Buckets, sunshine and no I don't want a tuktuk, sexy wedding dress or boyfriend!

And then we arrived into Bangkok and wait with baited breath to see if my rucksack has arrived....and yes happy days, we are safely reunited after getting our 30 day Thia visas approved. We take the organised coach to the Khaosan Road...the notorious backpacker mecca, which does totally live upto it's reputation. We don't know where we are staying, so have no idea where on the Khaosan to get off when Caz starts chatting to the guys in front of us, Dan and Harry, who seem to have a hostel address written down. Result! It sounds great so we decide to tag along with them also followed by another guy we got chatting to on the coach called Julian. I love this whole backpacking thing that you can just start chatting to anyone and they don't think you are crazy like they would in London.

After weaving through the alleys of the Khaosan we finally find the place that Caz and I now call our Thai home, Charoendee Boutique Hostel. An absolutely lovely hostel...clean, fresh and bright with cheap internet, coffee and toast for breakfast and the cutest puppy ever called Gaga! We really owe Dan and Harry for helping us find this place as god knows where else we may have ended up staying. 200Baht each a night which I think is a steal as we did look at some hostels we could have got for 150baht each but they are just nowhere near comparable. That night we hit the Khaosan in style, but that's all I will say about that as I don't want to scare or shock my Mum rigid...sorry Mum!

Next day, despite hangovers the size of Thailand we take a Tuktuk around Bangkok to see a few temples and to arrange our Vietnam visas...little do we know we will also end up at jewellery and clothes shops. This is something to watch out for in Thailand with the Tuktuk drivers. They will offer you a very cheap price, in our case 40baht...although compared to stories I have heard since this is actually quite expensive as a starting price and offer to drive you round for a few hours to temples. All good in theory and started well as we did see some very lovely temples and shrines and got some very interesting information. But then we ended up at the TAT (Thai tourist office) who apparently can arrange visas and it is easier and same price as the embassy...this is not true. We ended up paying nearly 50GBP for our visas when some guys we met from Canada only paid $20! So watch out for this. I think our driver, who was lovely, probably got gasoline for us buying those visas which is good, but I felt a little cheated as he did also take us to 2 clothes and a jewellery shop and put some pressure on us to buy something as it will get him gasoline. And when Caz did actually buy a charm for her bracelet and felt really good for helping him out he said she hadn't spent enough for him to get the gasoline. It just left me with a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth as I felt as though we were being manipulated. But that is one of the only negative things that I could say about Bangkok. I love the vibe and going out on the Khaosan is a party every night.

We went into a travel agency called Think Tong on the Khaosan to book up our travel down to the islands and our PADI diving course and thank god we chose this agency as we made great friends with our travel agent 'A' and loads of her friends, especially Nat. What wicked girls! 'A' has hooked us up with some great deals and we now have some friends to party with in Bangkok, and also Koh Phangan as we ended up at the Full Moon together, but that is now for another blog.

With Vietnam visas gotten and tickets booked we are headed down to Koh Phangan for the Full Moon Party on a 8hour bus and 2 hour boat journey and then onto Koh Tao for the PADI diving! A-woo-hoo!

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