Udon Thani is small and not on the tourist route (why go there you may ask) but we still easily found our guesthouse and a good feed to eat. On our way to our guesthouse we walked through a large open air food court with about 50 different stalls – all of which had menus in Thai! I was wandering around a few stalls when a very nice girl my age came up and offered to show me round the different menus. Although the order still got lost in translation (She ordered me pork and rice instead of pork fried rice) it was such a nice experience to have someone genuinely help me out when we were hungry, and not expect money in return.

Our guesthouse was pretty good, the cheapest we could find on Hostel World, but very clean and spacious. The walk -in price was even cheaper than booking on Hostel World, and the owner accidentally charged us this price. She realised her mistake but gave us the cheaper room rate, which I thought was pretty honourable. That evening we went back to the food court which was surrounded by a huge market selling more of all the things you don’t need in life!
The following morning we went to a supermarket to get an unappetising breakfast of sweetened yoghurt drinks. We put our packs on our back and went out to the roadside to negotiate a tuk tuk to the airport. Luckily for us the first tuk tuk that stopped agreed on our price and we were off. We were feeling quite light hearted on the way – another stage on our way home, with Scotty waving and communicating with the scooters that surrounded us on the way.

Our flight to Bangkok with Nok Air was fine; this time our plane was a pink duck instead of an orange one! We weren’t sure how to get into Bangkok city from the airport, but with the help of a friendly ‘airport helper’, we grabbed the next public bus to the nearest train station and found our way to our hostel which was only another 10 min walk at the other end. This saved us an expensive taxi ride in awful Bangkok traffic. Our hostel was in the middle of a traditional Thai neighbourhood with kids playing outside on the narrow streets, washing hanging round out on the roadside and families sitting on their front steps. We had to zigzag through the small streets to get there and the locals were use to backpackers getting lost so pointed us in the right direction.
For the rest of the day we went to the central shopping area of town which was about 15 min walk away, and consists of four huge malls on each corner of the intersection. After a cheap meal at the food court we checked out the cinema, but couldn’t find anything worth seeing, so wondered around the mall checking out some shops. We bought some more lanterns (!) then chilled out in a coffee shop before heading back to the hostel to watch a movie with our other fellow travellers.

We were at the Chatuchak market by 8.30 the next morning to make the most of the huge famous market before we left for the airport at 11.30. Chatuchak is the biggest market in Asia with over 3000 stalls, open only on the weekends. It sold pretty much everything – they even had a whole animal section which we purposefully dodged! We bought a few more t-shirts and some cheap wooden spoons which we had been searching for since Cambodia, a bright orange and yellow bag and some scarves. It’s been recommended to put aside a whole day to spend at the market but we thought 2 hours was definitely enough, even though we missed a lot it of the sections. The stalls also generally sold low quality items, weren’t very cheap and it was hard work trying to get the sellers to bargain. It appears they were enjoying the effects of the large numbers of tourists that arrive every weekend – holding out for rich people who accepted any price.
We caught the Airport Express train to the airport which was close to our hostel, a very efficient service give many other trips to airports. We spent our very last baht on chewing gum – one of those things we weren’t meant to take to Singapore.

Off to our last country !