Our first destination in our South East Asia trip is Bangkok. The first impression of Bangkok was it was both hectic and intriguing.

Straght away in our taxi ride from the airport it was clear to see how Thailand is the country with the second most road fatalities in the world, the driver was driving in out of lanes and the roads were very crowded. However, the taxi to Ekkamai was only 500 baht (12 pound) - not bad for a 40 minute ride.

On our first day we decided to head in to Nana, an area that describes itself as “the worlds largest adult playground”. We weren’t there to play but felt that we had to see what goes on with only 2 days in the area. Our impression was that the area was fun with a lot of nice bars and places to eat even although the red light district itself was pretty sad and full of old white men.

We did however have a very nice meal, the highlight of which was pineapple fried rice, served in half of a pineapple and of course a misunderstanding which lead to them delivering two pints of Chang instead of one, this could have been a scam but considering it was happy hour we let them off.

Our second day started in a cafe with a motorbike shop interior, it was very spacious with free wifi - something we had struggled to find in Edinburgh. A cappuccino was 105 baht (2.47 pound) which wasn’t far off the prices ain the UK, we found that drinking coffee in the area wasn’t the cheapest thing to do. From here we planned our day around Bangkok.

First, we decided to walk from our hotel in Ekkamai to Wat Bang Na Nok temple. A couple of things we noticed walking to the outer parts of Bangkok is that as a pair of white tourists, we were getting quite a lot of attention and that there is a lot of rubbish in the river!

The temple is very spiritual and traditional. One of the first thing we noticed when we arrived were some buffalo in a small shed, we found this quite sad because the buffalo were in a very small area and were tied up with a rope inside their nose. In spite of this the atmosphere was very nice and chilled and there were several monks walking around.

We then travelled out to Train Night Market Ratchada which is regarded as one of the best night markets in Thailand.

From here we grab’d at taxi home which cost 177 baht (4.16 pound) and this was the end of our 2 day trip to Bangkok. Happy to have been and happy to leave!

Things to note:

• We found the BTS to be a good way to get around Bangkok as it is a modern overground tram with good air conditioning, however, it isn’t too built up so you will be lucky to get exactly where you are going.
• Another thing we noticed when walking around Bangkok is there is loads of low hanging cables hanging from the street posts.