Soon after new year, we reluctantly left the beautiful islands of the south and made the journey to Bangkok to experience Thai city life. A combination of being unable to count, mixing up our dates, booking things too last minute and not wanting to leave the beach meant that we had exactly 25 hours to explore. We arrived at 5am after a long journey and gave ourselves 4 hours to sleep before heading to Khao San Road - the backpacker district of Banglamphu. We browsed a few of the shops and a grabbed a quick breakfast before hopping into a tuktuk and making our way to the Grand Palace. We had to rent some charming attire in order to be 'appropriately dressed' to enter but finally made our way in amongst the crowds. Too pressed for time to hire a guide, we gate-crashed a few English speaking tours and stalked them around the grounds earwigging on the facts and figures until we got bored and began making up our own. A few facts we did learn (to impress our mums) were that the Grand Palace was established in 1782 under King Rama I and is set across 218,000 square metres. It's vastness is quite overwhelming to explore and the 35c heat didn't make it much easier but we did a good job before moving on to visit Wat Pho (Reclining Buddha). At 46m long and 15m high, Wat Pho was a magnificent sight and a real highlight of Bangkok. After spending the day trying to avoid sunstroke we made our way to Aramosa Bar on Ta Tien pier for a drinks right across the river from Wat Arun (slightly quicker and less strenuous than actually traipsing round it you understand).

In the evening we headed to Siam Paragon, a beautiful shopping mall where we were both drawn to different ends - Luke the food hall and me the beauty hall. After literally inhaling a foot-long Subway (one of the things he hasn't stopped talking about since we left), Luke agreed to walk round the beauty halls with me. After a month of only being exposed to the dire toiletries section of 7/11, I was in my element picking up a few essentials from the stunning ladyboys at each counter with Luke just giving me the odd 'you what?' and 'how much?!!'

The perfect end to our day was on the rooftop of the Banyan Tree Hotel where we headed for some well deserved cocktails and nibbles. Over 60 storeys high, it is home to a gorgeous open-air bar and restaurant with some of the very best views over the city.