Tuesday 26th June

We woke up early to catch our mini bus to Chiang Mai and then onward to get our train. We went back down the ridiculously road again, Stu slept most of the way considering he didn't come in until 7am! His hang over started kicking in later on which was very amusing!

We arrived back in Chiang Mai, and stopped off for some food before heading into the train station to wait for our train. It was a long wait! We boarded the train and left at 6pm. It was very different from the trains we were used to in Russia and China. It was one carriage full of seats; we weren't sure where the beds were! We sat and nodded off for a bit in the seats with the A/C on (windows down!!) the carriage attended saw we were falling asleep so he made our beds. First he made the bottom bed by pulling the seats together and rearranging the cushions and poof! A bed was created. He then got his magic key and opens the overhead locker which was actually a bed. He even put all the linen on the bed (unlike Russia!) which I was grateful for. Then we got into bed and the fan was switched on and we both fell asleep.

Wednesday 27th June

The carriage attendant came round and woke us all up and made the seats up. We sat have sleepy staring into the distance waiting for Bangkok to arrive. We went past a giant golden Buddha in the far distance, a now normal site in Asia. We also passed the monkey temple, the one featured in 'an idiot abroad' that Karl Pilkington visited. I was half concerned as we were going slowly that one of the monkeys might jump in. Luckily this did not happen!

We arrived in Bangkok, late, but this is Asia, nothing is on time! We had to work out what metro line we needed to get. We found the metro map, and I had the directions, but none of the train stops matched to what we needed. Luckily I found the train stop, the spelling doesn't match but this is down to the language. The Thai language is very tonal language, one word can have six different meanings depending how it is pronounced. This leads to spelling mistakes as they don't have direct links with the English language.

Confident I knew where I was going we brought our metro tickets and off we went. We arrived at our stop and had to work out which way down the street we needed, luckily a very helpful staff member was here to help and told us which way we needed and what side of the road too. Off we went, and soon enough we arrived at our hostel.

It was a nice quiet little place, quite new. We had a well-earned shower before grabbing a map and headed to the sky train.

Our destination, MBK centre the biggest and most famous shopping mall in Bangkok. It was huge; you even had to go through 'security' before entering! The MBK centre was a mix between a local market and a high end mall. It was bizarre yet very cool. We had a very Western day; we went to the cinema and saw men in black 3. We had the world's most comfortable seats, with blanket and a drink too. We had to all stand for the nation anthem, which is played before every film. I enjoyed the movie, Stu wasn't too keen. We then went and had a few games of bowling.

It was also free Muay Thai boxing at the MBK centre, we found the location, after asking information desk and went outside and watched a few fights. The first was two Thai boys who were quite good; the best though was the Westerners match, which mainly involved a lot of punching. I'm pretty sure they were seeing stars!

Before long we were getting hungry and we headed back to the hostel. The main road where we were staying had turned into an outdoor market, which was rather annoying as there wasn't much room to walk down any more. They also had the guys trying to sell us tickets to a ping pong show; apparently we are staying in the area where these are shown. We decided that this would not be a good idea, seeing as it is another scam to try to take your money! We found some street food, so we settled down and had some grub before heading back to the hostel.

Thursday 28th June

We woke up and had a plan to get our sightseeing done. While I was waiting for Stu to get ready, we had separate dorms and Stu was late again, I was on the computer. I noticed two guys looking at videos of people crossing the street in Ho Chi Minh City and thinking they were going to die. I tried to ease their nerves, but I don't think it helped when I said, 'just walk slowly, they will move out of your way. Except the cars/lorries'.

Stu finally emerge and we went off, we caught the sky train to the ferry pier and jumped on a tourist boat to get to Khao San road. Backpacker's heaven, apparently. We arrived and was glad I didn't chose to stay here. It looked cheap and tacky and wasn't true Asia. We had a look before getting into a tuk-tuk and going to the main sites.

We stopped off at another (really tall) Buddha. He was pretty big! We took some pictures before getting back in the tuk-tuk and going to Wat Suthat, it was a pretty temple. We spent a good 30 minutes having a wonder round before getting back into the tuk-tuk.

We got the tuk-tuk cheap, due to because he wanted us to go into a tailors 'look around' so he gets a fuel ticket. Basically for him to get a fuel ticket we have to buy something, we did not want a suit…! He wasn't impressed, but I don't care!

We stopped off at the Grand Palace, where we gave him an extra 40 Baht, (less than a £1) due to him not getting his fuel card! We were hoping to get inside, but unfortunately we couldn't due to my jeans not being correct wear as they have a rip in the knee. Honestly…!

We were hot and bothered now, wishing for the cool weather from the North of Thailand and Laos, started heading back to the boat. We did ask a few taxis and tuk-tuk, none would take us to our hostel due to the traffic. We walked back to the boat and we made the mistake of getting off a stop early. Whoops. This is where I bumped into the guys from this morning; they were Canadians, Anthony, Lukey and Kat. We had an enjoyable walk back to the hostel, a long walk too. They were going out to dinner and invited us along.

We got washed and dressed ready to go; we were off to a restaurant called…condoms and cabbages. The restaurant was in aid of raising awareness of STI/HIV/AIDS. They had some very amusing signs around the restaurant and models made out of condoms!

We had a good time to five of us before heading back to the hostel. The Canadians went back as they were tired from jet lack, Stu and I headed towards the Sirocco at State Tower which is the bar featured in the film in the hangover II. It was all very fancy; we put on our 'best' clothes and headed up the lift. It was very impressive, the few was amazing. We didn't buy any drinks; a bottle of beer was $10!! So expensive (for us!!) but we enjoyed the view for free. I took some pictures before we headed back down and the long walk back. Stopping at about three 7-Elevens for water, food and ice cream! It was the only way for Stu to keep me quiet from moaning about the long walk!

We walked past the Canadians who were sat at the bar round the corner, so we joined them for a few drinks.

We all headed back in, and agreed to meet up tomorrow to visit the MBK centre once again!

Friday 29th June

We all headed off to the MBK centre and had a nosey around everything. I did purchase a few items, one being a t-shirt, a tiffany bracelet (for £8 rather than £250 on their website!) and some awesome pillow cases.

The Canadians had dinner in the mall (due to some of them had delicate stomachs!), we went out down the street and found a street vendor doing 2 dishes for 50 Baht including rice, not bad for £1! I had some veg and more spicy veg. The guy did warn me it was spicy, it was very tasty, maybe bordering on too spicy side for me. Stu said it was way too spicy for him!

We went back and met up with the Canadians before leaving the MBK centre and heading back. We sat around and had a few beers and teaching them a new card game. We found some noodle soup before jumping into a taxi and heading to Khao San road for a few more drinks.

We had a really good night, Stu brought some more fried bugs and we all enjoyed, including the staff at the bar, watching Lukey eating said bugs and pulling some terrific faces!

We all went back as the Canadians had a flight to catch, plus the taxi was only 80 Baht for the five of us. It did mean we had to squeeze four of us in the back. We went back played a few more card games before heading to bed.

Saturday 30th June

Today we had a lazy day; we went to Khao San road for some food, as it only costs us 80 Baht to get there, either by taxi or boat.

We didn't really do much just had a nosey around, we had booked our bus and boat ticket to get to Koh Phangan and booked a taxi to get us there in the morning at 5:30am.

We ventured down the road for food, where we were spoilt for choice; in the end we got some spring rolls and some sweet corn dumpling things with sweet chilli dip, noodle soup and then some fruit.

We also decided to watch the hangover II, well when in Bangkok! It was really an uneventful day. I was in bed earlyish as I had to be up at 4:30am, not impressed!