As our surprisingly comfortable night train made its way through the outskirts of early morning Bangkok (around three hours late after breaking down barely out of sight of Chiang Mai) it provided us with our first sight of the city. It was an eye opening one.

What we saw as we looked through the scratched and somewhat grimy windows of the train can only be described as slums. Lining the side of the tracks on either side were crude huts made up of nothing more than a collection of scrap metal, dried palm leaves and wood, and were housing whole communities of people. There were scores of dogs wondering among the deep piles of rubbish that formed a carpet on the ground and many of the inhabitants looked up curiously as our train passed.

Situated within the boundaries of one of the major capital cities of the world It was quite a shocking sight to be honest and one that you most definitely will not see on any government inspired advertisement campaign.

With the visions of these slum dwellings still fresh in my mind our train came to a halt at Bangkok station. It was a little after 09:30 and the landscape, as we emerged into the already scorching Bangkok morning and made our way through the city, could not have been more different.

Our bus meandered along pristine single and dual carriageways, around immaculately pruned roundabouts smothered in blooming explosions of colourful flowers, which themselves formed a base for yet another huge mural for the revered king of Thailand. Up ahead of us were the reaches of the modern Bangkok. The Bangkok you will no doubt have seen portrayed by the many outlets of the media, from the sacred Buddhist sights such as the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew and Wat Pho, to the gleaming shopping centres and trendy coffee shops of Siam as well as the seedy, yet somehow strangely intriguing ping pong shows of Patpong. All of which were engulfed by a swarming mass of humanity, rushing in every direction simultaneously. From people to bicycles to the plague of tuk-tuks that you will find around each and every corner.

About an hour after climbing aboard the number 58 bus from the train station we made our way back down the steps and out into Bangkok’s very own travellers Mecca. Otherwise known as Khao San Road.

Every nationality of the world is represented ten fold here at Khao San. In fact, walking along the wide street you get the feeling that every single traveller in Thailand is right here, either sucking on a beer in one of the endless bars, chowing down on cheap Pad Thai from the numerous street vendors, purchasing a t-shirt from the market traders that line the street, or maybe just simply looking down in awe from the mass of guesthouse balconies that peer down from several stories above.

In our case, as we made our way through the heaving throng of people, we were on the lookout for ‘The Welcome Sawaidee Inn’, which the address we had scruffily jotted down in our battered note book, whilst booking the room on the internet, had simply stated as ‘Khao San Road’. There were easily a thousand guesthouse, hotel and restaurant signs overhanging the road, some lit up like Christmas trees in bright neon shades, others looking as though they could come crashing down onto your head at any moment, or at the very least could use a good scrub down.

One of these signs did bare the name “Sawaidee Inn”, however, it was not our hotel. It turned out that there were an entire chain of Sawaidee Inn’s and ours was not in fact on Khao San Road, but rather a few streets away. To reach it we first passed in the front and straight out the back of a rather trendy looking bar, down a set of greasy steel steps and into a stench filled back alley adorned with a small Thai boxing gym and several stray dogs. A group of weathered looking tattooed men sporting flat noses and cauliflower ears sat playing cards around a small table. At the end of the alley we reached a wider, cleaner looking road with a tailors shop on the corner.

“You are ready now?” The suited man with slicked back hair enquired enthusiastically, as if to suggest we had some sort of prior arrangement.

We shrugged our shoulders and continued.

Just around the next corner was the slightly worn purple sign for The Welcome Sawaidee Inn. We were home.

I wont bother describing the hotel to you, other than to say that it was - rather generously - rated as a one star. In Thailand. Enough said.

Our first two days here were spent really just attempting to find our feet in this huge city of contrasts. Well, that and being thoroughly violated over at the Indian embassy whilst submitting our application for a tourist visa.

One hundred sodding quid they took us for - each. Do you know how long you could live on that in Asia? I must have looked like a simpleton as I stood there motionless, jaw agape, a hint of drool forming at the corner of my mouth, with eyes fixed on the bandit behind the counter, intently searching for confirmation that she was just messing with us. She wasn’t. And to pull our proverbial pants down just that little bit further, we were informed that it would also take five working days to process. Five. One hundred and twenty hours to fill out a simple form and stamp it. That also just happened to be four whole days more than the locals had to wait. Our pants were now firmly round our ankles. Violation complete.

Imagine your in Burger King. You’ve ordered a bacon double cheese burger and your waiting at a table for the pimply faced nerd behind the counter to bring it over. Well, here he comes now. He places it in front of you. You hurriedly open it up and take a greedy bite. But hang on, something’s not quite right. Something is missing in fact. You look under the top bun and…no, it couldn’t be. But yes, it is. A thorough search has confirmed it. There’s no bacon. You, my friend, have been stiffed.

