Here I spent a few days before heading off to Nong Khai, on the border with Laos. I did see one or two ladyboys, but not as many as I was expecting!

I got to Bangkok on an unexciting bus ride from Chanthaburi. This was especially unexciting, as once we had entered Bangkok, we spent most of the time under the platform for the Sky Train, so everything looked the same. We did get free water and biscuits, however (a type of Jammy Dodger). Once in Bangkok, I got the metro to Chinatown, where I stayed for about 4 days.

I lost track of time whilst I was in Bangkok. I hadn’t been in a big city since Saigon, as Phnom Penh was much more low-rise and didn’t, in my opinion, have a ‘big city’ feel. I was glad being in an international city again and just spending my time exploring it.

The first thing I attempted to do was to go to the Siriraj Medical Museum, which I had seen on An Idiot Abroad. I asked in my guest house how to get there and after acquiring a map, was pointed in the direction of the ferry service. This seemed simple enough, but it took about an hour finding the ferry stop, as it was buried deep within the back-streets of Chinatown. By the time I made it to the medical museum, there was 30 minutes until it closed and the woman behind the desk explained that there were actually 5 museums. She reckoned I could do it, but I knew that one museum alone would take 30 minutes anyway, so went in, knowing I was going to come back.

The next day I went to the Chatuchak weekend market. This was interesting, as there were a lot of animals in cages that I hadn’t seen before or thought of as being a good pet. I spent the day wandering around and went for a drink in a bar I liked the sound of (they were playing good music) earlier in the day. Here I met a few people who were either expatriates or locals but all living in Bangkok.

The following two days I spent the time exploring Sukhumvit, an area of Bangkok and exploring Chinatown, which lies to the west of the city. Sukhumvit I thought would be more interesting than it actually was, as I had seen a good magazine article talking about all of the new, slightly alternative places that were springing-up. I went there an found some of them, but it was nothing special. Then, walking around Chinatown, I got to see a lot of the locals buying and selling things and finally made it to Wat Arun, which was closed. It looked very pretty, but as it was closed I went for a Vietnamese coffee instead and went home.

The last thing I did, in the evening, was to visit the red-light district. This is known as Patpong to tourists and there are other, real, red-light districts elsewhere. This was much more touristy than I was expecting. There was one street with girls on it but that was it, with more slightly more seedy streets branching off it. I went and watched the ping-pong, amongst other things and left it at that.

Things done in Bangkok:

• Siriraj Medical Museum (twice)
• Chatuchak weekend market
• bar in Chatuchak weekend market
• walking around Sukhumvit
• ping-pong in Patpong
• walking around Chinatown
• Wat Arun (sort of, it was closed).