Next day we ate a great breakfast at Wendy`s and planned to hit the Chatuchak (weekend) market and pick up some bargins. I bought Nancy Chandlers map a must for navigating around bangkok and the many markets. We left and headed for the Sky Train station at the bottom of the Soi we were staying on. Once there a little confused we met an austrailan couple who gave us helpful hints on how to use the sky train and get to the Chatuchak market, there really was nothing to it just us being a bit dense. They gave us two of the most invaluable tips, "take a map and plenty of water"!

We took the Sky Train to Mo Chit station, which was the station closest to the market and followed the crowd to the market. This is supposedly the biggest market in the world and has everything to buy you can think off. The place was absolutely massive, with something like 15,000 stalls or shops and it covered a huge area! I saw signs for 36 sections, and each section was very big with a network of lanes cris-crossing all over it, lined with shops. We headed into section 18 and quickly realised that the map we`d brought would be a godsend. We walked through stall after stall selling t-shirts for a pound, this place is bargin central. Helen came across stalls selling wind chimes and quickly bargan bartering for some little wooden fish with feather tails, which she just loved, she finally managed to get them for 100 baht and was chuffed to bits.

There were areas full of geniune antiques, with old chinese looking chaps argueing over huge folders of old stamps or peering at coins through eye glasses. There was huge furniture on sale, garden equipment and plants, flowers, all manner of clothes and fabrics, there were weapons stalls which had everything apart from guns and grenades on show (I wouldn`t be surprised to hear you might be able to buy those there though!), bonsia stalls, lots of souvenir and hand craft shops and food stalls, and of course the huge animal section.

Wandering through the market we realised just how hot is was becoming by now it was late morning and the sweat was just pouring of us. We wandered through section 22 and came to a little street seperating the market to be drenched with water. The Songkran festival was in full flow, which is typically celebrated all over Thailand with lots of water and drenching. People of all ages from kids up to grown ups were each armed with water pistols, water bazooka`s and buckets of water ready to pounce on unsuspecting passersby and soak them. Quickly sussing that we could keep semi dry by sticking close to the market stalls we wandered down the street taking in the atmosphere. We saw alot of people with white gunk spread all over there faces and soon found out that along with the water came the chalk powder, which would be thrown over people. There were lots of little golf caddy type cars and small vans cruising down the street carrying kids all armed with water guns and quickly it was bedlam with water flying everywhere.

We headed back into the market to dry off and tried to find our bearings as even with the map we were lost, we seemed to be in the animal and livestock section and saw hundreds of little puppeys, kittens, rabbits in cages mostly all looked in good condition, which is going some considering the place they are! You could buy a pit bull puppy for about 100 quid!! Crazy! We were stunned to find you could even buy reptiles, snakes, spiders and scorpions of all things.

After feeling a bit sorry for some of the puppeys we left and headed into the hippy section and bought some great t-shirts, including a fake footy shirt and traditional thai lamp for my room. We built up a hell of an appetite and thirst so stopped for lunch before making a beeline straight for the airconditioned part of the market where we had a coffee and rested our weary legs.

Once we regained some strength it was back to it, to try and cover an area of the market that would take us back to the place we arrived at in the morning. We picked up so many bargins along the way until we finally decsended back into the light and the exit to the skytrain. On the way to the skytrain a thai police man cheekily pulled his arm out from around his back brandishing a gun he pointed it at me and pulled the trigger! lucky for me it was a water pistol and brought a smile to both our faces.

Once back at Wendys we collapsed in a heap exhausted from spending the whole day shopping, later on when rested we decided to head out and eat. We decided on the Hard Rock Cafe after seeing it on passing whilst on the Skytrain. We ate a great feast of bbq`d chicken and fries before a live band started, who were pretty good and found a table close to the stage where we sat drinking beer and cocktails. The bar was filled with alot of expat men who were merrily making fools of themselves trying to impress a bevy of young Thai women who were clearly on the hunt for a western man. After midnight we walked back to our Soi and got a good night sleep after a very full day.