Brits on holiday

Having left Cambodia, we have indulged in a bit of Westerness... Not only have we had a lot of bacon and eggs for breakfast (not that we've ever been brave enough to have fish porridge...) we have also had spaghetti as well as sat in a very British eccentric tea shop. Still, we felt we deserved it at the time.

After a painstakingly slow journey back from Battambang to Bangkok, where we subject to the most extraordinary traffic coming into Bangkok, we enjoyed the bars of Khao San Road for one last time, as well as a rather grotty hostel. The following day we went to Bangkok Zoo, not overly imaginative but quite fun to see some animals in their actual home country (other than the Thai python, somehow the reptile house is much worse when you know that they are actually resident in the country you are in...), followed by the Royal Palace in Dusit Park. This had an extraordinary exhibition of artisanship. It all fell under the queen's SUPPORT foundation, so it was all made by Thai villagers and it included exquisite gold creations, like ships and thrones, all inlaid with green beetles wings, diamonds and gems, as well as some very detailed carving and silk hangings. Women weren't allowed to wear trousers, so having covered up in linen trousers to show respect we had to buy enormous sarongs, looking very odd. After this, we felt we should go and look at some of the more modern and developed Bangkok, so went and ate in Siam Square and wandered around the skyscrapers and extravagant shopping centres.

In the evening, we allowed ourselves the luxury of a flight to Phuket. This is a big island much further south where we went to see some beaches. We are staying in Phuket town, which is surprisingly un-touristry but yesterday went to Kata beach, and enjoyed the long white beaches and palm trees. Was very relaxing to enjoy the breeze and fresh seafood. Despite cloud cover and using sun cream, we still managed to get burnt. Extremely painful and annoying, as we felt we had been careful!

Today was spent recovering from said sunburn by going into the national park here. We wandered up through rainforest to find a waterfall and then experienced real rainforest rain. We got completely drenched in not very long at all and later got cold on the way back, a rare feeling so far on this trip normally limited to over enthusiastic air conditioning on buses. In the park we also went to a gibbon project, where they look after injured gibbons who have been abused in captivity and help return them to the wild where possible. Was quite interesting, and they were very sweet. Never have your photo taken with an animal - on average nine gibbons are killed to get one to keep for tourists!

Following this, we spent a very relaxing time in a cake shop. I had a strawberry crepe cake - layers and layers of thin crepes on top each other with cream in between accompanied by strawberry jam! Am enjoying reading the Cazalet chronicles as good relaxing read, shame it keeps making me weep in buses/cafes etc.