We got a 12 hour bus journey up to Bangkok, it wasn't too bad apart from the women in front of me who insisted on putting her chair all the way back (my knees are still recovering). Bangkok is not at all what I expected it to be. I thought it would be a little bit like Delhi but not quite as bad, but it isn't at all. If anything it's more like the big cities of Japan. Its very modern and fairly clean. We got accommodation in Khao San which is the backpacker area of Bangkok. It's quite lively around there in the evening, but we were disappointed to find that the bars all shut at 1am, we had stayed up to watch the England match (although it wasn't worth it..Robinson!!) and the bar shut so we actually missed the end! There are street markets and it's not as tacky as Phuket. On the first day we went over to Siriraj Medical museum which is actually in a hospital. It had lots of preserved dead bodies on display, and a section on the Tsunami which was very interesting. Lets just say I wasn't impressed with one display in particular but I won't go into it here. It had been raining loads, we walked along the Riverside and it looked like it was nearly going to burst. Yesterday we headed over to Siam Square the modern shopping area into the hustle and bustle, where all the teen Thais hang out. We initially tried to get a Tuk Tuk to Siam Square and specified we DID NOT want to go "shopping" as they always try to get you into tailor shops or crafts shops to get commission. But this didn't work as none of them would take us unless we would go to their shop or were charging ridiculous prices to get there way over the amount it should be! We found out that these shops will pay for a whole days petrol if they get people in the shop, it must be worth it as they were just refusing our custom unless we went. We refused and decided to get a taxi but then they wouldn't take us on the meter and were quoting triple the price. You basically have to move away from Khao San road as this is such a touristy area people will unknowingly be taken to these stupid shops or pay over the top prices without realising. When we finally got a taxi on the meter and made it to Siam Square, the shopping malls were very impressive each one got better and better. They were huge and had big water fountains outside and designer shops, Gucci and Jimmy Choo (not that I was buying but it was nice to be in luxurious surroundings for a change!) they had floors and floors of shops and food halls and at the top they had big cinemas. We wondered around and got lost in the crowds. Outside they had huge pictures of their King, King Bhumibol, they love him his picture is everywhere, its actually a criminal offence to speak badly of the King. We went to the SF cinema at one of the shopping malls, they have films in English that are subtitled in Thai and we saw "The Departed" which was really good. At the start of the film they played the National Anthem and pictures of the King came up on the screen, everybody stands up and this happens at the start of every film. Luckily we had heard about this otherwise we would have been completely confused!