We woke up at 6 after very little sleep (compared to how much we wanted) because we were being picked up at 7 - we had booked a trip to see the floating markets. After some difficulty getting the right minibus, due to the complete lack of organisation, we began a very scary journey out of Bangkok. No one in bangkok seems to have a sense of road safety - lanes, seatbelts, speed limits and indicating don't seem to exist.

When we arrived at the floating market, alex took a picture of a man with a huge snake around his neck. Next think he knew, this man was putting the snake on his shoulders! Needless to say, there was 'some' resistance, but he accepted it in the end...Christina has the pictures to prove it!

We got a long tail boat to the floating market, and passed elephants, monkeys and some amazing waterside houses along the way. The floating market was just that, a market where everyone was in boats. We put our haggling skills into practise and got something priced 600 baht (£12) down to 200 baht (£4). We instantly got a 75% discount on everything at the stall. However, Christina did have to pay 5 baht to use the worst toilet she'd ever been in. It consisted of a bucket of water and a scoop. Bangkok has the worst toilets ever, and they have a hose-like instrument next to the toilets... We have yet to really understand its proper use...

Anyway, the drive back was just as frightening and 'adventerous' as the one there. We stopped off at a cobra show. We didn't go in as the pictures of 'Cobra versus beaver' and 'Cobra versus cat' where enough to put us off. We also went to a wood carving workshop we really impressive. The wood carvings were amazingly detailed, some were worth thousands of pounds, and many we couldn't understand how they made them so 3D.

On the way back we also saw a bad crash. A canadian couple told us it was the forth crash they had seen in 3 days. When the minibus driver saw the queue, he decided to shoot along the hard shoulder and once at the front, he edged forward despite police telling him to stop. We eventually got past the crash and then spent 2 hours in bangkok traffic trying to get back to the hostel.

We then took our bags to the new hotel, the New World City Lodge hotel. We had a twin room with ensuite - we're going up in the world! We met the group we would spend the next 15 days with in the hotel lobby at half six. They're a nice bunch. We all went out for a lovely meal and drinks, all for £2.40. We then went to a 5 star hotel for drinks. It has a bar called Vertigo... On the roof, 60 floors up. The cocktails (ok only one each as they were expensive) on the roof terrace were amazing. One was even served in a bowl of dry ice (liquid nitrogen, says alex) and christina was given a rose. The view was stunning, and it was nice to be away from the fumes, but there wasn't a star in sight. Having said that, upon exiting the hotel we were ushered out the way as a famous chinese singer and a hoard of fans ran out the hotel.

We got back to the hotel, wrote a blog entry, and then jet lag caught up with us again.