Bangkok is loud and garish all bright neon lights, packed tourist streets and the worst city traffic you will ever find - and I mean ever. It is crazy but its fun if you can get over that and has a very unique atmosphere.

There is loads of street markets selling cheap clothes and knock offs watches and DVDs, and we picked up a few bargains including the token Chang beer t-short for 100 Baht (two pounds) . The bartering involves passing the calculator from buyer to seller until a price is agreed, usually between a third and a half of the first price, or so we found. Between the mad streets you will find stunning temples and palaces, all strikingly bright in colour adorning elegant Buddhas and shrines. You have to keep your wits about you as it seems everyone us up to some sort of scam, but we have managed to stay clear of any major issues. I am sure we will be 'templed out' by the end of this part of our trip but for now we are enjoying them

We took a tour out to the floating market at Damnoen Saduak about an hour or so from Bangkok. It is very touristy, as everything seems to be here, but it was good to see and off the main canals you could see the locals picking up their weekly groceries from the boat vendors. On the way back we stopped at a snake farm where the most bizarre show took place involving men in a pit dodging the most dangerous snakes in Thailand after they had made them angry by slapping and poking them . One of the shows involved a guy who had three Cobras in with him, he caught two in his hands and the final one with his teeth via a ninja style dive. Bonkers.

A must do in Bangkok is to spend the evening at the Thai boxing. We went to one of the main stadiums, which was more of a shed made up of wooden bleachers and a corrugated roof. It isn't cheap, in fact it is expensive by Thai standards, it was 1,000 Baht to stand with the locals, where we were, or 2,000 for ringside seats. The locals are mad for it, it is very loud and lots of betting goes on. These guys seem to spend the opening rounds grappling one another and the final rounds really going at it. The idea isn't too punch or kick, but to use the elbows and the knees in a pretty much everything goes kind of way. One guy was elbowed in the top of the head and sparked out and we think another guy got his leg broken in the main event by the sound, though the way he was stretchered off we couldn't tell . Within seconds of him being on the floor a stretcher appeared and he was roundly dumped on it by two guys, then lifted and jogged out the arena, I thought the Benny Hill sound track was going to come on.

We took a day trip out to the "Bridge Over the River Kwai" and crossed it both on foot and on a train. There is a huge number of tourists but the story of its building and the POW camps is moving. Visiting the immaculate nearby cemeteries for the thousands of Allied soldiers we learned of the vast numbers involved. Some 60,000 people consisting of Indian, Burmese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Chinese and Thai labourers as well as prisoners of war constructed it in horrendous conditions, and at the Jeath (Japan, England, America, Australia, Thailand and Holland) Museum you can read some of the stories of the men.

The sadder side of Bangkok is that of the sweaty white men. The wrong side of middle age, these single men are strolling the streets at night time and during the day you see many with very young Thai girls, and even occasionally boys . It is a haven for this type of thing and I watched a girl who must have been 17 or 18 being heavily groped (hands under the table) by a guy of about 60 in plain view in a well known restaurant chain as she appeared to be teaching him the Thai language. The locals told us that many of these girls are looking to either be looked after (wined, dined etc) for a week or longer, depending on how long these men stay, or to actually get their ticket out of their lives here through marriage or companionship with a Westerner.

The two big areas to go out are the Patphong area where you find bustling nightlife, lots of bars (including all the go-go bars), the 'special' massage parlours and another night bazaar, and of course Koh San Road, probably the world's most famous backpacker street. It is good for a night out but we were glad we weren't staying on it.

We start our tour tonight where we head to Northern Thailand before taking in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.