Hi, Well we are hoping the weather is giong to cheer up because we have reached near drowning status in Bangkok! Yesterday we had a leisurely start to the day and spent most of the morning watching films in our room - we told ourselves it was because of the rain but my hangover made the thought of moving just a bit too much to manage! We had a night out on the Kao san road the night before which was great fun although we were a bit disturbed by the amount of men with young Thai girls but I supposed that was to be expected! When we eventually moved our lazy butts out of our room we decided to brave a tuk tuk ride to the temples. The Tuk Tuk ride was definitely an experience as we bombed around Bangkok weaving in and out of the traffic - i wasnt feeling the most relaxed and i seemed to have come to the conclusion that by tensing every muscle in my body I would somehow be safe if we tipped over! Anyway we made it there safely in the end and after a quick purchase of a tacky elephant souvenir we entered Wat Pho. It was really ornate and absolutely gorgeous, we went in to one of the temples to see the reclining Budha which is a maaaasive gold statue and is really impressive. Things were going well and we were getting in to temple viewing but then the heavens opened! It was a fairly impressive thunder storm so we stayed under cover for a while waiting for it to pass. Unfortunately the best part of an hour later we were still cowering away from the rain! It didn't look like it was going to pass anytime soon so we decided to brave it - especially as we had handily brought our umbrellas with us. We whipped around the rest of Wat Pho and tried to take it all in but in reality we just wanted to be in the dry again - to make things worse we had read up on temple etiquette and knew we shouldn't wear flip flops so we had our trainers on which were at this point absolutely soaked through! Finally the rain eased a bit so we made our way to the Grand Palace and the Emerald Budha temple only to find it had shut 5 minutes before we got there! We were feeling not only wet but very annoyed by now so we decided to get a taxi back only to be unceremoniously evicted from the taxi - we dont even know why but our drowned rat status may have played a part! So we got a good old tuk tuk back! We had another outrageously long and loud thunder storm in the night and i swear the lightening came in to our room - Caroline pointed out that i'm half blind and i must have been mistaken but it was certainly bright! Today we headed off to the weekend markets which was great. We got the bus there and I got chatted up by a 12 year old Thai boy which was a bit worrying! The markets were absolutely huge and a bit overwhelming but very cool. I picked up quite a few bargains so I'm quite excited because after 5 months i am serioulsy fed up with all the clothes in my backpack! There was loads of puppies at the market which was quite sad - I was very tempted to buy a few beagle puppies as presents for Mum and Dad but I wasn't sure they would be amused! Whilst in the markets the heavens opened once again so we headed into the closed in area thinking we would be save from the rain but we were wrong! Everywhere floaded and we were left wadding through ankle deep rain water which was a bit scummy but nice and refreshing! We then tried to get a taxi back only to be refused again and as we couldn't work out where to get the bus from we ended up in a tuk tuk again which half drove like a maniac half floated its way back to our hotel! Happy Days!!! xxx