Three Nights in Bangkok - Part 1

View from our AWESOME hotel

Bangkok is...well...Bangkok. It's HUGE! It's a crazy huge city with crazy energy. There is SO much to do in Bankgok and having only 3 days made us feel a bit overwhelmed. We reached out to our Thai friend and a friend of mine who spent a month in Thailand and tried to figure out a plan...because having only 3 days, you need some sort of a plan. They sent us a few ideas so I've condensed them in to a list of top 10 things just in case you're interested:

Top 10 Things to Do In Bankgok:

1. See a temple, one suggestion was Wat Po or the Grand Palace Temple

2. Check out the shitshow on Kaosan Road
3. Take a river taxi along the Chao Praya river
4. If you're tired of touring, see an English-soundtrack movie in "Gold Class" seating, and never be able to watch a movie in the USA again
5. Go to a night market and eat street food
6. Ride in a three-wheeled tuk-tuk, making sure you agree on the price (and destination) before you get in. Hang on for dear life!
7. Visit Nana Plaza hahahahahahaha (this advice came from a man...)
8. Go to Ayutthaya
9. Go to the Lebua State Tower at sunset and have a drink

10. Go to a ladyboy show (and this advice came from a woman...)

Only being their 3 days - we were not able to do all 10. So this is what decided to do...

Unfortunately our flight was delayed that morning, and took forever, so after landing and taking the train in to the city, we were pooped.  We hauled our packs up to our hotel, the Pullman King Power Hotel which was Andrew's pick (he picked all of our Thailand hotels and did a fantastic job!).  It was AMAZING! We looked like total bums walking in to this gorgeous 5 star hotel (for only $90 a night).  It was beautiful. There are 5 restaurants, 4 bars, and an infinity pool.  Out of sheer luck, we got upgraded to a room on the very top floor...high rollerrrrssssss! When we entered the room the tv displayed "Welcome Mrs. Patricia Hofland. We hope you enjoy your stay". Snap. We were all tuckered out so we decided to take a bath, get all dolled up, and have a date night, taking advice #4. We looked up places to see a VIP Gold whatever whatever movie and found the Paragon Cineplex theater that was at a giant mall...sounded promising. So off we went to figure out the train system (which was pretty awesome by the way). 

When we arrived at the Siam Paragon Mall we were pretty much in shock. That place was freakin HUGEEEEEEE! It is home to the largest aquarium in SE Asia, 16 theaters with the largest movie screen and seating capacity in Asia, an opera concert hall, an art gallery, bowling alley, gourmet market and huge food court, 10 stories and over 270 stores. Wow. We started the evening by purchasing our tickets to a showing of Fury (there weren't a lot of great options) for a hefty price of like $25 a piece, and yes that was in USD. However, we were there for the experience so we sucked it up. After purchasing our tickets we went down to the food court to check it out. Oh my amazing. I ended up getting a bunch of different dumplings from one of their little stands, including a durian dumpling which was disgusting. We also got our first bubble tea.

After a while of checking things out it was time for our movie so we went up to the VIP lounge to get our snacks and drinks that were included with our purchase. It's no american sized treat - but they were cute and I got a baby Ben and Jerry's ice cream so I was excited. The theater itself was filled with awesome leather lounge chairs all sectioned in to two's.  Each seat had a pillow and a blanket and reclined so that you could put your feet up and lay back. Pretty much...amazing.  After the previews (all in English but dubbed in Thai), the national anthem came on.  It always comes on
in every movie and you have to stand or else you look like a jerk. So that was interesting...especially since the country is going through their whole Marshall Law thing. Then the movie started and all was normal. The movie was good...but not $25 good haha.  However, if you're an avid movie-goer, you must have this experience. It was quite unique.

The next day was our touring day. We started the day with breakfast at our fantastic hotel. They had the best buffet ever! Fresh fruit, fresh pastries, real pancakes (most places made crepes instead of American pancakes), and fresh hot dumplings, noodles, and more. It was a dream.  After a big breakfast we caught a cab and went to the Grand Palace Temple, suggestion #1. We paid too much for our cab because they didn't sue the meter (which we learned later) but that was the least of our scamming worries haha.

