Bangkok round 2

We were dropped at the hot and dusty bus stop in Battambang and sat waiting for our rickety bus back to the border, whilst there we saw the locals in full swing haggling for bags of mystery fruit and vegetables being driven into the centre of town and again the tuk tuk drivers literally running after the arriving buses to try and convince a tourist to go to 'their' hotel! We arrived at Poipet border where our bus just drove off giving us no indication of where to go (we are getting used to this now!) and with us was a rather crazy European man who launched into conversation telling us he was going back to Bangkok as he had a heart problem but at the same time was drinking beers out of a shopping bag.

We got to the other side of the border and were stamped back into Thailand for fifteen days, luckily there was someone on the other side waiting for us. Just as it started to pelt with rain we were loaded into a minivan and driven at warp speed back to Bangkok arriving at our hotel, 'Diamond house' on a very dark and stormy Sunday night.

The purpose of our return to Bangkok was to get our visa's for India which we were told would take five working days, so with the weekend we were now to wait eight days! As we were now running very low on money this was to be a very low key week. However, we did manage to have a fun few days with our friend from home, Anthony and his girlfriend Darapen who were visiting Bangkok whilst on holiday! We all visited the World Health Organisation snake research centre which is attached to a hospital in Bangkok. This was extremely interesting as it is one of the first centres set up to extract venom from poisonous snakes in order to treat people coming into hospital with potentially lethal bites. Every day they bring out the snakes and give an educational talk about the snakes, their natural habitat and the potentially lethal damage they can do to humans if they bite! After this we walked down to Lumpini Park which has a huge lake in the middle and very unexpectedly has turtles and large lizards living in the lake who were not shy in coming out to say hello. We all spent a couple of nights out in Bangkok, one around the Khao San road area watching an acoustic band play and one in the Patpong area which is famously known for it's sleazey 'ping pong' shows....we were neither drunk enough or felt any need to lower ourselves to going into any of these bars! However, we did end up in an alleyway full of neon sign bars which only after sitting ourselves down and ordering drinks did we realise this was the gay street! Rob and Anthony got lots of attention from the waiters whereas as Darapen and I were mostly ignored and served last!

Our next few days were largely taken up with exploring other areas of Bangkok which included a day in Siam, the more upmarket area where we stopped off to see 'Super 8' at the cinema! Going to the cinema in Thailand is very cheap and we love standing up at the beginning and saluting the king who is probably the most loved man in Thailand, we've become big fans of him too whilst here! But it never fails to suprise me how many people get up and leave halfway through the film or just go there for a chat! The rest of the time we were hunting out cheap market stools to eat at with our ever dwindling funds. We were pretty much bored by Bangkok by the time our visas came back, second time around here (and fourth time for me!) we had pretty much seen it all. So as soon as we got our passports back we got straight on a bus down to the seaside town Hua Hin, this is where the King goes on holiday so we guessed it must be nice! We had heard it was a bit of an upmarket area for ex-pat's and rich Thai's but we found a cheap guesthouse called 'All Nations' which was right by the sea in the fishing port area. Our little room with air con, fridge and TV was only 12 pounds a nights which was about half of what we were paying to stay in Bangkok.

We had a very chilled out few days in Hua Hin, the weather wasn't great as it is starting to be cloudy and rainy everyday however it was still hot and the perfect little town to explore for a few days and has a very lovely beach. The restaurants and bars were way out of our budget here so we ate Thai food at the night market, ashamedly we also ate Mcdonalds but we also found a Tesco's down the road with a street market style food court where you could eat for very cheap and it was clean! A lot of Thai people seemed to eat there too which is always a good sign.

We're on our way back to Bangkok now for one last night at Diamond House before leaving at 3.30am to go to the airport to catch our flight to India! This is the last entry for South East Asia and we've had an amazing time here with the highlights being Tubing in Vang Vieng, Laos New Year in Luang Prabang, the boat trip in Halong Bay, the beautiful town of Hoi An in Veitnam and the temples of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The last part of our adventure will only be for 12 days where we will be visiting the Golden Triangle in India and head north to the base of the Himalayas, Rishikesh!

Peace out...next entry will be from INDIA!