Ahh Thailand, why can't we make sense of your bus stations? We arrived in the main station in Bangkok with instructions for taking a metro from there to the centre of the city, but after 30 minutes of walking around narrow alleyways lined with market stalls, the metro station was nowhere to be seen and we found ourselves on board a rickety old local bus with a conductor who could barely speak English, and just smiled and said "yes, yes" when we said we wanted to go to Siam Square…

An hour later, we'd travelled through the outskirts of the city and closer to the high rise buildings and shopping malls where we finally breathed a sigh of relief… this looked about right. Five weeks of travelling Asia, and these air-conditioned shopping malls were oh so inviting. We'd booked a hostel slam bang in the middle of this main shopping mall district of the city - where there are so many flashy malls we actually couldn't count them all.

We checked into a four-bed dorm, where we were first to arrive which meant we got first pick of the beds. It was a relief to discover it was clean, and had that all important air conditioning - Bangkok is HOT… the icky sticky kind of hot that can only be found in a heavily polluted Asian city.

Once we'd settled in, we just couldn't fight it any longer - it was time to eat and our first choice was…McDonalds. We hang our heads in shame, but those salty, non-spicy, non-fish sauce fries were calling us.

Blinded by the mall, we hung around exploring the mix of Western and Asian stores on a hunt for some new trousers for Nat. The change in diet has meant we've shed a few pounds and our clothes are now falling off us. It turns out that Nat is practically morbidly obese by Thai standards so there was no chance of finding anything in her size, so that plan has been aborted.

After that we discovered the cinema. How could we resist?! We bought two tickets to see Les Mis, two cokes and some cheesy popcorn (we turned down the strawberry popcorn…!!) before settling in to the most amazingly modern digital cinema.

The movie was brilliant, but we were a little confused when we were all made to stand for the Royal Anthem which was played before it started. The Royal Family, and especially the King, are absolutely adored in Thailand. There are random photos of HRH all over the place - on giant, royal-looking billboards, on the side of taxis, on restaurant menus… and it's not uncommon to spot people wearing t-shirts adorned with "Long Live the King."

Back at the dorm our room-mates were still out, so we settled in hoping we wouldn't be woken up too late by some boozy Bangkok loud-mouths. By the morning we both woke after one of the best night's sleep we'd had since we've been away, and went off on a walking tour in the old city that was recommended by our Lonely Planet. It started at the Grand Palace - the main tourist attraction here in Bangkok. The ground was consecrated in 1782, the first year of Bangkok rule, and the vast area contains more than 100 elaborately decorated buildings. Most of the architecture, royal or sacred, is in old-Bangkok style - Ratanaskosin.

It was a bit of a nightmare getting in to the place, as it was way too over-crowded and guards were pulling loads of people aside to tell them to cover up. The dress-code had us wrapped from head to toe, which was irritating in the heat. Nat had thought a scarf would be sufficient to cover her shoulders and arms, but they insisted she had to wear a t-shirt and sent her to borrow one. Annoyingly the Thai women's tops were all too small (Sigh) and she was given a man's blue shirt to wear… Attractive…

Once inside we headed to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha - which is aptly named, considering the Buddha is actually made from jade. The teeny Buddha monument inside the temple was discovered in the 15th century in Chiang Mai - it had been coated in plaster to disguise it's value and then forgotten about until some clumsy plonker dropped it and found the Jade inside. The Buddha itself is now suitably surrounded by lots of gold and murals inside the temple. We sat inside for some time, laughing at the Korean tourists who were trying to take photos on the sly (photography inside the temple is not permitted). The look on their faces when they had their cameras confiscated was pretty hilarious.

Within the surrounding grounds were plenty of interesting large statues of mythical creatures guarding the other buildings, which we took some time to wander between before heading to see the royal throne of the previous king.

It took a couple of hours to take it all in and once outside the walking tour continued through amulet markets, parks, the so-called Thai version of the Champs-Élysées (we saw no resemblance), and a variety of temples. Nat was delighted to discover after five hours of walking in a circle in the exhausting heat that the best sights were at the same spot: the beginning , and the end. They included Wat Po, which had a large 30m gold reclining Buddha. It was as impressive as we'd expected, and we had fun putting 50 coins into individual pots for luck. And, Wat Arun, which we needed to take a short ferry across the river to. We watched the sun set behind the Wat which was very nice, and we also climbed the extremely steep steps to the top for stunning views, before heading back to shopping mall central for some Thai dinner.

The next day Nat agreed to go for another of Bret's walking tours which he found in the Lonely Planet. We started off by catching a boat along the canal which was an experience in itself. The public transport boat stops at the side of the canal only for a few seconds and you have to jump on or miss it! It tore down the canal, with a man yanking a lever to lower the roof as we passed under bridges along the way - which resulted in a very sore head for Bret!

Back on dry land, we went to the Golden Mountain Temple - which is more of a Golden Hill Temple. The short climb to the temple was well worth it, not least for the strong breeze to cool us down, but the views were really pleasant.

After that we walked to the start of the tour - China town. Our guide (Bret with his Lonely Planet) said he'd show us around the area, picking out the best places to eat. Apparently we'd be full by the end…Sounded good until our first stop, which was a side-of -the road restaurant serving birds nest soup. Not stopping long enough to think about it, we sat down and ordered one. (The heat had clearly got to us…

For those who don't know, birds nest soup is literally made from birds nest - the kind made from bird saliva. It was served with a hard-boiled egg (which strangely turned out to be raw), some dubious looking chewy nuts, and honey. We ate as much as we could, before politely declining to finish the lot.

Feeling a bit queasy, we diverted the offer of sampling shark fin and headed for stop two. Luckily for us many of the Lonely Planet suggestions were not open until later so we just took in the sights, and smells. We walked through a long market alleyway where Chinese stalls seemed to sell anything and passed it off as food - most of which we could not identify, but one thing it all had in common was it stank. This blew smelly alley (One for the people of Reading) out of the water. We finished the tour with our noses tightly pinched closed.

We then headed to the Skybar - made famous in the film "Hangover 2". It's a very glamorous bar on the top of a skyscraper with amazing river views. Knowing they had a dress code, Bret packed a shirt which he shoved on top of his rather sweaty t-shirt in a bid to smarten up. We arrived for sunset but after the long elevator up we were turned away because Natalie wasn't wearing 'high-fashion' shoes... (We suspect the eau-de-traveller didn't help)

We did however manage to see the bar from the window without paying their exorbitant drink prices, so we think we had the last laugh.

Having saved a bit of time we decided to venture to Pat-Pong - the area of Bangkok made famous for it's colourful nightlife. It was what you'd expect really; cheap drinks, neon signs, and lady-boys. We were early enough to be offered happy hour on a Ping-Pong show, only £1. But, we resisted this amazing deal and after one rubbish cocktail headed back to our hostel for a bevvie instead.

By the next day we needed to escape the utter chaos, and headed out to Wat Ben and the Royal Palace which is in a quiet part of the city. And still keen to get a good view of the city we managed to squeeze in a trip to the tallest building in Thailand - the Baiyoke - after that. The building was a little tired, and rather strangely it was playing star wars music (?) in the shabby bar at the top. But the view, however, was just what we were looking for, and it wrapped up our visit to the city nicely.

We're now on the overnight train to Surat Thani, on route to the small island of Koh Phi Phi - where we're looking forward to a chance to chill out on the beach for a few days. It's a hard life…