Thailand isn’t outback Australia you say. You’d be right. We’re taking a few months off our tour around Australia to travel south east Asia.

Our trip started in Bangkok. New York might officially be the city that never sleeps, but Bangkok actually never sleeps. What a hectic, busy, chaotic city. A fun place to visit but very full on. Don’t expect a quiet relaxing holiday. Super cheap though. In Australian dollars, a bus ride is 20 cents, a meal is a couple of dollars, a ride on the train is 80 cents, short taxi ride a few dollars, beer at the pub is about two dollars. You can’t see the sky due to the smog. The smells we experienced were interesting when roaming the streets, ranging from spicy street vendor food to raw sewage.

There’s some serious shopping centers in Bangkok – vast areas multiplied by multiple levels. Kept Sharni busy for a few days. One shopping complex has each floor in the theme of a different international city. The photo is for the Tokyo floor. There’s also Rome, London, I forget the others. San Francisco is the top floor where there’s a model of the Golden Gate Bridge spanning the central atrium. Big shopping centres are quite the novelty for small town folk like us. Warwick shops is my standard for a big shopping center.

We had some drinks at the cocktail cycle bar. It’s a very small bar constructed on a small truck chassis with bicycle seats supported on a home made frame. The owner can drive his whole pub around. He drives it into a garage when the bar closes.

Khao San is a very popular tourist strip in Bangkok. It’s very busy. I can imagine really enjoying it with a bunch of mates if I was 20 years old. We liked other areas better. By the time we got to Khao San we had already spent a few days in Bangkok so stayed only one night. There’s some palaces and other tourist stuff around there that we didn’t see. Maybe we will have a look when we’re back in Bangkok next. Time to go somewhere quieter – we’re heading to Chiang Mai.