After a strange breakfast of fried rice with pork we popped into the Vietnamese embassy to pick up our passports but completely missed the bit on the receipt that said 'After 4pm'. This was pointed out to us after twenty minutes of waiting in front of an empty desk watching men with dozens of foreign passports in their briefcases stand around and chat. I saw one guy with a really pretty bright red one that said United Nations something on it, but didn't want to stare too much because it obviously wasn't his. So we left again empty-handed and took a taxi to the river.

We waited for a boat to take us up (or down, it's hard to be sure) the river to an area of town with more than its fair share of temples. The boat seemed like a nicer way of getting there than the traffic-filled streets. Mikey managed to interpret the numerous signs that told us which boat and in which direction we needed to go and once he'd done it a helpful man in a uniform confirmed it for us. I watched a young boy spend about ten minutes painstakingly thread lumps of bread onto a piece of fishing line and finally cast into the water, only to be pounced on by an official in a different uniform and made to reel in his line and go away. I felt quite sorry for the poor lad.

The river here was a dark greyish beige torrent with a veritable salad floating in it - tomatoes and peppers mixed with large dark green leaves, tossed with bottle caps and polystyrene boxes. Not particularly appetizing though. Our boat arrived and we squeezed on, obediently leaving the designated space for monks free. I also avoided passing by the monks as it is forbidden for women to touch them or their belongings, even by accident. So we stood on our side and the orange-clad ones on theirs, and we watched the wooden shacks and giant, gleaming temples pass by. The boat hardly stopped at any of the piers, only slowed down enough for people to jump on or off the boat. We jumped off with a surprising lack of incidents and went to find a temple.

Our first mistake was to open our map within the sight of the tuk-tuk drivers. Tuk-tuks are passenger vehicles that combine milkfloat and motorbike and are low enough to the ground to take full advantage of the traffic fumes and the miniscule hestiations of other road-users. Their drivers are one of the scourges of Thai society, regularly taking passengers to the destination they want to go to, not the one requested. We had so far managed to avoid them. Our second mistake was to believe them when they said that the Grand Palace, our first intended port of call, was closed until the afternoon. But no harm was done, we just carried on up the road towards the temple of Wat Po and the giant reclining Buddha. We ignored shouts of 'Where you want to go?' and the kind men who ran beside us to tell us that there was nothing to see up here and than we should jump into their tuk-tuk and be taken to Wat Po, miles and miles the other way. Less than half a mile further on we found the temple, strangely right where the map said it should be and nowhere near the vicinity of the directions we'd been suggested.

At the entrance we bought a ticket and I checked with the man that it would be alright to take photos in such a holy place. A man standing next to us told us it was perfectly OK and that if we let him guide us then he would make sure we got the best photos. What followed was a 'What mean horse, horse mean dog, dog go to heaven, my brother' experience but without the graveyard, the extortion or the fear. (Look, you can ask, you know!) We had a well-rehearsed tour of the whole temple, often in very flat, unstressed sylables. The guide must have realised or been taught that English is not a tonal language so he kept it all as flat as possible. We heard the story of Supermonkey (wife of king get taken by bad man, supermonkey rescue wife of king, king very happy, king have cocktail party) and explanations about the positions depicted by the statues of Buddha, the role of snakes in the temple design, the skills involved in creating the buildings, Thai burial practice and many others, all interspersed with compliments about our linguistic skills, general attractiveness and obviously great intelligence. It was all highly entertaining and good value for money, and we learned more about Thailand, Buddhism and the temple than we expected.

The giant reclining Buddha is over 130 feet long and 60 feet tall and made of plaster and stucco and covered with 24 carat gold leaf. The soles of his feet are inlaid with one hundred and eight intricate mother-of-pearl pictures and the internal walls of the temple in which he reclines is hand painted, and is currently undergoing restoration. That should be finished in seven years. There is a Buddha position for every day of the week, and the one that brings a person most good fortune is the one corresponding to the day they were born. Strangely, being born on a Tuesday, mine is the reclining Buddha, which suits me perfectly.

We put a quarter-baht coin into each of one hundred and eight metal pots along the length of the giant Buddha for good luck, making a satisfying clunking sound as we followed everyone else. Our guide waited for us, talking, complimenting and reciting his speech, and occasionally chastising someone for coming in the wrong way or not wearing appropriate clothing. He took us to a(possibly commission-earning) Thai massage place and a fortune teller, both of which we politely declined, and then we carried on round the temple grounds, hearing about the Hindu legends (Buddha came from India so many of the stories and pictures are of Indian origin; the classic image of a fat Buddha comes from China and is meant to symbolise prosperity and good fortune) and more stories. He pointed out statues of the singhas (lion/snake hybrids) and the scale-like tiles on the roofs, explained that the cats of Asia rarely have tails due to birth defects, most Thais are cremated and that while it is considered acceptable to bare your shoulders in public, wearing little strappy tops and exposing too much skin is considered inappropriate for holy sites and he showed no regret asking scantily-clad girls to cover up. We were urged to take pictures inside the temples, in places I would have thought inappropriate, and for about an hour we were thoroughly entertained and educated. The last thing he told us was to ignore the tuk-tuk drivers who tell us that things are closed - none of the sights close during the day, but they want to take us to shops to earn commission and charge us for waiting. Which is good to know.

Right next to Wat Po is the Grand Palace, once home to the king and now only used for ceremonial occasions. It's girded by a massive plastered wall, and twelve people, men and women, were busy hacking off the old plaster and renovating it as we walked past. There was a large sign at the entrance explaining that this is one of the Thai people's most revered sites and that appropriate clothing should be worn - coverings for shoulders, legs and feet were available for hire. We were both fine, but a lot of people, men and women, could be seen with grey sarongs, large grey socks or sandals with numbers on them.

