Friday marked the end of my time with IHF, and a sad thing this was too. The last week was great fun - showing the kids Gene Kelly tap dancing to 'Singing in the Rain' brought much joy (to them as well as me) and I finally managed to get back in the (bike) saddle with a rather dodgy trip through the city as steering was still a minor issue for me. On my final night we threw a fondue party to top off a great last couple of days spent exploring CR with Laura my fellow volunteer, which included a Thai massage, coconut icecream and a rather bizarre museum. The kids were SO excited by the marshmallows and despite my baking prowess not extending to heating up Thai chocolate it would seem (water had to be hastily added as I added milk which prompted it to go a bit strange), it went down a storm.

I have hardly had time to reflect on my departure however, as just a short plane ride saw me thrust into the eye of the storm that is Bangkok. Armed with a guidebook purely about BKK and not one but 2 extra maps (no such thing as too much information right?!), I decided to embark on a Lonely Planet walking tour of Chinatown. 2 hours later I was most definitely in Chinatown but I had no idea where I was and I certainly wasn't on the LP map as far as I could work out. So, I thought, I'll hop into a taxi and they can take to the start point and we'll go from there. No such luck - I got in 2, each time the driver pulled over with a 'no' and proceeded to chuck me out...basically no-one can ever understand my pronunciation of anything Thai. I managed FINALLY to work out where the hell I was with the help of 2 Thai men and an Australian with GPS on his phone. And sure enough, soon I was presented with Chinatown's finest - a 5.5 tonne solid gold Buddha and tiny alleyways filled to the brim with shops overflowing with the stuff of the Woodplayer's void dreams. One store seemed to specialise in every type of Halloween costume you could ever ever hope for, another just had huge huge sacks of potato chips. Stand still in one place gawping for too long though and you're bound to get run down by a cart of brightly coloured paraphenalia - it was a close call a couple of times.

After being thrown out of my third taxi of the day (I have no idea why this time, I know I pronounced it right) I gave up and hailed a tuk tuk. In rush hour this was a f***ing nightmare - I was bouncing all over the shop. Anyway, I made it to my train on time and was soon on the way to my final destination, Koh Samui. I spent the majority of this journey worried I was going to roll right out of my top bunk. I fully maintain that those safety straps couldn't hold my weight.

All worth it though - not to be smug but I'm pretty sure I'm in paradise.