Bangkok (the city that literally never sleeps...)

13 hard hour on a "luxury sleeper bus", which was actually a coach with an arty paint job and broken down chairs took us back to Bangkok at 6am Thursday morning. People were still out from the night before and without a watch orclock you'd easily be confused into thinking it was dusk not dawn! We spent the morning catching up on stolen sleep before heading off to wat arun, the Temple of Dawn. I'm a sucker for temples and this was particularly beautiful. The stone ruinds of the original wat were at the entrance and the newer buildings were scattered along the waterfront (these were still around 200 years old!) The steps to the top were steep but worth the extra effort, once up high the views were amazing. Straight ahead a rickety pier jutted out into the water allowing tourists and thai locals to pay the 6 baht for a boat ferry. Looking in the other direction sky scrapers and expensive looking corporate buildings spiked the skyline, looking more akin to New York than Bangkok.

The next day involved more temples, this time the Grand Palace. It was reminiscent of Aladdin's cave, the whole building decorated in traditional jewel mosaics and glinting in the light. In one area Buddhists were using flowers to sprinkle water onto their head, tapping three times and removing impurities from the body.

Our final day trip in Bangkok took us to Chatachuk Weekend Market, a market so big that it needed road names and a map to navigate it. You could buy almost anything and the most popular area seemed to be the pet section. Kittens, pups and rabbits were all displayed on little stalls and whilst we'd heard that you could buy illegal animals we didn't see anything too unusual.

Night time in Bangkok was a total contrast to the day. We stayed mostly on Khao San road in the evening and were quite happy to walk up and down taking it all in. Each step brought more street sellers, more tuk-tuk drivers and more people trying to pull you into their bar. The question "like in the hangover 2?" was constantly asked, "Where do we see the lady boys like in The Hangover 2?", "Where can we get a monkey, like in the Hangover 2?", and even, "Can I get the tattoo on my face, you know like in The Hangover 2?". And more often than not someone would tell you where and how much! We went to a mainly Thai club and stayed out till the early hours of the morning, probably appearing a little like the people we saw when we first arrived. Whilst it didn't steal my heart it took a big chunk out of my budget in return for 3 peaceful days and 2 wild wild nights.

We've just spent the week in Kanchanaburi and are preparing to head to Sangkhlaburi in the morning. My updates may become even more sparse over the next couple of weeks but watch out for a blackberry post - if I can work it out! Here's a little preview...



Keep smiling folks : ) x

Dipping our toes in the water...

Nestled amongst utterly breath taking mist topped mountains is the tiny town of Vang Vieng. It's a backpacker favourite with American TV shows, cheap beer Laos, whiskey buckets for less than a pound and most famously tubing. 3 days into the 6 day trip here and we still hadn't seen the river but the chaos associated with it is everywhere - cuts, bruises and bandages aplenty. The next afternoon we signed our lives away (literally! You have to sign a waiver), grabbed our tubes and set off. The combination of free-flowing alcohol, fast flowing and very dirty river rapids and an incredible backdrop is somewhat surreal, immensely fun but a perfect example of how tourism can alter a town not necessarily for the better. Further afield things got much more interesting, a little moped ride through foot deep puddles and slip slidey mud revealed the real Vang Vieng - tiny farming villages, picturesque lagoons and even glimpses of waterfalls on the distant mountains.



Yesterday, with the help of three kind Israeli men, we spent the day exploring these remote areas seeing village children washing and playing in the stream, having a beer surrounded by kittens, piglets and chicks and later having a bite to eat in the middle of a thunderstorm.



A few days to explore doesn't seem enough but Bangkok is calling so for now the rest of Laos will have to wait!