When we arrived we were approached by a man who seeeeemmmmmeeeeddddd to be really nice. He gave us a map and said that unfortunately the temple didn't open until 12:00 so he suggested that we get a river boat and see the canals. Sounded fun, so we decided to go for it and check off to-do #3. He said that we needed to be sure we told the boat people that we "are living in Thailand", not visiting from the US, and he taught us how to say hello in Thai so that we wouldn't get "scammed".  Then he "called" us a tuk tuk and they dropped us off at a pier to "catch a boat". First thing they said was "hello" and so I answered "Sawasdee ka" (yes!) and Andrew said "Hello!" (no!) and they said "Oh, you speak some Thai"so I had thought I saved us. Then they asked "Where are you from?" and Andrew said "The United States". Fail. There went our we're from here so you can't scam us bit. So we haggled on a price for the boat and though it wasn't as cheap as we probably could have gotten it, Andrew still got it down to a price we were ok with...$20 for the boat ride. And it was a private boat. So we said sure. They took us all around the canals, even to a sad little floating market of 3 boats (haha).  It was pretty neat to see some of these homes on the water...barely being held up by wooden stilts that were eroding.  It lasted for a little under an hour and then they dropped us off at the pier in front of the Grand Palace Temple.

When we got off the boat we realized that though it was fun...we were definitely scammed...so we vowed not to listen to the "nice" people who "offer to help us". We walked through the crowds and little vendors set up along the street and got stopped yet again by someone who said "the temple is closed until 2:30pm, you should go to the blah blah temple instead, it's free today only" and yada yada. "No thank you" I said, as I dragged Andrew away haha. Once finally in the temple, Andrew had to borrow some pants because shorts were not acceptable. Luckily I was fine in what I was wearing.  We toured all around the temple and it was absolutely beautiful. Loved every minute of it! They had lovely paintings on the walls telling stories that I couldn't really understand since I didn't know the history of their religion...still gorgeous though. A few hours later we were pooped, I was getting hangry, and it looked like it was going to rain so we decided to grab some ice cream then head back to the hotel for a shower.  Andrew took to the streets to haggle for a cab that would take his 150 baht but after about 30 minutes of no luck, it started to rain, and luckily we found a tourist stand that called us a cab. It was $5 the first time we took a cab and "haggled" vs. only $2 to go back when the tourist services staff made them use the meter. Now we know.

That night we went out to do activity #2...check out Kaosan Road. Apparently it used to be a crazy time, but now that Marshall Law was enacted, it was pretty tame. It was like all of the other night markets we visited except this time the stuff they were selling was pretty crappy.  Very touristy stuff that didn't seem unique at all which sucked considering I still had people to shop for.  We did a bit of shopping, bought nothing, ate some curry, and got asked multiple times if we wanted to go to a "ping pong show" (ummmmm NO). Andrew got adventurous and ate a scorpion...gross...and then we decided to retire in because the trip was definitely wearing on us...we were so tired...but we still had one more day of adventures before we could call it quits...so off to sleep we went to prepare ourselves for our final day in SE Asia. 

Thailand Tastes So Good

We landed in Chiang Mai, Thailand on the evening of the 25th of October. The week was going to be jam-packed with things to see but we were really pooped so we ended up heading straight to our hotel to rest.  The hotel Andrew picked was lovely. It was called the Raming Lodge and it was central to town, had a delicious breakfast buffet, and best of all it had AIR CONDITIONING and a WARM SHOWER! Something we reallllyyyy missed after our time in Cambodia haha.  We only had 2 full days in Chiang Mai so we had to fit a lot in to the time we were there. The first day we decided to go check out the tigers at Tiger Kingdom, climb to the top of Doi Suthep, and check out the markets.  We walked down the streets, got some cash from an atm,  and found ourselves a taxi that we hired for the day for $30. Not bad.

