Bangkok

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Tuesday 28^thFebruary – Phuket/Patong Beach

What a night! We had a massive night on the main street and finished up in the wee hours with a few beers on the beach.<span> We hung out with a couple from Finland and an Aussie couple which was pretty good value, we spent the night being swayed into shooters with the very friendly bar staff, dancing on the bar and spotting the ‘silicone’.<span> After a late checkout the next morning we headed back to Patong Beach where we hired beach chairs and dozed and swam for the afternoon.<span> 5pm rolled around pretty quick and before we knew it we were on the over night bus to Bangkok which took 12 hours.



Wednesday 29^th February – Bangkok



We arrived in Bangkok at 6am on happy leap year day! The bus ride was actually quite easy on a VIP bus, the seats are big and comfy you can actually stretch right out. When we reached the bus depot in Bangkok we were not only half asleep but totally unsure of where our hostel was that we had booked.<span> As I am sure most foreigners do, we jumped in a taxi on an agreed rate (which we later found out was about four times the price) and off we went into central Bangkok.<span> Our taxi driver however had absolutely no idea how to find our hostel, made for a very interesting ride in morning peak hour traffic.<span> The hostel we are in is quite a new one and pretty sweet for the stupidly cheap price. <span> Once we had dropped off our packs we headed out for brekky at around 8am, everything seemed too hard and dried or fermented fish didn’t take our fancy so we stumbled into McDonalds.<span> After we checked in at the hostel we then caught the river ferry to the wat pho temple and reclining buddha which is pretty big, we walked for hours checking out the tourist areas of Bangkok until the heat got the better of us so we made it back to the hostel, had a quick power nap and headed out with Paulas Mums tramping friends <span> John and Sarita.<span> John used to do a lot of tramping with Paulas mum and now lives in Bangkok with his Thai wife Sarita.<span> It was a really nice evening getting tips and info about where what and how to do the next part of our trip through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. We were also lucky enough to arrange a day of sight seeing to the floating markets with John and Sarita as our local guides on Friday.<span> After dinner we went for another walk and found Phat Phong the ‘red light district’ party area of Bangkok where offers fly at you left right and centre for all imaginable things, as tired as we were we batted everyone off us and headed back for a much needed sleep with a planned shopping day the next day



Thursday 1^st March – Bangkok

Our shopping day was upon us! We headed to MBK- a 7 story mall/market with everything you can imagine. <span> Bought some fake clothes, watches, electronics and sunnies - all cheap as. I had had enough of going round and round after a while and left Paula to it and stopped for a drinks break. Paula emerged from a succesful day of shopping with a smile on her face.<span> That night we went down to Khao San Road, another great place full of bars restaurants stalls and of course foreigners. Had a few beers, some yummy road side food, more foot massages and a look around before we got a tuk tuk back to the hostel.



Friday 2^nd March – Bangkok

Today was unplanned and something we only organised with John and Sarita when we went for dinner with them two nights ago. They invited us to go South West with them where they are building a house and to see some of the famous sights out of the city a bit. So early morning we caught the train to the airport where John and Sarita picked us up. On the way to the Damnern Saduak Floating Market just over an hours drive west of Bangkok we stopped at a local food market in Samut Songkram. This market has what looks like an old rail way line running straight through the middle with all the stalls on top of the tracks, but the tracks are still in use and the tracks are cleared the train passes and the market goes back to normal all in a few seconds.

.<span> After this little market we then <span> took a long tail boat through the canals and checked out all the action at the Damnern Saduak floating market which was lots of fun hooning around on the longtail boat.<span> We were very lucky to have John and Sarita to take us here, as we got the ‘Thai local rate for the long tailboat cruise.<span> We paid roughly a half overall of what some foreigners were being charged each!!!!<span> After the cruise we stopped for lunch along the river, went and saw John and Saritas new place being built, checked out a couple of Temples, one of which is completely enclosed in tree roots. <span> Our final stop with John and Sarita was the Amphawa floating market which isn’t quite as touristy as Damnern Saduak but very cool, and then headed back to our hostel in Bangkok

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