We arrive around 7pm Thai time and follow signs to the station. Tickets to paya Thai are cheap at 90 bhat (1.90) each. The journey there is around 40 mins and we immediately feel more at ease, there's less staring and people are friendly and very keen to be of assistance.

We change for the sky train at 31 bhat each to Nana. Matt figures out the directions from there to our hotel which is a pleasant 5-minute walk through traders and past bars full of old English men and their Thai teens. We find the hotel clean and convenient dropping off our bag,s the iPhones go on charge and we are delighted to be able to finally access Facebook again and update family and friends!!

We head straight for the roof top bar in the hotel called NEST - it's amazing!! As you enter it has a small bridge over a pond of jumbo goldfish (beasts), lots of plants giving it a real jungle feel, cabanas and a brilliant view - pricey though at £6 a cocktail we order the usual - a Mai Tai and a Sex on the Beach. Having chilled out reminiscing about Shanghai, we decide to try the Irish bar opposite called Mulligans - it's anything but Irish and at £10 a pint of Magners (500 bha)t - we sack it off heading to a sports bar at a more agreeable 120 bhat a pint. We have two pints and Jacq slaughters Matt at pool …… twice.

The streets are full of vendors Matt spies some shorts he fancies at 400 bhat - you can definitely barter here and we get them down to 300 bhat. They have the most diverse range of wares for sale here from dildos to clothing, porn to knives - we are stopped twice and offered a live sex show - respectfully we decline - Jacq of course is in hysterics.

Jacq is sure she has seen a couple of lady boys so Matt relies on her to point them ou,t it's so difficult to tell - until one very obvious boy walks passed in heels and plastered in makeup which is badly layered so like the standard lame tourist we are we say "hi", clearly too enthusiastically, and are ignored.

We saunter on to the Australian bar which has an amazing 7-piece band playing up to date covers - they are brilliant, one girl in particular is amazing and does a better rendition of "royals" than Lorde herself, the band is called 7 senses. We stay here for a couple of drinks entertained by a standard drunken lager idiot with the worst dance moves known to man - but hilariously funny. We head back to our hotel Matt stops to get some street food BBQ pork, he loves it and makes a new friend in the chef. We have a glass of prosecco on our hotels rooftop bar sitting in the made-up cabana and head back to our room shattered. This was a fabulous introduction to Bangkok!