We left the capital of Laos, Vientiane, and crossed the border into Thailand. Unfortunately, when you enter Thailand by road, you are only granted a seven day visa. We would have to get an extension later on in our trip. Just inside Thailand, we boarded an overnight sleeper train to Bangkok. You get your own bunk with bedding and it was a very comfortable journey. We checked into our hostel and set out to explore the sights.

Above you can see the ubiquitous transport method – the auto-rickshaw or tuk-tuk. Bangkok has the royal palace where the King resides and several of the country’s most important Wats or temples. Wat Arun is very pretty and the structures are decorated with in a tiled mosaic fashion.

Wat Po houses the famous reclining Buddha. This temple gets very crowded as it’s the number one rated attraction in Bangkok according to TripAdvisor.

We also hopped on a river taxi on the Chao Phraya river – a nice way to dodge Bangkok’s infamous traffic. The boats hop along and stop on both sides of the river and only cost 10 Baht (about 30 cents) to ride.

At night we took in another Muay Thai fight at Lumpinee Boxing Stadium. We splurged on the pricier tickets to be close to the action and it included a picture with the winner of one of the fights.

Another day we went to the beautiful Royal Palace, which is the home of the world’s longest serving monarch. The Thai King is highly revered and any whiff on insult is punishable with possible jail in Thailand.

In line with the ‘anything goes’ ethos, Bangkok also has several bars that are perched dozens of stories up on sky scrappers that offer magnificent views of the city.