We were so glad to feel the heat on the tarmac at Bangkok Airport.

Our arrival at Bangkok marked the start of 2 weeks with Helen's parents, we got a taxi and as we were driving through Bangkok to our luxurious hotel our mouths were wide open in awe. Bangkok is completely different to any city in India and it even has highways that don't have pot holes, we were also very excited to be seeing Mum and Dad Gillespie.

We were so glad to arrive at our hotel, Mum and Dad were waiting for us and we checked in. Helen jumped around in glee when she saw her bathroom had a bath!! The simple things in life! We headed to the shopping malls to buy some flip flops as ours were falling apart and Nick specifically wanted genuine Havianas. After buying what we needed we got some food. Helen was fed up with Indian cuisine so we all headed to Hard rock cafe to over indulge in western fare. (and we mean OVER indulge - the portions were huuuuuuuuge!).

As we left we admired hundreds of Harley Davidsons as the Thai Harley Davidson group were having their very premature NYE party. We headed back to our hotel to have a fabulous nights sleep on a comfy bed.

Breakfast at the hotel was awesome, loads to choose from and we had to be very careful not to over indulge. They even catered for westerners which makes a change! Even our cups kept getting refilled with tea without asking.

Our first day in Bangkok was spent touring the sights, we got a longtail boat up and down Mae Nam Chao Phraya river. It was only afterwards we realised that they had ripped us off even after haggling. The boat driver had a cheek to try and end the tour after half an hour when it was meant to be an hour and he wouldn't shut up! We saw some of the damage from the floods and homes that were now ramshackles.

We couldn't visit Bangkok and not visit its most popular tourist attraction, the Grand palace, the former residence of the Thai monarch and Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) where devout Buddhists visit the emerald Buddha as part of their pilgrimage. The Emerald Buddha stands about 10 metres in the air on top of a elevated altar and it's only a tiny 66cm tall. It even gets dressed by the King according to the season... Bizarre or what?

After filling up our tums with delicious smoothies we caught the Public ferry (miles cheaper than the longtail...) and caught a taxi to Chatuchak weekend market, amongst one of the worlds largest markets. They had a pet section where they were selling loads of cute puppies but of course we weren't allowed to touch them. The market was so big at we probably only covered about 10% of it.

The next day my parents requested a private car from our hotel to take us to Kanchanaburi, where we would see the Death Railway Bridge (Bridge over the River Kwai) - a 300m bridge built by the Japs or rather their prisoners of war, to link Thailand with Burma. (The Japs occupied Thailand at the time). Over 100,000 people died during construction due to extreme conditions and the brutality of their captors. We got to see a train going over the bridge!

The car then took us to Tiger temple, Thailands most controversial tourist attraction. We wanted to see for ourselves even after reading Care for the Wild's report on the Tigers. Helen panicked on arrival as we were advised not to wear red and of course Helen was wearing a bright blood red coloured t-shirt which she was able to cover with Nicks cardigan but she was paranoid that the tigers would aim for her neck!

We were able to get up close and personal with the tigers even a 235kg beast. There were also cubs playing with water and ever so playful. There is still a question mark over why the tigers are so docile - have they been drugged? Are they heat exhausted or are they just genuinely used to people and become tame just like your every day dog and cat?

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at the Allied War cemetery - where all of those buried were so young and nearly half of the 6982 soldiers buried were British. Helen even saw some men buried from her grandfathers regiment which set off a sombre feeling and grateful that her grandfather didn't get killed in the war. Our evening was spent in a local Irish pub and we people watched for the rest of the evening (in particular the lady boys and prostitutes).

Our last full day in Bangkok was spent at several Shopping malls trying to do some last minute Xmas shopping without Mum and Dad so we had to ban them from particular floors at certain times. Once our shopping was complete we all had a foot massage which was both painful and enjoyable.

The evening was spent eating pizza at Scoozi's where the service was inadequate and shopping at Patpong market, where we did a lot of bargaining for a fake Chanel watch (we didn't walk away with one!).

We had a early start on the last morning as we wanted breakfast with Mum and Dad and luckily we were able to travel with them to the airport in their private transfer. Our next destination was to Thailand's largest island, Phuket.