First things first, check this web link out. It's about what's going on in Bangkok with the protests.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26224510

I just want to say it's amazing that despite this insane amount of violence - people are actually dying and losing limbs, use of grenades and real guns - life in Bangkok actually continues as normal. You could easily not even know that any I this is going on.

--- Anyway...

Today was a bit of a game changer. I know that I've been pretty critical of Thailand so far - but I really want to stress that I know it's largely due to a lame mixture of a) lack of energy and money to gallop around all the other parts of Thailand that are apparently much more beautiful and b) bad luck in the sense that what should be a nice effortless holiday before we go home has actually become an exhausting process in which even the simplest task becomes a battle (just in Thailand - not before!). However, more importantly I want to emphasise that this hasn't crushed my aspirations of a south east Asia tour some time in the near future. I know I've had a crappy taster of it so far but I'm still very keen to come back and have a really great time and enjoy what this region has to offer.

But like I said, today was a bit of a change for me. Absolutely everything flowed totally smoothly. We woke up early around 7.30 (Matt even woke up before the alarm went - and that NEVER happens). We got dressed, we ate our breakfast. We even got told we were allowed to do a late check out so that we could leave our luggage in our bedroom! What a dream. We then decided to head off to our pick up point for the elephant trekking. We thought about getting a taxi, but then just as we were going to get in, we saw one of the weird open truck things that people use here as public transport and decided to try to out . It's difficult to explain what it looks like so check out my Facebook photos once I've uploaded them! We were told that a taxi would cost us 300baht, so hoped this would be a cheaper option. And cheaper it sure was. It was just 50baht for both Matt and I.

We waited around in the hotel lobby until pick up (which was very flash and well air conditioned, woooop!). The pick up was in a nice, fancy minivan and we were rushed off to the elephant camp just outside the city! It was really cool to do the elephant stuff through a tour company because it meant lots of pleasant surprises. We had to wear nice stickers and got put on elephants straight away! Our elephant director was absolutely hilarious and took HEAPS of photos for us. He openly said it's because he wanted to earn lots of tips, but that suited us fine because I'm pretty sure they were selling the photos they took of you for at least 100baht. So at the end Matt and I tipped him 200baht - which is still only just over $7 but for these guys it's heaps, and for us it was definitely worthwhile. The one main issue I did have during the trek is that yet again there was heaps of rubbish. I'm talking literally like tonnes of plastic bags just in a mess everywhere. That was quite disappointing.

But anyway the trek was great fun and our elephant was cheeky and nice to pat. It was something both Matt and I really wanted to do so I'm glad it went so smoothly. It kept getting better after the trek though as when we finished there was an ice cold bottle of water as well as cut up pineapple for us! Nom nom nom.

So we finished that all up quickly and then got dropped off at Pattaya beach (one beach along from where we are staying - but like 2 hour walk at least). I was very surprised. The reason I had chosen for us to stay at Jomtien beach is because a lot of people on the internet had advised to - saying it was a better alternative to Pattaya. But actually Pattaya was very stunning and looked incredibly fun. It also had nice malls and restaurants everywhere which is definitely not the case in Jomtien. So that was a lesson learnt... ... Until we got to Jomtien beach and I decided it was also very beautiful there too. Either there was something different about the weather or me being in a good mood totally alters my vision.

I actually think the second option may be the case, because when we arrived back in Bangkok I felt a ping of affection for somewhere I have recently written so meanly about! I think the one huge winner about this place is the lack of danger I feel. Of course horrible stuff happens here all the time but I don't feel so personally targeted in the same way as I think a lot of people feel in Europe. I think Thai people see more in a westerner than just $$$, they also seem to genuinely like us. Not once have Matt and I actually been ripped off (we discovered the taxi price when we first went to Jomtien was legit). It's actually very refreshing. And so that's why I think it's important that I also write about my bad experiences and bad thoughts about places, because it's good to understand how much my opinions can change and understand how my brain works!

When we arrived back at our former hostel, we dumped our stuff and then headed to do some exploring. We wanted to get some late lunch from the Siam area and then check out the famous Khao San Road (hopefully that's spelt right), so we caught the train and headed straight there. Siam was very fancy. It had a big shiny mall with heaps of tasty food places. So we ate there.

After we checked out the markets outside and that was another experience in itself - there were soooo many people wearing tshirts promoting the government shutdown!

We headed to Khao San Road and this was pretty awesome. It definitely looks like a really great place to stay if you're a young person and so I think when we do come back here, that's where we will stay. The street food actually looks good! And it's also close by to all the famous temples.

We saw loads of weird food that you see on television too! Like lots of bugs and even scorpions on a stick? Definitely not my cup of tea! When we decided to head home we popped in to a 7 eleven store because Matt wanted a slushy. Outside was a super skinny homeless guy who was devouring some rice and curry that someone had kindly gave him. I decided to buy him a 1.5l of nice cold water as my good deed for the day and a thank you to Thailand for such a wonderful day!

We got home relatively early since it's been a long day for us, and now we are just being lazy in the hostel. My stomach has been lame and I actually have been feeling the need to puke this evening so I finally dug in to my untapped medical resources and had some tablets that specifically target the need to vomit! Otago students - it's really useful to get the travel medical package from student health if you're going travelling. It has heaps of stuff ranging from creams if you get infections to head ache tablets to diarrhoea medication and so on! Useful stuff.

I'm not quite sure what the plan is for tomorrow, but we fly out of Bangkok 19:30 local time to go to our final international destination - Sydney!

P.s. sorry if the paragraphs seem weird. For some reason when I first uploaded this it made my entire enrtry as one big block, and so I just tried very quickly to break it up a bit without reading it all over!