What a culture shock! Coming from sane, uber-organised Japan to frantic, crazy and (it has to be said) dirty Bangkok was quite a change! We went from Japan where everyone waits for the green man before anyone would even think of crossing the road to taking your life in your hands and making a dash across the road whenever you can see an inch of space, and from ultra clean to seeing lots of cockroachs, rats and even elephants walking down the street in the centre of Bangkok!

And of course our timing was impeccable as on the day that we arrived into Bangkok the prime minister declared a state of emergency with protesters taking over the government buildings and calling for the prime minister to step down. We must be having some sort of effect here, 2 countries in a row... and eventually he did step down but only after many travel warnings and nationwide strikes.

Bangkok was apparently once known as the Venice of the East and cruising around on a river boat between the sights lining either bank of the river you can still see why. After battling through the touts we got onto an incredibly cheap local boat and headed out into the traffic on the river - its amazing to see with so many boats flying past each other and the smallest boats pulling huge barges behind them.

We headed to the Grand Palace and what can I say - WOW! - I have never in my life seen such extravagant buildings covered in gold and jewels. With the sun shining down on it its actually difficult to look at the buildings are just so ornate. There's also a beautiful Wat (temple) in the Grand Palace grounds containing the Emerald Buddha, who has 3 different outfits made entirely of gold which are changed during a big ceremony 3 times a year depending on the season.

Wat Pho is another Buddhist temple nearby with a huge reclining gold Buddha, he takes up the entire building with his head almost touching the top corner of the roof and his toes stretching down to the opposite bottom corner. It's a breathtaking statue, so intricate with mother of pearl in lays on his feet and the walls of the temple are loving decorated with scenes from the Buddhas life. The grounds of the Wat contain lots more beautiful towers and temples and of course the many monks wrapped in orange robes. We crossed the river over to Wat Arun aswell, a huge tower covered with porcelain depicting animals and other creatures and offering a lovely view across the river.

A lot of our time in Bangkok was spent in the many amazing markets here, Patpong night market which is in the red light district with touts all over trying to get you into their sex shows, MBK market which is basically a shopping centre with actual shops selling fake gear, Suan Lum night bazaar and Pratunam markets. If you can think of something they can fake it. Of course I was in heaven but unfortunately with the hordes of tourists the prices here really aren't that great but we did buy a few bits - it'd be rude not to.