First Day in Bangkok

After landing in Bangkok, we had to find our way to baggage claim, which seemed like it was a mile away. We collected our belongings and shot down to the train station. It was only 45 baht (AUD $1.50) to get the train to the city.
A cab would charge hundreds of baht, looking out the window, all of the buildings look old and poorly maintained, clothes hanging out of every window to dry.
When we arrived at the train station, we walked down to street level and the traffic is insane, so many taxis, so many scooters, pedestrians crossing the road where they please. If someone was to drive in Australia, as people drive here, they would cop so much road rage, not to mention the police would certainly fine them with a handful of traffic offences..... i.e. driving down the wrong side of the road......
Our driver took us down the alleyway that leasts to our hotel, we pushed open the gate and we were greeted very warmly at reception, showed our identification, paid for our room (with the money we got yesterday from Bangkok Airways) and went to our room. Once again, we were pleasantly surprised, for AUD $10.00 a night, i expected something pretty average, but this place is perfect, comfortable beds, a clean bathroom, free internet. Even the staff here are friendly from what we have seen so far.
We slept for a few hours to catch up on all the sleep we didn't have the previous night, woke up and caught up with our friend Jake, who we'd met on our tour of Koh Phi Phi, about a week ago. He'd been in the city for a few nights and had a pretty good grasp on where everything is and how to get there, so we went down to Patpong, which is the nightlife area not too far from where we are staying. Didn't take long to realise that it was true when they say this is the sex capital of the world, every bloke down there was advertising strippers or ping pong shows, all of the go-go bars had their doors wide open so you can see all of the girls inside. Prostitutes and lady-boys all over the place, but for tonight.. all we wanted was a quiet couple of beers.
We found a place called the Happy Bar, i think... and that was at the end of the main drag, a little out of the grips of the Ping Ping shows, but one thing you can never get away from are the lady-boys.
Most of the bars employ them for 'entertainment' purposes, so we had one hanging around the bar all night, talking to everyone and dancing around and generally being very flamboyant.
It was starting to get late, so we called it a night, Jake was flying out the next day so we said our goodbyes and caught a tuk tuk back to our hotel.