Well that is how I felt as we left that building. Possibly, even worse than that.

Staggering down the street contemplating the ramifications of our lost funds, suddenly however, I found myself startled back to reality thanks to an almighty high pitched squawk in my left ear.

“OH - MY - GOD!!!!!”

It was Aimee. Her face was inserted deep into a menu that was situated outside what was allegedly a ‘British Pub’ called the Queen Victoria.

“THEY DO CHEESE AND PICKLE SANDWICHES!!!!!”

She was hysterical. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and she was virtually trembling with excitement. A fiendish ear to ear smile filled her face. For a moment I thought she might pass out right there and then.

“That’s nice”. I offered meekly. I never understood the hype around pickle. Its just brown sauce with Veg in it as far as I can tell and what’s so special about that? Nothing. That’s what.

Aimee had finally calmed down by the time we made our way along Khao San Road the following morning. It was a Saturday and we were heading towards the bus stop just around the corner on the main road. We had planned to spend the day at the famous Chatuchak market. Over the next few minutes however, these plans would take an unexpected twist.

“Hello, where are you from?” Came the low voice from over our shoulders as we stood deliberating over which bus we needed. We turned to face a smartly dressed local man wearing a subtle smile.

“Sawaidee” we offered in return. “Erm, England”.

He then began to ask us if we had visited any of the major sights of the city and, following our admission that we had not, he began scribbling in our note book a list of places that we should take in. On top of that he jotted down a few Thai phrases that he felt would serve us well during our time here and duly continued to test us on these. Apparently we passed. Finally, with our rough itinerary now committed to paper he then proceeded to flag down a passing tuk-tuk and, in frantic Thai, arrange a forty baht fare for us - for the entire day, of which included taking us to each sight that he had written down. In case you are unaware that fare was less than a single pound.

We both exchanged glances at each other before shrugging and climbing into the yellow, spluttering, three-wheeled machine. How could we possibly refuse such an offer? I suddenly felt a twinge of guilt as I recalled the suspicion I had felt towards this friendly man as he had approached. The certainty that he was simply looking to take advantage of us in some way. How wrong I was.

Over the next four hours our equally friendly driver delivered us firstly to Wat Pho, which plays host to the awesome giant Buddha. Measuring 46 metres in length, over 15 metres in height and covered head to tow in gold leaf, it is quite a sight. Wat Thai and the slightly less dramatic laying Buddha came next. We ended up spending around forty five minutes inside this small, square temple. The time wasn’t spent admiring the golden Buddha however. Admittedly it was nice, but it wasn’t this that captivated us. That, rather, was the bespectacled local man with short, thinning black hair who greeted us as we entered. He was sitting cross legged on the carpeted floor and punching furiously at his mobile phone. He stopped as we passed through the door and smiled up at us.

We quickly found ourselves seated in front of him, mirroring his cross legged position. In much the same way as you might expect students to sit facing a teacher, which, itself was ironic as he turned out to be a professor of economics at Bangkok university.

Over the next forty or so minutes, among other things, he conveyed to us the most economically beneficial time to visit Chatuchak market (late afternoon on a Sunday), an opportunity he knew of to make money drop shipping designer suits from Thailand abroad, as well as outlining in studious detail the many tourist focussed scams that we should be aware of during our time in Bangkok and Thailand in general. To give you a flavour, one of which involved chemicals being circulated through bus air conditioning systems, rendering the passengers unconscious and, thus, providing an opportunity for all bags and persons to be thoroughly searched and relieved of any valuables.

“They will know the bra colour of each woman on the bus” was how this articulate professor had put it.

In return for his generous advice I felt compelled to offer him some of my own. He had mentioned his being partial to placing a bet or two on the English football.

“Portsmouth play Liverpool tonight” I began, “it’s a dead cert, put your money on an away win for Liverpool”.

The professor nodded his approval at my well informed tip and made a note of it in his little black book.

Portsmouth won 3-1.

The following day, in keeping with the professors advice, we spent the day at Chatuchak market. Set on a 35 acre site and housing more than 15,000 stalls it is the market to which all others across the globe are judged. It is estimated that around three-hundred-thousand people visit Chatuchak per day over any given weekend. Its easy to see why. Anything you can imagine can be found here amongst the covered maze of stalls, as well as some things you can’t. From art and artificial flowers, to rabbits, snakes and whole outlets offering costumes for dogs. From second hand vintage shoes through to machetes as well as whole sections filled with every style of clothing you can think of. It really is something else.

