After a not so smooth landing, we arrived in Bangkok airport at around 11pm. We got through customs pretty quick, we were glad we had sorted our visa out in advance as you could get them on arrival but it seemed like a pain in the arse and looked like you had to wait a while! We were staying near the airport for the first night as we were arriving pretty late so we didnt fancy venturing into Bangkok at 1 in the morning. Our hotel had arranged a transfer and they were there waiting for us when we arrived yesss! It was only round the corner and we were soon checked in. We used Bens trick of emailing beforehand, (telling them how much you were looking forward to staying there) and we were told we'd been upgraded when we checked in. Our room was luxury!! It was spotless and huge and had a balcony over looking the pool. It was a long way from were we had stayed the previous 3 nights in Chunny K!! We braveley ventured up the road to get some essential supplies (noodles and beer), past some ditches, and dodgey massage parlours, only to be turned down as we found out it was a 3 day Buddist holiday and we couldnt buy alcohol! Once we got back we managed to buy some beers at recption from the recptionist - the thai version of Lily Savage. We chilled out, we had satellite tv and Matty got to watch the GB - Uraguay game.

After a good nights sleep we were ready to move to our next place we were staying, so we got in a taxi into the centre of Bangkok. We arrived at UDEE hostel about 40 minutes later and we'd struck lucky again it was really nice! We had bunk beds! haha It had a roof top garden too so that was cool to sit and look at the whole of Bangkok! We needed to book our tickets to get to Koh Samui on Sunday, as the recptionist told us as it was a Thai holiday the trains would be pretty busy and also the Full Moon Party was the same weekend! She rang the train station too check for tickets and they told her they only had 8 tickets left to Surratthani so we had to get there pretty fast! It was really good at this hostel as they had a huge map of Bangkok and little cut outs of places of interest written in English and thai script so that you could take them and show them to taxi or tuk tuk drivers and buses to wherever you needed to go! The recptionist wrote down in thai what tickets we needed and how much they would cost. It was really helpful! We got on a local bus at the end of our road and got off at the subway stop about 10 minutes down the road. Our first impressions were'nt really what we expected, it seemed quite similair to China up until now but we had a feeling we were staying quite out of the centre, which we found out later on that we were!

We got off the subway at Hua Lampong - Bangkok's main train station and a lady started asking us were we were from and told me how white my skin was, lovely!! It turned out she was a worked for a tourist company and took us to a small tourist office round the corner to book our tickets. We needed a combinations ticket of a train-bus-boat to get to Koh Samui and the lady told us you could only get the train ticket at the station so we booked here instead. It cost £24 for a 12 hour sleeper (yesss!! no stinky seats!), a bus to the pier and our boat to Koh Samui, so it wasnt too bad! Once we got our tickets we wanted to go to the Grand Palace but the guy in the office who booked our tickets told us it would be closing soon! So we decided to go to the infamous Koh San Road and see what all the fuss was about! We got into our first tuk tuk and gave the driver one of our little cut outs that said Koh San Road in thai script - we probably could have just told him were we wanted to go as this place was so popular!! The traffic was sooo busy and we waited at traffic lights for what seemed like hours! We were now seeing the real Bangkok it was crazy!! We got to the Koh San Road about 20 minutes later. It was one long road full off clothes stalls, street food stalls, massage parlous, bars and about a million backpackers. We hadnt seen so many English people for weeks!!

We were starving by now after leaving the hotel at the airport early that morning without breakfast, so we bought our first Pad Thai of one of the street vendors! 50 baht each! (£!!) for a big plate of noodle, egg, chicken and veg! We sat on some little stools next to the ladys food stand while we ate. After that we really wanted to get our first Thai Massage so we came across the first parlous we seen and there was loads of beds outside havinf foot and shoulder massages! We went inside and booked 2 full body massages we took ours shoes off and they led us upstairs. We went the loo beforehand and we had noticed that there was a man and a woman so Matt was shouting throught the toilet wall, "im not having the fella babe your gonna have to him!!" haha We went in to get our massages and sure enough the lad rubbed his hands together and went to jump on Mattys back so he quickly stopped him and asked the woman if he could have her instead! haha So i ended up with Thailand version of Joe McEldry rubbing my back!!

