Greetings from funky town (by Joe)

... where breaks, fat baselines and cool beats are always playing, where floppy haired young Thai dudes scoot around on their mopeds, where everyone plays guitar, and where attractive young Thai girls dance till dawn with the city’s visitors, and appear to do an awful lot of shopping in trendy malls.

Bangkok is slick, young, affluent, broadband-modern and quirky-cool. There's plenty to do during the day with impressive temples and palaces to see, but it is at night that it comes alive, with trendy bars, clubs, restaurants and night markets (see below/ left - funky dude ).

It is lively, and in places a bit gaudy. Yet, contrary to reputation, we haven’t found it desperately seedy - or not most of it anyway. For the tourist with money, it's a fantastic playground. It is funky town.

The city is incredibly well set up for visitors. Arriving at the stunning (new) airport you are slickly whisked through immigration (visa on arrival) and sped into city centre on smooth modern air-con buses.

The streets are very clean with smart modern taxis (again, all air-con). The hotel is basic and cheap but very comfy and (again) very clean, with a nice outdoor bar and restaurant. There are further nice bars and restaurants all around the nearby area.

We stayed in some nice enough places in India, but this is on a different level.

Everywhere understands the tourists and their tastes, and is well set to deal with them ... but, of course that includes the con-artists and hustlers, too.

The hustlers here can be pretty aggressive - Laura had some pretty serious hassle on a trip around a temple, and on only our second day we were targets of a fairly sophisticated scam which attempted to take us on a tuk-tuk ride of the city and then dump you at an out of town factory – return ride only for those who buy tourist tat at exorbitant prices. We (happily) skipped out of the sting, but hearing conversations in tourist bars, we clearly got away better than some.

Other scams and hussles, such as the sale of fake train and bus tickets, are widespread.

Bangkok: it is funky town and we’ve had a good time - but funky town doesn't come without some serious hustle.

Below - an example of 'quirky cool' - a boys loo sign in trendy shopping mall, which we both found amusing.

Joe