We passed through one of the narrow market entrances adjoining the road a little after 11:30. By about 11:35 we were lost. Things did not improve a great deal from there. The next ten hours or so we wandered through the busy, narrow, stiflingly hot lanes of the market, engulfed in a mixture of confusion and awe.

By now we were only three days from Christmas. Our first Christmas abroad. Our first in a non-christian country. Have you ever tried asking for mince pies in a Buddhist country? No? Well, so you know, you are likely to encounter the finest example of pure unadulterated confusion you are ever likely to come across.

“Do you sell mince pies?”

Beaming smile and much nodding. Led to tinned meat pie section.

“No, no, not meat pies, their sweet, like a cake…”

Frown and confusion, followed by discussion with many colleagues, followed by apparent enlightenment. Taken to cake section and directed towards a sign advertising Christmas cakes made to order. More smiles and nodding.

“…no, not Christmas cake, I don’t want to order a Christmas cake…”

“…actually, you know what, don’t worry…”.

And just to point out, they do make a big deal of Christmas here, Buddhist or not, and if only for the tourists. They do also have English supermarkets such as Marks and Spencer’s. But, sadly, not a mince pie in sight.

Anyway, minus the mince pies, we had decided that we deserved a spot of luxury over Christmas, and so, we waved goodbye to our run down, one star hovel of a room at the Welcome Sawaidee Inn and said hello to the four star, serviced apartments of Sathorn Grace. Complete with flat screen TV, free broadband, rooftop swimming pool, fitness centre and sauna, it was the grandest setting we had found ourselves in since checking in to the Copthorne Hotel at Heathrow airport the night before setting off ten months ago.

The next two days we spent doing nothing more than immersing ourselves in the small bit of luxury we had afforded ourselves. Our days were a relaxed cycle of sleeping, watching movies and sunning ourselves by the rooftop pool. They were good days.

Dawn broke on the third day, bringing with it the arrival of Christmas. I’m not sure what I was expecting of Christmas in Thailand but, well, it was a very odd feeling. Having no family and no turkey Christmas dinner to come. No crackers to pull, revealing crap toys and even crapper jokes. No god awful presents to open and try and look grateful for. No queens speech and no snug central heating keeping out the cold bite of winter. Instead, it was another bright, hot day as we headed out of the apartment towards our Christmas dinner - at Pizza Hut. That’s right, Pizza Hut. Following our tasty, yet alternative Christmas dinner we returned to the apartment, with the addition of a few festive beers, and settled in for the main event. The one part of Christmas that was here with us in Thailand. Probably the best part at that.

Home Alone.

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without it. God bless you Macaulay.

And so, Christmas came and went with us stretched out in our luxurious, large white bed, with beer in hand, reheated pizza by our sides and Home Alone on the flat screen.

No, in hindsight, it wasn’t so bad.

Now, there remained one main thing on our list of things to see in Bangkok that, as yet, we had not had the pleasure of taking in. That being one of the infamous ping pong shows, and thus, bathed in the shadows of the warm Bangkok evening we climbed aboard the gleaming, inexpensive MRT and headed for Patpong.

The area of Patpong plays host to a market in the evenings. It offers a collection of the usual tourist rubbish and with it nothing more than a mild distraction from the main reason for coming here. Namely, the rows of neon red bars with heavy set bouncers by the doors and gyrating, semi-naked Thai girls in the shadows just beyond.

“Sex movies?”, is the constant question directed at you as you pass along through the crowd, with local men discreetly flashing a collection of X-rated covers at you whilst simultaneously attempting to gauge your level of interest.

Apparently it is considerably toned down here in relation to the not too distant past. I’m not sure about that. It was still pretty intense from our viewpoint.

After wandering through, looking more than a little lost and flustered, we made our way into the ‘Queens 2 Bar’. We had read the warnings of extortionate rates being common in some bars here, claims that there were no additional fees upon entry suddenly being forgotten as you leave and charges being added for everything from the chairs you sit on to the privilege of simply passing through the exit door.

The Queens 2 Bar however, is one of the originals of Patpong and has a reputation for playing straight.

As we made our way up the stairs and through the black double-doors into the dimly lit bar, we suddenly noticed that the place was empty. We were the only ones here. We took a seat at the front, just inside the door in case we felt the need to make a swift exit. The stage was directly in front of us. On it were four poles, with topless girls moving along with the beat of the loud music, with bored, uninterested expressions etched on their faces. The gorilla-like drinks lady, with knuckles dragging along the floor, charged towards us before our backsides had even touched down on the leather seats.

“Erm, two Heineken, please”.