The view from the outside of the Grand Palace was spectacular - three enormous pagodas, a white one, a gold one and a glass-encrusted one glistened as if they were on fire. Security guards pointed us in the direction of the best view points and offered to take photos of us. The spires were awesome, and even more remarkable up close - each one was covered from towering tip to bulging base in tiny, sparkling tiles. There was not a single milimetre of plaster visible in the entire place, and the scale of the site is hard to describe. There were statues and fountains and temples and palaces and alcoves and monkeys and vast stretches of wall adorned in their entirety with squares of mirror, chips of glass or ceramic tiles. The sun, mostly hidden all day, played along with us, dancing and sparkling and singing along to the hush of a thousand reverent whispers and the heavy, cowbell-like chimes of the bells on the roof.

On first impressions, the main section of the compound was more conventional, with a slightly collonial-style mansion set in grounds of statues and fountains and well-kept lawns and flowerbeds. I was disproportionately excited by the trees: bare trunks with dense pompoms of green on their topiaried angles, giant bonsai works of art. But after a few seconds here, the whole place had the air of Disneyland, empty: white and sparkling; magical roofs and fairytale colours; smooth flagstone floors; the men trimming the trees just caricatures; the buildings surreal and dreamlike. It was an odd feeling being here. Every paved pathway led to another incredible bejewelled construction, hushed throngs walking slowly and respectfully around the magic kingdom, the occasional bell calling out to the wind.

We ducked through a doorway in a thick, white-plastered wall and we were back in real-life again, an everyday courtyard with a souveneir stall and a cafe at one end. The cafe served microwave meals and drinks, and we sat in the shade for a moment. Looking at the guidebook we realised we'd missed the Emerald Buddha (made of jasper), something I'd vaguely wanted to see, but our tickets would not allow readmission. Nevermind, it's something we can come back for.

Walking with treacle-bound steps we went back to the boat dock and took a ferry across the river for a quick peak at the Temple of Dawn. A giant, once-white pagoda towered over a small temple compound, studded with little pieces of coloured ceramic and mosaic borders. It was a little grubby, unsurprising for its age, but slightly disappointing after the glittering and glimmering of half and hour before. We walked out through the wall and into Chinese-style white-plastered back streets and found a taxi to take us to the bus station.

Within seconds of the taxi arriving in front of the waiting buses someone opened the door and asked us where we wanted to go. We mumbled something about the floating market, the come here/stay there gesture was bandied about and we found ourselves on a slightly rickety bus and moving. We bought tickets from a smiling lady in red and sat back as Bangkok receeded and jungle and swamps took over.

Along the roadside were wooden houses and sheds, with corrugated tin or grass thatch roofs, some with motorbike engines on the porch, almost all with at least one sleeping dog spread out in the dust. Ponds of lotus plants, some in flower, bordered the road, and in more than one was a man bathing or a woman washing pots or clothes. Gardens ceased and after while fruit farms sprung up. Many of these were in the form of long islands built into canals of murky water; neat, long rectangles of earth that supported banana groves or small saplings or a variety of things in between. Vineyards were built on the raised lozenges, with nets and supports all around, as well as tomato plants and the occasional citrus plantation. There were more rivers here, and a lot of concrete-sided canals too. The bus grew more crowded, a monk took one look at Mikey and asked where he was from - half an hour later he slapped Mikey on the back and got off the bus. Dusk approached and the passengers dwindled. Then the bus stopped, in the middle of a dusty, desert-like stretch of roadworks, and a man pointed to the other side of the road and said 'Hotel'. We left the relative coolness of the bus and went in search of shelter.

We found the hotel that the guidebook suggested, and we were greeted by a very thin, elderly man who bowed far too low and far too often. He took us to a room, talked us into getting a guided tour of the floating market in the morning and then left us to wander back into town and find some food. The town was Damnoen Saduak, either going to sleep or just waking up. There were a few stalls selling clothes still standing on the pavement, a few stalls just starting to sell food. The traffic was not heavy but haphazard - three or four lanes of vehicles weaving in and out of one another in any direction, slowly, on an unpaved and orange road. No-one was cross, no-one was in a hurry, everyone got where they wanted to go. We walked the length of the town twice and then spotted a Singha sign - we decided to check it out. It was down a side street and very dark. A massive, possibly first-generation St Bernard was drinking from a barrel and looked up guiltily as we passed and I called to it. We found what looked like a garage forecourt, open on three sides with a metal roof over it. Four men were eating at a table, a dozen empty tables and a variety of garden furniture were scattered round the room. One of the men eating gestured that we should come inside, and we took a seat, a bit nervously, because we didn't want to interrupt anything. Two girls came out and gave us huge menus. There were hundreds of dishes listed, and since we'd eaten nothing all day except pork and fried rice for breakfast and a cornetto for lunch, we started reading avidly, pausing only to discount the fish dishes. Unfortunately, Damnoen Saduak was in a swamp, and dogfish and frog featured heavily. Crispy frog, frog with noodles, frog soup, sweet and sour frog, stir-fried frog, frog meat and frog skin. And the same dishes with dogfish or shrimps or oysters. We ordered the fishlessiest dishes possible and found ourselves with giant plates of vegetables, chicken, noodles and rice, and a plethora of mushrooms of absolutely all shapes and sizes and jelliness. We ate far too much, waited while the girls watched the end of a soap opera on the television bolted to the furthest wall and then had a fruitless search for a pancake stall. And then, after all that, we set the alarm for 6.30 went to sleep.