, you name a driving law in the UK and i think he broke it! Funnily enough we all felt pretty safe, he seemed to know what he was doing and managed to cut an hour journey down to 30 mins and only charged us 300 baht, about 6 quid.

Arrived in Khao San Road which is the backpackers area and checked into our hostel. Khao San road is pretty crazy, markets everywhere, loads of lovely food being sold on the side of the street and shops selling pretty much everything. The group of 8 met up with the other guys at the hostel and turned into a group of 13. We all chucked our stuff in the rooms and headed out to check out the area and grab some food.

We found a nice restaurant with a live band and had some Pad Thai and a few drinks before heading out to check out the night life. Khao San Road becomes really lively at night, loads of live music, tuk tuks everywhere (small 3 seater moped taxi's), people trying to sell you everything under the sun, especially really annoying wooden bull frogs that they constantly play in your ears and shove in your face trying to make you buy them but you soon learn to ignore them or try and have a conversation with the street vendors.

After being asked about 20 times if we wanted to see a ping pong show (figure that out for yourselves) we found a lovely back alley bar with a small pool in the middle and more live music. We had a "few" drinks and got to know each other a bit better. At this point I was pretty confident that we were all going to get along, we were all like minded and into the same things so things were looking good. We headed home, past a stall selling bugs (check the pics), all bottled eating any and instead grabbed some street side noodles and while Gemma tried to squirt some sweet chilli sauce the lid came off and went over everyone which helped end the night with everyone laughing.

The next day we woke up early, checked out and headed out to see the sites in Bangkok before we left for Chiang Mai. First we went to the Grand Palace. You have to cover your nees and shoulders when entering a temple or palace so most of us had to borrow some very fetching clothes which they give to you for free. The Grand Palace is really impressive, the detail on all the buildings is incredible and the feeling as you walk through all the builings with the Thai people praying to Buddah is very peacefull. I dont understand that much about buddism at this point but the longer i am here the more i will hopefully be able to tell you. What you see a lot is 3 insence sticks, candles in oil, white tiger lilly's and people rubbing gold leaf onto the image of buddah. You need to look at the pictures of the Grand Palace to really see what im on about.

After the Palace we headed to a food market to grab some lunch. The food market was on the edge of Mae Nam Chao Phraya (the river running through Bangkok). I had some spice duck soup which was real nice and pretty spicey, Thai hottness levels are very different to UK.

We then headed to the pier to get a river cruise on a long boat. We decided on the 1.5 hour long cruise taking us down all the side rivers around Bangkok. The main river was pretty choppy but our driver was a pro and just went full speed through all the waves shouting stuff that we should look at as went past. There was even a bit of traffic on the river and had to wait till we could turn off down one of the side tributaries. Once off the main river we really got a chance to see what outter Bangkok was like, the houses and the way people lived. The houses all seemed to be falling down but at the same time they all had satellite dishes on them so it kind of made you realise that this is just how people live. We saw locals just going about their own business, making furiture, fishing, farming and a naked mad going to number 2 on the endge, mmm nice! We missed the floating market as it only runs on weekends but did go through some long boat vendors selling your usual tack and also beer! By now we were all Chang lovers (Chang is Thailands greatest beer, in our eyes anyway) We all bought a beer and carried on cruising in the sun with Chang in hand. We went past a temple where there were loads of fish (i think carp) all swarming around the steps leadin up from the river. I think if i remember correctly that a lot of the river side temples have carp swimming around outside as it is good luck, no one fishes here and we were allowed to feed them, they demolished a whole loaf of bread in seconds! I think tehre are some pictures of it in the album. We carried on untill we got a "zoo" if thats what you want to call it. Not a very nice place, the animals were kept is very small enclosures, it was dirty and pretty depressing if im honest. It was part of the river cruise so we had to stay for 20 minutes and got shown a snake show and made to hold a python. The snake keepers brought out a couple of cobras and 2 other types that i cant remember the names of at the mo but will update when i do. Not going to write too much about the "zoo" as we all wanted to get out of there asap.

After the cruise we headed back to Kaho San Road passing though a few more markets. We stopped off for more thai food (cant get enough of the stuff) and then went and got a Thai massage, and no, not the kind with a speacial ending ;) . Ive never had a prefessional massage before so this was gonna be fun! I have to say it was pretty damn good. It was hard to understand what the ladt was saying so when she bent me into some strange position and asked me to lean over i accidently almost threw her over my shoulders! very amusing and made everyone else in the room laugh at my expense haha. She struggled to make my back click but then she brought out the special moves and did some crazy position and swang my back to the side cracking it 6 times in a row. Pretty painfull all in all but afterwards the pain goes straight away and feels very relaxed.

All that was left to do now was wait for our train at 7pm up to Chiang Mai. To get to Hualamphong station we took a tuk tuk (my first ride in one) and again we had a crazy driver, gotta love the mad drivers around here. Dont know hbow he managed to do it but the tuk tuk driver was pulling wheelies on this shoddy old tuk tuk with all out weight in it! Got the staion in one piece, it was filled with military, think they were heading off up north also but dont know why. Had some more thai food and got ready for the 13 hour train jouney first class up to Chiang Mai :)