After an hour we were nice and relaxed, it wasnt really the nicest of places but it only cost £5! I think the oil they had used was sweet and we started getting bitten to death so we went and bought some mosquito spray. There was a spray in there with 95% deet! I dont think anyone needs that much deet!! We had a walk around and did a bit of shopping. Everyone seemed so tanned here!! It was crazy, there were so many people around. We went into a bar and asked for a beer but we'd forgotten about the Buddist holiday so they said they wernt selling beer - but he then said "sshh upstairs" he freaked us out and we walked out! But after a few minutes a group of Australian lads came out with cans of Chang. We decided to give it a go and the thai waiter pointed us to the back of the bar were another waitress showed us up some back stairs were we walked into an irish bar, with the blinds closed - full of english people getting pissed!! haha So we stayed for a drink, at least we knew were to come if we couldnt get any beer! It was so funny it was as if western people cant go a day travelling without a beer haha! We headed back to our hostel after a few hours and got some tea in a local restaurant over the road. We got a few stares in here but I think its because we were a little bit outside of the city and the restaurant was outside on the side of a street so i dont think many english people ever eat there. Luckily the chef spoke english so he helped us with the menu. It turned out to be really nice - we got chicken cashew nuts and boiled rice.

The taxi driver who brought us back from the Koh San Road told us to go to local small shops to buy beer, as we were more likely to get it there! He also gave me a handful of small brown balls he told me would be good for my cough! I didnt take them but it was nice of him to offer (i think) After our tea we bought some beers from a local pharmacy after being knocked back from a couple of other local shops! The pharmacy was really quiet when we went in, so we think this is why she sold us them because no one was about, but as we went to pay crowds of people started coming in and she was trying to cover them up with carrier bags!! We took our beers back to the hostel and sat up on the roof top garden on the most comfy rocking chairs ever! An american guy came and sat by us and asked us where we bought our beers, he told us he couldnt find any so he's bought a huge tub of ice cream instead! ha! We chatted to him for hours, he'd been studying in Chang Mai for 2 months and must of told us about 10 times that we had to go to Chang Mai!! he showed us a picture and said "if theres one picture i can show you that will make you definately want to go to Chang Mai, this is it!" It was a picture of him of a bridge :S Ok??? We'd done some washing so we hung it up to dry and went to bed!

The next day we got up and had some FREE breakfast!! We headed off to the grand palace. On the bus on the way a old thai man sat next to matty and drew us a map of were we should visit in Bangkok. He was asking Matty loads of questions but I dont think he could understand him! It was nice of him to be so helpful though! We got off the bus outside the Grand Palace and we walked round to the entrance. We clearly hadnt come prepared and a thai man stopped us and threw some clothes at us and told us we had to cover up before going inside. You wernt allowed to show your legs or your shoulders and we'd turned up in shorts and vests! Everyone else had clearly read up on this as we were the only people who had to rent these hilarious african tribal type clothes!! Some women had to rent the odd skirt or something which didnt look to bad but we looked hilarious! Once we were inside (we didnt have to pay as it was a thai holiday!) the guards told us to sit down and hundreds of people were kneeling on the floor in silence. We didnt have a clue what was going on! But we asked the guard and he told us the Prince of Thailand was coming to the palace! So we sat for an hour waiting and the then the prince walked through while a few groups of young girl choirs sang songs in thai. It was amazing, I cant beleive how luck we were to come at this time! Once the prince had walked through everyone got up again and bands were playing songs. We walked round and took some photos the palace was so pretty but most of it was closed I think due to the Prince being there.

