As we came through arrivals at Bangkok airport every Thai official that we saw did a 'Wai', a slight bow, with the palms pressed together in a prayer-like fashion. It was a lovely welcome but when we handed in our passports to be stamped it was a different story, the Thai border control are a fierce and stern bunch and I felt like I'd done something wrong just by standing there !

We drove to our hotel through the seriously mad traffic at night, our driver was a complete maniac weaving through and closely missing oncoming traffic like he was on his way to a hospital emergency. We both tightened our seat belts and shut our eyes.

When we arrived in the Nana district, Sukhumvit Soi 5. The place was alive with street food vendors, neon lights, market stalls, people shouting, crazy tuk tuks and mopeds zipping about. We didn't realize till later but we were right on top of one of the red light, massage parlors, saunas, lady boy salons and 'short stay' hotels districts. Bangkok has a reputation as a major destination in the sex industry and although prostitution is technically illegal and is rarely openly discussed in Thailand, it commonly takes place among the aforementioned, brightly lit neon emporiums!! Bangkok has acquired the nickname "Sin City of Asia" for a very good reason!....naughtiness is everywhere!...."elloooo mister yu wan massaaaaaage?" (spoken in an effeminate but slighly deep manly voice!)

We spent the first day or two just wandering around soaking up the sights, sounds and smells. It's an interesting mix; street foods mixed with stagnant river and stinky drains, mixed with joss sticks and diesel fumes. Many of the locals wear face masks when riding their bikes or walking about the city and I can understand why..You suddenly become aware that all of that sweet sickly pollution is being sucked down into your lungs and the grime is gathering in your flip flops and forming a crust between the toes !!...Yuk.

We caught the sky train down to an amazing and renowned shopping center called MBK. (Maboonkrong) and restocked on really cheap t-shirts and shorts. On the way back I was once again reminded that poverty, ill health and daily struggle is hard to overlook. Of course we saw beggars in the street, but they tended to be much more passive and non-confrontational compared with beggars we encountered in Peru or Chile mainly due to the fact that Thailand values tourism so highly that the government has put in numerous measures to clean up its image but some of these poor people were so badly afflicted it was very upsetting and so sad to see . I spotted a lady, dressed in filthy ragged clothes, sitting at the top of the stairs by a walkway on a bridge just quietly holding out a tin cup, she couldnt see anything or say anything because a massive tumour had grown from her forehead, right over her entire face and was hanging down to below her chin. People just passed her by, one or two unfeeling people took photos and stared at her but didnt throw any money into her cup or offer her food. Below where she sat, under the bridge, the smell of tasty food being cooked wafted up as the street venders threw scraps of left over food to the wandering stray dogs...so so sad. I will never complain about the NHS in the UK again, I can't imagine that a person with this appalling affliction would ever be left untreated and forgotten on the streets of Great Britain...really makes you remember how lucky we are...

As we walked back to the hotels along the main road we came across a little temple on the side of the road were people were offering flowers, joss sticks, food, drinks and money to a little elephant shrine and in the back ground some ladies were performing a beautiful Thai dance. The traditional Thai costume is stunning and so elegant. Their trousers, dresses and t shirts were embroidered silk with gold thread and hundreds of sequins glinting in the sun and each wore what looked like a tiny golden temple on their heads!!...So pretty and the dances they did were slow and graceful concentrating on slow hand, head, feet and shoulder movements all accompanied by Thai musicians...I was mesmerized. Really beautiful to watch.

We decided to get out of main Bangkok for the day and took a river boat to Wat Po temple. Wat Po is the largest and oldest temple in Bangkok and is named after a monastery in India where Buddha is believed to have lived and the temple itself is supposed to have been the birthplace of the traditional Thai massage. It is also a working Buddhist monastery with monks in residence but the reason we wanted to visit was because it is home to a giant reclining golden Buddha.

It was a swelteringly hot day and we arrived in shorts and vest tops which to the monks is totally disrespectful and so I was politely asked to 'cover up'. I didn't have anything else with me so a monk pointed towards a rack of bright day-glow green robes....those visitors that were wanton enough to flash a shoulder or a leg would be required to wear the 'day-glow robes of shame' whilst they visited the golden Buddha..Fair enough!...on with the robe but I did like a wizardly leprechaun teacher from Hogwarts!!

The reclining Buddha was amazing, 15 m high and 43 m long with his right arm supporting his head with curly gold hair leaning on pillows of blue, richly encrusted with glass mosaics and his huge gold feet, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. All around him there were golden bowls where you throw money so that the monks will clean him!!...that's a lot of brasso!!....and he was spectacular..

On the way back we stopped at a market on the river. Over the years the market sellers have thrown the left over food scraps into the river which has encouraged thousands upon thousands of huge river fish to come right up to the edge of the dock and scavenge. At first glance it looks like the river is boiling as they slip and slide on top of each other even coming out of the water to get a tasty morsel.

As we waited for our ferry back we watched as the river buses, cross-river ferries and water taxis, also known as longtails, all adorned with dangling flowers at the bow of the boat, zipped at top speed along the Chao Phraya River. One long boat actually crashed into the pontoon while we were waiting!. Then what seemed like dozens of little Thai people and orange robed monks of all ages jumped off, scuttled onto the pontoon, completely un-fazed by the incident, wai'd the crazy captain and carried on about their business! Maybe that's how they disembark from boats in Thailand?..

Once safely back at Soi 5 and having refused about 50 offers from the 'hey meesta you wan velly gud massaaaaage?' brigade, we ordered two very large cocktails and the first of what was to become hundreds of yummy, mouth stingingingly, taste bud rippling, Thai Green Curries....

The next day we got a minibus to Trat province and a ferry across to Koh Chang (The Elephant Island)...