We arrived at Imm Fusion Hotel in Bangkok on Friday 11th June after being persistent with the taxi driver at the airport to put on his meter. Posts on the internet advised of a taxi scam on overpricing (one of many we came across in the city; very irritating).

Our hotel is on the edge of town, but next door to the metro (On Nut - strange station name). The rooms are very basic, but clean, and at only £17 a night in a capital city you cannot go wrong.

Bangkok isn't the cleanest though! We initially misjudged distance and went for a walk once we checked in.........but in the wrong direction. The street we walked down was full of dilapidated buildings, a large number of street vendors selling fish, chicken etc in the hot sun; enough to put you off food given the smell. It's also not great seeing manky chickens and pigs heads hanging on display. To be honest the cooking does smell nice (at times) but we aren't sure whether food hygiene is top of the agenda. We chose to give the vendors a wide berth... for now at least.

On Saturday 12th June evening we went to the lively, and infamous, Koh San Road to watch the England-USA world cup football match (kick-off was actually 1:30am on the Sunday morning given time differences). We grabbed 4 large beers and a Pad Thai in one bar for only £8! It's very, very cheap in Thailand. We had some time to kill before the match so wandered around town. This included having an hour's foot massage for £4 each! The massage was so good that we both fell asleep.

We were on many occasions approached about going to the ping pong show! We may do this at the end of the Asia trip when we will be back in Bangkok later in the tour. For the time being, we chose not to see ping pong balls flying across the room........and we are not talking about bats being used!

It was fun watching the lady boys going into the club next door to us. They are so girly and good at walking in high heels, and their makeup is unbelievable! Things are a little surreal at times especially when you see old men paying for Thai girls to be their girlfriends for the week. We saw a number of these "relationships" which look rather odd as the women are often attractive enough. I guess it works for both people......one gets the girlfriend with the other getting paid and having things bought for her.

Anyway, we eventually found a great bohemian bar with a few mad travellers, some lively music and a bit of dancing. It was pretty cool and funny as the musician was singing songs in broken English!

Later, we moved on and chatted to some Irish guys who gave us a few tips as they had been travelling for a few weeks. At the end of the night one of the guys looked particularly ill after drinking a mini bucket of a local rum, red bull and coke. We finally got back to our hotel at 5am; tired but not drunk.

On Sunday, we saw the big Buddha (Wat Pho). It's a 45 metre gold Buddha within a large temple in grounds containing 1,200 Buddah statues. We decided to pay for a tour guide this time as it was so cheap and also helped us to understand the history of it. It was worth every penny at £4.

During this evening, we went to Tesco to buy some hand wash detergent and washing up liquid. We thought it would be easy but had difficulty understanding what the product did as it didn't have any English words on it! Getting help from the shop staff proved difficult to. Mark's miming skills didn't really help as the women ran off and brought back a brush! Eventually, we got what we thought was right and it did the job. We only went in the supermarket to buy these two things and ended up coming out with 3 bags of shopping. For those of you that know Mark, you won't be surprised when you read this! We were well catered for with sweets and chocolates though!

We spent that evening at the hotel bar due to us getting back late. We had a nice evening chatting to Natalie who had just finished travelling - mainly in Oz - and was on her last day. Natalie gave us tips and is our first new "travel" friend on Facebook.

On Monday 14th June we went to the Grand Palace. It was very impressive. To show respect, we had to cover up our shoulders and legs. Mark had to hire a pair of green trousers which looked similar to those that are worn in a hospital operating theatre! In the grounds of the palace are fantastic temples and monuments. A "changing of the guard" took place, and it was strange to see the other guard tidying the other guard before he commenced his duties, which seemed to consist of standing as still as possible in the boiling sun.

Following this we thought we would go and see the "Giant Swing". We got lost as it isn't easy to understand the road signs. We spoke to a Thai teacher who told us not to visit the Giant Swing due to recent political unrest in the area. The teacher told us to venture down the river on a long boat instead. We liked the idea of this so we jumped on a motorised tuk tuk to get down to a small pier where the boat was based. Mark and I got the long boat for 1 hour at a good price unlike some of the other prices quoted. We travelled along the river looking at the shanty houses and the little boats the Thais travel in. It was all a bit James Bond style (if you have seen the film with the long boat but considerably more sedate). It was a little sad seeing the state of these crumbling houses made out of bits of brick, wood and corrugated iron, looking very dark inside and with loads of washing hanging outside. These people have very little but a number still had satellites dishes. Nothing like focussing on the priorities!!! We also saw what looked like crocodiles in the dirty river but were something else; can't remember their name (more of a large lizard though). There were kids swimming in the dirty water along the river/canal routes.

We were so far out of town that we got a taxi back to the hotel. It took over 1 hour to get back to our hotel due to a bus breaking down on the main road. It still only ended up costing £4 for taxi journey.

We have now packed for Krabi (Thailand) after chatting to friends on Facebook - Tracey and Nathan. Time seems to have flown by as it was 2:30am before we got to bed and only had four hours sleep before getting up again for the early morning AirAsia flight.

I have been bitten loads of times on my legs and Mark keeps misplacing things again. It looks like his driving licence has been mislaid for good! Mark still has his beard and its getting longer and greyer by the day!