After the palace we gave back our clothes, although we quite liked them by now! We went off to get some lunch and ended up in a thai kareoke restaurant were old thai women and men got up to sing. People were clapping as if adele was singing it was so funny! We had our first thai green curry and watched the singers before heading off into the city again. We bought some fresh watermelon and some cantoloupe melon from a street vendor for dessert. We started walking back towards the palace to go have a look around Wat Pho when we got stopped by what looked like a policeman (light blue shirt, black pants and a belt with 'POLICE' on it ) he started chatting to us anyway and seemed really helpful getting our map out and suggesting places to visit. He then got talking about going on a boat down the rivers around bangkok and pointed out which port to go to as it was cheaper than the others. We thought why not!, sounded quite nice the way he explained it. He even flagged a tuk tuk down for us and bargained a price with the taxi man 15 baht to take us there. We got in and thanked the policeman and waved goodbye, on the way we were saying to each other what a nice policeman he was and how nice he was to help. We arrived at the port and the tuk tuk driver pointed at where we should walk which was a construction site. We started having second thoughts while we were dodging the jcbs and the steamrollers, we got there and it was a bit of a dive we were expecting que's of tourists getting on these boats, No one! just a woman and her dog!," you want boat?" Errrm we looked at each other i said "Ye, we just need to go to atm we'll be back in a minute" we didn't need to go the cash machine just an excuse to have a think what we wanted to do. She said "ok i show you" Noooooooooo! she showed us and waited for us. Shiiiiit! we were trapped! we then went into the shop next to the atm and shouted over "Just goin the shop" while we figured out a plan haha!. We laughin our heads off when we decided to make a run for it with the woman staring us out in the street. We walked out and the woman started walking back so we picked up the pace while her back was turned and legged it the other way, she turned round and seen us but we didn't care then we half way up the road in stitches.

It was too late to go anywhere else cos all the palaces and temples close quite early bout 3:30 so we headed back to bustop that we got dropped off at and decided to go back the hostel and get a shower and have a look what to do later. When the 'Policeman' drove past and clocked us on his crappy little scooter and stopped us and asked us why we hadn't gone the boat. We gave him the old we need to go to an atm excuse and we've left our card at our hostel. Don't think he properly understood us and offered to take us the bank on the back of his moped. It was this moment we clocked on to the fact that he was not a policeman he was just dressing up like one to get peoples attention to lead them to this pier, Where he probably got a cut of as it looked like he was on his way there to pick his slice of the money up. He then understood and looked really disappointed and told us to meet him there at 10 o clock the next day we agreed just to get rid off him.

We got back the hostel after gettin the bus back and got a shower and got changed, then had a few drinks on the roof the decided to go down to khoa san road and have our tea and a few drinks as it was our last night in Bangkok. We hopped in a taxi and got back to Khoa san went and got a Mcdonalds before heading back to the irish bar we were the night before. It was a bit more busy and kept getting busier as the night went on. We got chattin to loads of people and got a bit drunk had a bit of a dance then decided to leave to see what else was goin on. When we got out it was past midnight so all different clubs and bars started to open up as everyone could drink alcohol again. We ended up in some club called 'The Club' nice!. The place was packed and the music was bangin, we seen a few people from the irish bar in there who later got chucked out ha!. We thought we might head back because it was gettin quite late, so we walked out and started taking the mick out of this group of irish walking past and just got chatting to them and they asked us if we wanted to join them cos they were goin to the road next to Khoa san because they sold buckets there for 100 baht! We sat in this quiet road next to the Koh San and there was about 7 of us all sitting round sharing buckets of vodka redbull! Then some lovely rats went running past and the irish were saying "enjoy the bangkok wildlife and scenary its beautiful!" haha We were sitting chatting away when a Ladyboy came up to us and asked for 200 baht to see her boobs! She got them out by mistake anyway and i grabbed a picture on the sly haha! One of the irish girls starting dancing with her in the street and when she went to sit back down, we heard her shout "oi dast my bag b****!!" The ladyboy was trying to get into her bag to rob money!! She told her to 'jog on' and she soon scurried away! We sat drinking and singing "when i cam home on a friday night.. as drunk as drunk can beeee" a famous irish song, for a few hours before we swapped emails and agreed to meet in Koh Phangnan after them telling us about the half moon party they'd been to before! We said our goodbyes as by this time we were smaashed!! We got into a taxi and bartered with the taxi driver to take us home for 100 baht!! bargain! We had a laugh with him on the way home he couldnt really speak english and we were asking him to pick us up the next morning to take us to surratthani for 100 baht - it would take him about a day to drive there! haha We got out and shouted "see u in the morning!" Got in and fell straight asleep!

We dragged ourselves out of bed the next morning as the maid was knocking on our door reminding us we needed to check out! We sat in the lobby for a hour or so, hungover to death before getting into a taxi to get our train to Surratthani! Koh Samui, beaches and cocktails here we come!!!!