Bangkok was our first destination, largely due to it being a convenient big city with facilities, good accomodation and cheap flights, serving as the travellers hub for South East Asia. We’d decided to spend 3 nights there to get over the worst of the jetlag and culture shock, as well as to get a taste for Thailand before we return here in just over a month. Even in such a short time, it’s been a great experience.

Arriving first thing Monday morning, and having figured out how to use a Rabbit card (insert your choice of joke) on the train system, we got to our hostel – a cool small place called C40Winks in Silom. We’d been recommended the Bangrak area by a colleague of Ness’, as the real centre of modern Bangkok rather than the tourist packed old town featuring the Grand Palace and Khao San Road (notorious for drunk Western tourists). We weren’t aware until we arrived that the sub-district we were in becomes the red light district at night… but never mind… every day’s a school day.

We’re told that Thais don’t really cook at home, many homes not even having kitchens, as street food is so widely available, so good and so cheap. We were also aware that we would have to change our expectations as to food hygiene standards, so we decided to bite the bullet and go for it. Immediately after check in we walked over the road into the local market and found some vendors who were clearly popular with the locals – we figured that if locals eat there then it must be decent and safe.

Both Ness and I had been struck by how stylish the Thai people in this area and on the train were. Men stood proudly in sharp suits, beautiful women perfectly turned out with elegant designer clothes on their petite figures. To see such people in a rickety market eating on a plastic table, an environment many would turn their noses up at in the West (ourselves included), was humbling and fascinating.

As the only white people in the market, and standing at least 6inches taller than anyone in sight, we certainly stood out. The vendors were kind and patient with us, and when Ness pointed at a random choice for lunch a gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and warned me that it would be very spicy. He wasn’t lying!

Everyone had cups of a particular yellow drink, so I went to where people were collecting them but didn’t know what to ask for. Another gentleman got up from his table, walked over to the stand, spoke a few Thai words and after I passed a few coins he pointed to and helped me use a small metal cup to fill two glasses with this drink from an urn. We had a wonderful and varied lunch with drinks for a total of 90 Thai Baht, just over £2. Every meal we had was similarly delicious and cheap.

We explored the local area for the rest of the day, doing some planning over a coffee then having dinner in a market by the river.

Waking up was hard! I thought that as a shift worker I’d be less prone to jet lag… I did find it easier than Ness to get to sleep, but we both struggled to wake up at 8am when it felt like 2am. Life in Thailand seems to start earlier than in the UK, but we’re vagabonds now so no need to work to a schedule!

We caught a boat up the huge and bustling Chao Phraya river into the old town, wanting to see a few of the main ‘sights’. We spent well over half of our £50 daily budget getting into the Grand Palace (by the end of the day we would have spent almost double our budget), an impressive building absolutely, but pricey for the area, and rammed with fellow tourists. An audio tour helped us get the most out of the beautifully ornate designs and rich history, but it wasn’t worth the hype.

Much cheaper and less packed was Wat Pho, the senior temple complex in Thailand, containing around a thousand Buddha images, including a 46 metre long reclining Buddha.

On the trip back we tried to use a cheaper boat rather than one targeted at tourists. Upon being guided down to wait for the boat’s arrival, Ness mistook the pontoon for the boat itself and was briefly outraged at paying to ride a flat sheet of steel.

It’s currently the rainy season in Thailand and on Friday it rained!!! We spend the morning relaxing, reading, planning, and drinking a lot of coffee. When it cleared up we went to Lumphini park for a jog and maybe to find somewhere for a workout. We found an open air gym, very basic but with everything you need for weights and calisthenics. Watching the Thai guys smash out rock solid human flags, muscle ups and back levers was impressive, we are both in really bad shape at the moment, but even at my fittest I was a long way from achieving that.

On our first day, following advice from a travel book, we thought through and made a list of any friends and family we had in countries we were visiting. If you’re reading this and you live near our route then please do drop us a message! Ness remembered that an old uni friend of hers, Valerie, now lived in Bangkok with her Thai husband, working for the Red Cross. After some last minute messages we were lucky enough to meet up with Valerie and Mart, two of the most kind, fascinating and charismatic people I’ve met. We had a lovely dinner with them where Mart was able to point us towards some great Thai cuisine, and both of them could share their extensive travel advice with us.

With their guidance, we find ourselves on a bus about to cross the Cambodian border, the crossing we have heard from everyone to be the most griefy of all we plan to do. We’re on our way to Siem Reap to see Angkor, the biggest religious site in the world covering 400 sq km, and then on to the capital Phnom Penh. We have heard mixed reviews of Cambodia but are excited to experience it for ourselves!