[Seth]

Honestly, I say avoid the seafood. I lived in Thailand for 6 months. Do not bother with herb in Bangkok. There are too many reasons not to do that. Definitely go to Laos. I had a ton of fun there. People are nice, food is way better than Thai, cheap to the point of depressing. My walks around the capital were mostly on dirt roads. Wandering into the jungle is never advised.

If you like rock climbing I would hit up Ton Sai beach or maybe even Chiang Mai since you will be going north anyway. I canèt say much about Cambodia except the guys from the college I knew were mean dudes. Get used to firearms.

Understate your whiteness. My buddy from michigan could speak thai fluently as well as laos and rough cambo so getting ripped off in transport was reduced quite a bit. Accept the fact that youère going to be ripped off a lot.
If you want to limit your chance of getting a liver destroying parasite I would definitely avoid animal products as much as possible.
Are you going by yourself

Avoid Khao San road unless you like that kind of thing. Pataya is the more raw area, about two hours south by the coast. Its kind of the sin city that has a lot more european tourists.
If you dont want to be physically ushered into go go clubs then patpong in bangkok wonèt be your thing either. However, if you donèt mind possible ladyboy groping then thereès actually a few good places to find knockoff rolex type stuff in that part of town.
Donèt wander into snooker joints without local thai friends.

Donèt buy tshirts that are only 80 baht or whatever. They will shrink and the screenprint will fall off after poisoning you.

I did find that it was easy to spend 2000 baht on a weekend in bangkok.
One thing more, you might want to just skip the tuk tuk rides after your initial romp. The pollution grime that youèll end up wiping off your face before passing out at the hotel is enough to warrant an extra 50 or so baht for an AC taxi. Tuk tuk rides are by nature way more fun. Especially if your driver is tanked and stubbornly driven to race with the other 2 strokers. I had one extra memorable tuktuk driver literally two wheel us at top speed coming down a toll highway ramp onto a cross street and that was just the preface to the wildest transportation night of my life. In retrospect we were stupid for encouraging him.

Do not trust the women in matters that could possibly lead to some sort of attached relationship. In fact, HIV is a serious issue in thailand and it would be irresponsible of me not to warn you of what is possibly an obvious assumption on your part.
Be prepared for people to side-assume that you went solely for the sex industry.