After arriving at Bangkok airport, we found our way out of the terminal building and picked up a bottle of water (for a reasonable 7p) before finding a taxi to take us into the city. We made sure the taxi driver used the meter as we had been instructed, and soon set off. The air was hot and humid but nothing we weren't used to after Japan, however in the taxi it was cool and comfortable, though there were no seatbelts.

We drove along the highways into town, with the skyline of downtown Bangkok growing nearer, as well as a massive wall of purple-grey cloud which soon started pouring rain down on us incredibly heavily. We knew it was the wet season so had been expecting some rain, and it was quite fun cruising along with the rain pelting down. Eventually we reached the city and the driver wove through the streets before finding our guest house in the old part of the city, near the famous Khao San Road.

We dodged the rain into the guesthouse and got checked into our room which was basic but clean and had everything we needed, as well as a TV. The first thing we did was tip everything out of our bags and start to sort out what we wanted to keep with us and what we could send home. We'd built up a silly amount of extra clothes and souvenirs along the way, and, sick of carrying around 2 big backpacks and 2 smaller rucksacks, decided it was time to get rid of all the excess guff. It was incredible to see the amount of stuff we'd been lugging about once we had it all laid out on the bed, and the pile to send home was shockingly large.

After sorting out our stuff we decided to head out and get some food as it was into the evening and we were pretty hungry. We walked a few streets down from the guesthouse towards Khao San Road, avoiding the touts and their endless irritating shouts of 'Tuk tuk?' like some demented chickens. We saw a road full of street-food restaurants with tables set up, the nearest of which was full of people. Taking this as a good sign, we decided to take a seat and the owner squeezed us in at a plastic table with a couple of other guys, who we soon got chatting to.

They were French and Italian and had been living in Bangkok for 5 or 6 years, so we picked their brains about Thailand as we ate our food, some delicious and very cheap Thai dishes and some cheap Thai Chang beer. Lucy had her usual tom yum soup while I had a green curry, and it was great, with each dish costing less than £1. As we were eating, in between chatting, the owner of the restaurant performed magic tricks which were really impressive. The best one he did involved ripping a playing card in two, then getting a sceptical patron to pick a piece of fruit from the bar at the restaurant and cut it open, only to find the card inside. The guy's face as he cut open the lime and found the perfectly matching playing card piece inside was priceless.

As we sat talking to the French guy Gus and his Italian friend, we had a few more Chang beers, then eventually decided it would be a good idea to go to Khao San Road to a bar for another drink. The two guys hadn't been out on the famous party street for some time but we persuaded them it would be fun. We walked round to Khao San Road which was full of touts, tourists and lit up like Christmas. As we walked along we were pestered by the touts offering 'very strong cocktail' and eventually settled on one bar where we got a mojito and some sang som (local 'rum') with coke, served in plastic beach buckets, which we shared.

The cocktails lived up to their advertising and were rather strong. After a busy day of travelling the few drinks soon went to our heads, but we had a fun time sitting talking and watching the crazy world of Khao San Road go by. Eventually it was time to call it a night and Lucy and I made our way back to the guesthouse, Lucy definitely showing the effects of her 'very strong cocktail' as she laughed her way up the street, sitting on parked scooters.

Once back to our room, we crashed out and didn't surface until quite late the next day. Lucy was suffering the after-effects of her cocktail consumption, so I left her to rest and headed out to the post office to suss out posting our excess stuff home. I picked up a box and some tape and went back to the guesthouse, where we packed everything up. It fit perfectly in the box we had but felt so heavy. The next stage was to walk back through the hot streets to the post office with the box, which we did, sweat pouring off me by the time we got there. It turned out the box weighed 14.5kg which was crazy considering we'd been carrying around all that stuff, and still had nearly-full backpacks for the rest of the trip.

We were glad to get the box posted, and left to get some food. We walked around the streets around Khao San Road, checking out the shops and stalls, and picked up some delicious pad thai and spring rolls which were cooked fresh in front of us at a street cart.

After eating, we had to take care of the next bit of business, which was to get our Vietnam visas. We hailed a taxi and directed the driver to the embassy, in the newer downtown part of the city. Even taking the tolled expressway, it took us the best part of an hour to cross to the street with the embassy on it but we got there eventually, finding the nondescript door to the embassy after seeing a photo of it online, and got inside where we filled in our forms. We filled in our forms asking for the visa to start in about a week and to run for 3 months, so we wouldn't be tied to a particular time to visit Vietnam.

We handed in the completed forms and left the embassy, in the hot afternoon, and walked up the street to the skytrain elevated rail tracks nearby. Since we were in the newer part of the city, we thought we'd check out some of the famous huge shopping malls so got a train along the elevated track through the skyscrapers (As many under construction as actually built) to the Siam Centre, what seemed to be the main hub of shopping in the city. We wandered around the huge Siam Paragon shopping mall here but although it was busy and quite big, it was basically like any other shopping mall in the world, and we didn't end up buying anything.

Deciding to head back towards our area of the city, we left the mall and caught a taxi back to Khao San Road, having to endure an argument and almost get out the taxi before the driver would actually turn on his meter. Nevertheless, we made it back and wandered around Khao San road again looking at the stalls selling t-shirts with Angry Birds and Thai beers on them, fighting past the Indian touts trying to sell suits, and checking out the food carts with all sorts of fruit and street food for sale.

Eventually it was time to eat and after walking about for a bit, we decided to go back to the same place as the night before as the food had been tasty, cheap and the atmosphere good fun. This time we tried some different dishes, including my first papaya salad which I loved, and talked to some Japanese guys at our table in between watching the owner/magician doing his thing. After dinner we headed back for a fairly early night after our late one the night before.

The next morning it was time to check out of our guesthouse and after packing up our backpacks (still quite full but much more comfortable to carry without all the extra bags) we hailed a taxi in the street and asked him to take us to the Siam Centre again, as it was the hub of the skytrain network. Once there, we grabbed some very spicy sausages and chicken-on-a-stick for breakfast, then got on a skytrain to Ekkamai bus station on the east side of the city. Here, we had to battle through yet more touts trying to sell us tickets to anywhere with incessant shouts of 'Hey mister, where you go!?' but we eventually managed to get tickets to Pattaya, and jumped on the bus, thankful to escape the touts.