Finally out of India and into our bikinis in Thailand yay! After an early start we arrived into Bangkok airport at around 5pm and headed to our hotel…the best we have seen in ages, living in luxury compared to the slums we have been in the past week! I've seen my fair share of cockroaches now I think. Tasted my first Thai food ever and surprisingly loved it, but this was to be short lived! The next day we went on a 14 hour (!) bus tour of the Bangkok surrounding county to see the Damnoen Suduan floating markets which were amazing. It was really nice floating down the river with people offering you fresh coconuts, papaya, beer and trying to haggle with you to buy their gifts. Once we left there we headed to a teak carving factory where it does exactly what it says on the tin…carve teak. The carvers were so skilled and were making pieces up to £100,000 like elephants, table tops and giant rocking chairs, which of course we had to climb all over and get our pictures taken! Finally to end the day we took a 2 hour train journey on a train on 'the bridge over the River Kwai'. Apart from stopping to apparently change engines, for over an hour, it was pretty cool. We drank beer and hung out of the carriage windows, which were the original carriages from the war. The bridge is famous as prisoners of war died building it during the Second World War and it is named as the death railway.

Our first free day in Bangkok was of course spent in the MBK shopping centre with over 500 shops, so I got my hair dyed to feel normal again for the first time on this trip! That evening was party night on the famous Ko San Road….lots of buckets of alcohol (literally sand castle buckets!). For our second day, once the hangovers wore off, we went to see a few sights of the city such as the reclining Buddha in Wat Pho and a boat cruise along the canal route. It was nice to see where the locals lived in the houses on stilts and to wave to all the kids jumping into the canal….yay we were famous again! The only bad thing about Bangkok are the tuk tuk drivers who for some insane reason won't take you anywhere you ask them to! We wanted to go to the Grand Palace but they would only take us to another 5 stops (where they get commission if they take tourists) and that didn't include the one was actually wanted! Funnily enough with our hangovers still looming we told them were to go and walked our way around the place. Didn't really get to see much of Bangkok but will be heading back there next May before my Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos tour.

The next 4 days in Thailand were spent in the beautiful surroundings of Koh Samui where we chillaxed, sunbathed, got massages on the beach and ate the most delicious foods on the trip…..steak and lots of fresh fish, like mussels! Highlights of the island were definitely the Ice Bar (the only tropical ice bar in the world), and hiring out a cool little vintage VW green Beetle for the day with April and Alex. It felt so good to drive again and thankfully they drive on the same side of the road here so no trouble. The first plan was to hire mopeds but when I attempted to drive it the women laughed her head off and said maybe it was a good idea not to!! Maybe dad will have to let me try on the Vespa first before I give it another go?! It was a good idea to hire the car as we got to see Chawang Beach, the Grandmother and Grandfather phallic rocks, the Mummified Monk and swam into the Na Muang waterfalls. On our drive back to the resort we ended up breaking down, but I think Buddha was looking down on us as it was literally outside a petrol station. The guy told us that 200 Baht would last us the day which obviously didn't but we got him back once he dropped us home….when we got out of the car it surprisingly conked out in the need for petrol so we legged it out of there! After a great few days off we drive down towards the Malaysian border……..