These were swiftly dispatched to the table in front of us along with the bill. They were 90 baht each. I placed a 500 note down and the gorilla woman disappeared before again returning with our change sat on a shiny silver tray. I attempted to remove the change and had my hand batted roughly aside by a chunky gorilla paw. I looked up and found two piercing, primate eyes boring into my flesh. I wont lie, I was scared. This was no woman, I will tell you that.

With a grunt this spherical ape shovelled half the change up with her paw and waddled off towards the bar once more.

Tips, apparently, are not optional on her watch.

We were promised a ten point show at the door and they didn’t disappoint. The show quickly commenced and I found myself in the firing line, with chunks of greasy banana and even greasier ping pong balls hurtling towards me at serious speeds.

“POP-POP-POP!”

On top of this ‘experience’, we also witnessed bottle tops popped, trumpets blown, eggs cracked, cigarettes smoked, razor blades ‘deposited’ and removed, darts fired at balloons, candles blown out, signs written with tightly gripped pens and even sets of chop sticks being manipulated into picking up hoops and placing them over bottles.

I can honestly say it was one of the most incredible and disturbing things I have ever seen in my entire life.

It is also one of those things you just have to see for yourself though and if you get the chance, I would highly recommend it.

Our time in the whirlwind that is Bangkok was almost up. The following morning we had only one thing left to do ahead of our departure that evening and that was to collect our Indian Visa. In between bending us over whilst originally submitting our applications, we were informed that our visa would be ready for collection, to quote, “any time after Christmas day”. It was now the 27th and so, we made our way back to the embassy for what we fully expected to be a quick and painless pick-up.

Why do we assume such things? Surely we should learn to never assume anything. Ever.

As we made our way into the lobby of the multi-storey building, the short stumpy woman behind what appeared to be a reception desk politely asked us who we were looking for.

“The Indian Embassy” we replied.

“I’m sorry, it is closed today. Today is Sunday”.

“No, no, you don’t understand, we’re here to collect our visa”, we offered, with a hint of desperation emerging in our voices.

“And this is the weekend. It is closed at weekends”.

After a brief period of head shaking followed by pure and sudden panic at the realisation that we were leaving in a few hours, on a prepaid bus, heading to a prepaid hotel. This was most definitely not good news. I estimated our chances of a refund at somewhere between slim and zero.

“Is it ok if we go up and take a look anyway?” We asked the stumpy woman, the panic on our faces obvious by now.

The entrance to the embassy was dark, but there was movement in there. A shadow moving around behind the desk immediately inside the door. As we got closer the figure of a young woman emerged. She was wearing casual clothes, not the uniform you would expect and that we were confronted with during our previous visit.

It turned out that she had been called in on her day off by the consulate to allow somebody to collect their visa out of hours. We had got lucky. Or had we…

After informing her that we required our passports stamping and whatever else they were required to do, she quickly stated that she was unable to do that without the consulate being present. We would have to come back tomorrow when they were open. At this point we moved from reasoning to anger. We became the text book angry customers. The kind you just hate. The kind you want to punch straight square in their whining faces.

“All embassies close at weekends”, stated the slim, casually dressed woman.

“I’m sorry…” we spat back, “…that may be obvious to you, working in an embassy, but we don’t, so we wouldn’t know that now, would we!?”.

The debate continued for a few minutes before, realising that no-one had actually told us they were closed at weekends - and obviously overlooking the fact that it should have been obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense - she then offered, against the embassies own rules, to take our passports and money for postage, and then post our visa’s to their Phuket office, which we would be able to get to in a couple of weeks time.

Her only condition? That we allow her to add us on Facebook, presumably so she can be seen as having farang friends.

In all seriousness, she was actually really nice, especially considering the barrage of abuse we fired at her originally. On her day off as well. Personally, I would have told me to kindly vacate the premises. Although not quite so politely. She didn’t. And for that we shall remain eternally grateful.

As we walked down the road counting our blessings and singing the praises of the girl from the embassy however, a thought suddenly crossed our minds.

We had just handed both of our passports and a bundle of cash over to a woman not even wearing a uniform, let alone presenting any kind of ID. In fact, she had, at no time, declared that she even worked for the embassy.

We looked at each other and swapped one of those nervous laughs. The kind that says;

“Nah, that couldn’t happen, surely…could it?”.

And so, little more than a few hours later we boarded our night bus that was to deliver us to the ferry terminal south-west from here, ultimately leading us to the island of Koh Phangan and its huge, world famous full moon party.

In the gray half light of early dusk, the bus pulled out onto the main road and we waved goodbye to the ultra modern comforts of Sathorn Grace, and maybe, to our passports as well…