Bangkok Round 2

My flight to Bangkok was easy, however, I was pretty annoyed at the lounge because usually they will tell you info about your flight. I sat in the lounge to eat, which was a really great airline lounge (as it was Cathay Pacific’s Lounge at their main hub, Hong Kong), so when it was about 30 minutes before the flight, I headed out only to see I was at gate 1, and my gate was gate 70.

When seeing this, I started to hustle, and found I had to take a train to the next terminal for gates. After getting off the gate, it dropped me at gate 60, and I looked up, and ‘FINAL BOARDING’ was flashing. Not a great thing I want to see when I have all my backpacks on making me have to huff and puff it to the gate. I made it, and it was a relief to be able to be on board and relax.

When I arrived in Bangkok, I didn’t really recognize the airport. I took a taxi to the hotel, and was immediately impressed with the accommodations. (again, they were free from my credit card signups) :)

After checking in, I went to get some lunch, and decided to head to shop for a bathing suit so I could enjoy the pool some. I found a nearby spot called Above 11 from a friend’s recommendation, and headed there for dinner. I had sushi, but it was a fusion style that I didn’t really enjoy–the fish was fine, but the flavoring coupled with the heat of the air didn’t quite make me interested in eating. Lesson learned, no sushi in the heat :)

The next day, I headed out to the Chatacheuk markets which were only going on in the weekend. I met a guy from Brazil who was living in Sydney, traveling in Bangkok, as you do, and we went around the markets together and experienced the market’s many alleyways, ice creams, snacks, paella, fried fish, icees etc. Luciano was willing to try anything and everything from the street. Again, after my terrible Colombian adventure, I felt a bit more reserved to protect my stomach at all costs.

That evening, my friend David from Boston arrived. Amazingly after a flight from Boston to NYC to Hong Kong to Bangkok, he was able to quickly shower and head out for dinner with us. We had a fun filled night exploring Bangkok’s nightlife and went back to the hotel for a great sleep.

We then spent some time the next morning to plan out the next few days of the trip until David leaves because my original plan had taken me to Vietnam after Cambodia, however from various feedback from people, I’ve opted to pass on Vietnam on this time, and explore more of Thailand and pass over to Laos as well before coming back to island hop in the South of Thailand before heading over to Jordan.

The next day, we did some exploration around the town and headed to see the grand palace. We were lucky because not only was it a rare free day, it was also not so crowded. I was surprised that in most of my pictures, it was pretty empty and there were plenty of photo ops where people didn’t enter the scene.

After our afternoon at the palace, we headed to the pier to check out a boat tour of the canals of Bangkok. Here we boarded a long boat for just the two of us and went around Bangkok’s main canal system to see basically the stilted houses that lined the narrow canals. Our boat driver was a chubby boy who kept opening the motor door to do something to the motor. I kept trying to figure out what I would do if the boat started to take on water and how to salvage my camera–which basically I came up with the plan to have someone throw it to me on land, or simply me throw it into the bushes on land somewhere. Thankfully I never had to employ this contingency plan.

After a really great hour tour of the canals, we went to find a place for dinner. We happened upon a café that sat along the banks of the river looking out at Wat Arun. As we watched the sunset, we enjoyed a great meal.