Wow! Bangkok is mental! The taxi ride to our hotel was somewhat suspicious - a grey haired old man (who I swear was on drugs) laughing and miming the shape of a water pistol, whilst looking towards Will and my direction (the back seats)….How we didn't crash I don't know…on the up side we didn't get conned for a taxi. So this mad driver couldn't actually drop us off at our hotel because the main road we were staying at in town, 'the backpackers paradise'- Koh San Road, was closed due to the first day of the water fights. Great, we were bound to get soaked. For New Year (Songkran) here it's one HUGE water fight/water festival-everyone is armed with pistols, buckets of water and flour for three days. So there we were, two rucksacks and two backpacks standing at the top of this manic street with no idea of where our hotel was and surrounded by soaking wet people. When we asked for directions to our hotel we soon realised that we were actually going to have to fight our way through a crowded manic water fight. We started off as the two driest people in the street but knew we were going to end up very messy! Asking several people along the way we finally found the road where we were staying - right in the middle of Koh San Road itself. We saw the hotel sign and walked down the alley thinking we would come to our hotel (I was bare footed at this stage)…OH NO it wasn't there but there was a traveller carrying a huge bucket, yep that was us gone… soaked; jeans and top completely dripping but it was hilarious! Laughing my way back to the road where we saw the sign, we eventually made it. I had only been in Bangkok for 2 hours but it was buzzing, mad and completely mental but sooo amazing and I got to share this all with Will!

The next day we strolled around, had a huge breakfast and got harassed by the famous tuk tuk con artists. We were going to try to go to Chinatown and take the boat back but due to the idiots who wanted to charge us 500bart/ 10bart with 'gem stops' en route - there was no way we were going to attempt it. This was something I had read up on it before coming to Bangkok and now here we were experiencing it. We were also told, because it was their New Year, that a few places were closed. So we decided to stay in the hub of the craziness and of course we couldn't resist buying our own water guns! We had an amazing time, it was surreal, I'm sure nothing like this would ever happen in England! Buckets of water being chucked, flour paste being spread on our faces - the streets were packed with people and water. By the end of the night we were completely drenched and covered in flour, they loved us because we were tourists! With only three hours sleep we were up and ready to catch the taxi to the next leg of our adventure - Koh Samui.

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