I know you've all been holding your breath for the next blog update so here it is...

The final couple of days in Bangkok were similar to the first few. Although we did go to a massive shopping centre (I think it was 8 floors!) which had a country of the world for every level. There was London, San Francisco, Japan etc. and it was decorated with a giant golden gate bridge, a red London double decker etc. In England it would have been tacky but somehow it worked here. Since we have no room in our budget or backpacks for shopping, the best part was the food which took up 2 floors alone. It took us ages to choose but we ate 3 meals between us for £3 in total. I've learned that everything in Thailand has a general level of spice. If it mentions "spicy" specifically in the meal title eg. "Spicy chicken and rice" then it means blow-your-head-off-spicy.

We then took what must have been the first train ever invented (after the steam train) to a place called Ayutthaya which is about an hour drive from Bangkok. The train took 2 hours. It was filthy, boiling hot and most of the chairs were broken - and we were in 2nd class which is the highest class available for that train! The train was too big for the platform so we had to get off and walk across the rail tracks to get to the exit. Not entirely sure health and safety exists in Thailand given that the railway crossings are manual gates which someone has to drag over the road by hand! But when we saw 3rd class we realised we were lucky even to had had a seat.

I assumed since we hadn't had any bites yet that Mosquitos didn't exist in Thailand. I was wrong. We had literally just arrived at our guesthouse and I had 3 bites already and there were many many more where they came from. We did attempt sleeping under our mosquito nets but Bryan broke his on the first night and I got pretty tangled up in mine. At least it was some sort of protection. The room was pretty basic just 2 mattresses on the floor and no AC (big mistake) and the toilet was a manual flush. However it was £6 a night for the two of us and compared to sleeping in a dorm full of snoring men and noisy traffic this was 5 star luxury for us.

Ayutthaya is such a difference to Bangkok. The people are so friendly and they don't hassle you all the time they just wave and say hello. It's an historical town with what seems like a million temples and some interesting ruins. We hired bikes from the guesthouse and cycled round to look at them. You could describe our bikes as retro, rust coloured with ornamental brakes only so it was definitely an experience! It's just a really relaxing place to be and I love it so much more than Bangkok. Shame we're only here two nights. Unfortunately there's no computer to upload the photos yet but to be honest there's only so many pictures of temples and Buddhas you want to see. Even though they are beautiful buildings they're all fairly similar so since they have no religious relevance to us I think we'll give the rest of Thailand's temples a miss!