Spending a day in Bangkok was great, there was just so many things to do and see that we wished we could stay longer. The city is much more expensive than anywhere we'd yet visited but we decided to stay in the city and visit the royal palace and emerald buddha first. What a superb visit - the place is similar to the one in Phnom Penh only much, much bigger and more ornate. We spent nearly three hours going round and looking in the museum there and taking loads of pictures!
After this we left and stumbled into the market area where we saw grwat looking thai food for sale and made a mental note to come back here for dinner. That was when we were accosted by people selling tours on a longtail boat, private for 1000baht (about 20 pounds) - after some negotiation we agreed to pay 800 baht and took our private tour - a great way to see the canals and sights of Bangkok by boat.
Then we returned to the market for lunch and took two wonderful curries for 30baht each (70p) - one of the best and cheapest meals we'd had! It was a pity that we had to pay more for a drink after to cool our mouths down than we paid for this meal! Still, we loved it and we've had at least one curry every day in thailand!
Our last stop was the massive gold reclining buddha temple, which we both wanted to see and after looking round here it started to rain so we went back to the hotel and prepared to meet Darren and Steph again, who were also passing through Bangkok. We went into China Town with them and eventually found a restaurant to please everyone! It was great to catch up with them again, before they go to Burma (I think they are leaving today!)
Next morning we flew out to Ko Samui, and we're staying on MaeNam beach in a lovely bungalow on a quite resort. This morning we had the beach to ourselves! And we just had... guess what... a curry on the beach for lunch!
We were hoping to do a cooking course here but time is flying and tomorrow we're going on a snorkelling day trip. The man at our local restaurant offered to give us a class but unfortunately we'll not have time - but he cooks wonderful food!
Yesterday we rented a motorbike and went around the island exploring, a cheap and fun way to get around. The island as beautiful and luckily as its low season here its not too busy. We visited Big Buddha, mummified monk, namueng waterfall, chaweng beach and another small beach. Unfortunately at the end of the day it started raining and in a lull in the storm we decided to try to make a dash for home when i got a piece of grit or sand in my eye and this morning we ended up in the hospital as it seemed swollen and was watering but after a washing out, a patch and some tablets and eye drops it seems ok now - but not such a cheap day out!
Today we are resting before our final full day in paradise, so this will probably be my final story of the trip.
