Well here is my 1st & very late blog!

Arrived in Bangkok on 1st May at 7am after a lovely 16 hour journey with a flight transfer in Abu Dhabi. Flight was pretty good, loads of good films to watch and food was just dandy.

When we arrived at Bangkok airport we were met by our ThaIntro group leader Beata and we went to get our taxi to our hostel. As soon as we left the airport we were hit by the immense humidity... and so the sweating began!

When we arrived at our room we were pretty jet lagged and so had a sleep in the delightful surroundings of air conditioning :) later that evening we met up with Matt from our group and went out for a meal and our first night out in Bangkok. Everywhere was mental.. so many food stalls and people trying to sell you things and give you tuk tuk rides. We hit Khao san road for buckets a many a chang! It was a good night.

Surprisingly didn't get up too early the next day. We had made plans but they seemed to go down the drain and sleep seemed a much better idea. We went for a wander and ended up getting a fish spa, where you put your feet in a tank of tiny fish and they just surround you and nibble away at your dead skin - lovely. It was very ticklish! Then later on in the evening we met up with the rest of our group and headed out for a meal. The food is so good and amazingly cheap.

Day 3 we had a river boat cruise and went to visit 2 temples. I think it was one of the sweatiest experiences of my life. Mike in our group also saw a dead women just floating in the river and the tour guide man just shrugged it off and said 'yes.. a woman'. So that was pretty scary. Not the sort of tourist attraction you would think of. Got a tuk tuk ride back home which was so funny. They have like no road regulations and drive wherever they want racing each other.

Day 4 we got up and packed up ready to check out. We then went to the grand palace which was pretty impressive. We all brought our palace pants... (have to cover up completely to go inside) so brought colourful trousers with elephants all over them. We looked amazing to say the least. We got picked up later that afternoon and got taken to the train station. We got on our overnight train down to Surat Thani at around 6:30pm. We knew the journey was going to be overnight but we didn't think it would end up having engine problems and being delayed by 7.5 hours! It was the worst journey I have ever had. Sitting on a sweaty train for 18hours was definately not nice! We got to Surat Thani around 1pm on the wednesday all feeling so gross and wanting nothing more than to shower! We got a taxi (well put in the back of a truck) and got taken to the port where we took the ferry to Koh Phangan!.....