Bangkok

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After a VERY long and slightly tedious mini bus journey (which involved Mr Driver going the wrong way for at least an hour, I'm certain) we arrived in Bangkok. Spent an evening on Khaosan Road checking out the numerous stalls selling billions of cheep and cheerfull clothes and stuff, and enjoying the craziness of generally BKK. The next day we heaed out to do some sightseeing in the blazing heat. First we went to the Grand Palace, which was amazing. So so shiney, I do not know how else to describe. Really beautiful and very impressive how all those thousands of years ago, such a temple could be built without the help of machines (yes, Em, I know you were expecting that!!). We also saw the Emerald Buddha (which was a lot smaller than I expected, but still very pretty) and then spent a good half hour seeking out the Buddha's other outfits (he wears a different one for each season and we were very keen to check out his other cloths - once found, not as impressive as we'd hoped - perfered the one he was wearing). ANYWAY, despite having to dress up in a mans shirt and long skirt that made us sweat like never before, it was well worth a visit and very interesting. Next, we went to Wot Phoa, a temple that is best known for housing the MAWHOSIVE reclining Buddha. In our woollen shalls we checked out its huge golden feet, so huge!!! Once again, extremely impressive.
The next day after a bit of tanning on the roof of our hotel we headed to Wot Arun, also known as the Temple of the Dawn. This has been my favourite sight so far as the whole temple is decorated with pieces of material donated by local people. Very pretty and so delicatly made, I'm not quite sure how to describe it! We then checked out the golden Buddha, which is the largest pure gold Buddha is Thailand and is worth a mint - but to use, it was just another Buddha really. China Town was next where we wandered through ally after ally of shops selling a variety of products most of which were sold to retail. We were the only westerners wandering through and it was quite interesting to get a taste of real life.
The rest of our time was spent shopping, not much else to say apart from cheep, cheep, cheep!!! It was great!
On 20th, Katy's birthday, I said goodbye to Em and Becca who reluctantly boarded their plane back to sunny England. Me, Lou and Katy spent the day doing what Katy loves most - shopping!! and then that evening we had a good drunken night out celebrating Katy's big 2 and 7!!
The next 5 nights me, Katy and Lou spent on our last Thail island, Ko Samet. We were a little unsure about this island as the guide books hadn't been very complementry but we decided to give it a try anyway, and are so glad we did as it was beautiful!! We spent most days lazying on one of the many beautiful beaches and ensuring Lou and Katy we're to be returning home with a fab tan. One morning we hired quad bikes to explore the island. These were cool, though a quickly realised my breaks were a little dodgy. But we set off and all was going great until we came across a rather steep and very bumpy hill and off my bike went and there was nothing I could do to stop it until I ended upside down at the bottom of the hill having hit a tree!!! Yes, it hurt but luckily I came away undamaged apart from a rather large colourful bruise on my groin where the unless break handle stabbed me!! As you can imagain, that was the end of my quad bike experience!! Went and layed on the beach - much safer!! We had a few nights out and met a guy from the US and a group of French/Canadian lads from Qubeck who were cool. All is all (apart from the almost fatal crash) it was a really good 5 days.
We returned to BKK to meet with Bekka and spent a few more days sunbathing on the roof waiting for my visas for Laos and Cambodia. On Thursday, Lou and Katy fly to Hong Kong for 3 nights and then return to the UK. Tonight, me and Bekka are bidding them fairwell and are catching the night train up north to Chang Mai. We still have 2 months to go to explore, but are hoping to be home end of July.
(sorry for all the spelling and grammer errors, but am sure you are all used to them by now)

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