The plan was to leave the hotel by 9 but due to a very sleepy Sarah we headed out just before 10 to the local metro station. We decided (mostly my influence) to start our time in Thailand by visiting the Bangkok snake farm which is run by the Red Cross. The facilities main purpose is to extract the venom from locally found snakes to be used as anti venom to treat snake bite victims. We watched a venom extraction (see the picture) which was pretty intense as 3 guys had to catch some pretty pissed off king cobras while a 4th, very camp, man talked us through what was happening. While there we also learnt that Thailand has 60 species of venomous snakes to my delight and Sarahs horror!

After the snake farm we headed to Lumphini Park and had a lovely walk around the island in the centre of the large lake, watching elderly Chinese ladies do Thai chi and large water monitors sunning themselves on the banks of the lake. By this point it had gotten over 30 degrees with a ridiculous level of humidity so we jumped onto a sky train and headed to the air conditioned MBK, a large indoor shopping centre/market which I had visited when I was in Bangkok 10 years ago.

After a good wonder around the stalls and lunch we made our way back to the hotel for a dip in the pool. Unfortunately by the time we got back the sun had disappeared behind some ominous looking clouds and the pool was a little colder than we would have liked so we retired to the room and made our plan for the next few days.

We are heading out in a moment (if I can wake Sarah up from her nap) for some drinks and then find some dinner at one of the 1000's of street food stalls that seem to be jammed in to every knock and cranny of Bangkok.

Tomorrow we are off to buy our bus ticket to get us to Chiang Mai on Thursday. After that we are heading to some food markets, Chinatown and then in the evening after a dip in the pool to Khao San Road for a night out!