The first stop was our trip to see the tigers, which I'll talk about in my next post.  After that we headed up to a mountain temple called Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep.  The walk leading up was filled with shops and food stands. After that you hit the 309 steps that lead up to the top of the mountain where the temple is.  Once there, you pay a little bit to get in (30 baht or $1) to the actual temple area.  It was an absolutely gorgeous drive up the mountain and an even more beautiful view from the top.  If you go to Chiang Mai, you must see this temple.  Because we were there in the off season, it wasn't really that busy so that made it extra nice. They had you dress in appropriate attire, covering your legs and shoulders, and you take off your shoes and go in to the actual temple. The walk around it was really lovely. There were bells and statues and all of the decor was so intricate. I love all of the mosaics and how everything was shiny and gold. It was such a gorgeous spot. I felt so alive up there.

On the way down we stopped at some of the food vendors. We got our first street food in Thailand at this spot that was basically a hot waffle on a stick with honey or chocolate on it.  Pretty darn good. Then we headed down the mountain again, back to our hotel.  We showered off the sweat from the day and decided to go check out the Sunday night market. They have lots of markets, all the time, but the Sunday Night Walking Market is the one to beat. It was AMAZING!!!! We started off on the east side and got ourselves a delicious mango drink to sip as we perused through the stands.  It was so big that we couldn't get through the whole thing! It was also ridiculously crowded...like, I was feeling claustrophobic crowded...and I've never felt claustrophobic. Andrew wanted to punch me in the face because I started having a panic attack and made us step off to the side to breathe. However, that step aside lead us to the best street at the market...the street with the FOOD!

I cannot believe how much we ate. We had sticky rice with mango, fresh smoothies, egg rolls, meat on a stick, noodles, and so much more. I can't even remember all of the things we tried. It was the best feeling ever until it finally hit our stomachs and we stalled and determined we needed to sit down. We found a bar a few blocks down that wasn't too busy and had a sit and a drink.  After a while we determined we needed to attempt to do one last round at the shops to try to get the last of our souvenirs. After all of like 10 minutes we were DONE with shopping (mentally, not actually done because we still needed to get a bunch more for family members), so we headed to a bar that a friend of ours recommended called Zoe in Yellow.

It was pretty neat, but it was a slow night (or maybe just too early because it was like 9pm) so we sat in the "beer garden" and each had a beer as we people watched.  There were surprisingly a lot more females than males...and they were horribly dancing...it was pretty funny. Unfortunately we were really tired, so after a short while, we determined we needed to go back to the hotel to sleep. So off we went back to the hotel, passing by the hilarious food stands (ex: Tacos Bell and Burgers Queen haha) until we got back to our nice air conditioned room and passed out. Oh how I love air conditioning...

The next day we rode elephants for the first time. It was a day of mixed feelings...but I'm glad we got to do it. I talk more about it in my next post.  Anyway...after the elephant riding we decided to go out for some Khao Soi, one of the dishes that our Thai friend (who was from Chaing Mai) said that we HAD to try. We ended up at a restaurant that was close by called Dash Teak House. It was a really pretty restaurant with great indoor/outdoor seating. They had a live band that was surprisingly really really good and the food was AMAZING! We decided we wanted to try two restaurants that night because we had limited time in Chiang Mai, so we split an appetizer of bacon wrapped shrimp and then the entree, Khao Soi. Oh my was it the best thing I have ever had. So flavorful! So delicious! And when I think of Thailand, I will forever crave this dish. We were kind of bummed we didn't just stick to eating dinner at this restaurant (because it was so good) but we really wanted to try out a different place that seemed to have a good nightlife feel.  So off we went to restaurant #2 and on the way we ran in to the strangest looking dog I have ever seen.  There are LOTS of dogs around SE Asia and they are all small...like mini sized large dogs...its very strange. However, this was the strangest dog I saw on the trip so I feel it was worth noting.  It was spotted with this long black stripe in the shape of a question mark...weird.  Anyway, after taking pictures of the dog, we arrived at the next spot, Loco Elvis, a Mexican restaurant...yes, I said Loco Elvis...haha.

Loco Elvis was a restaurant we had walked by the night before that seemed to be pretty poppin'. They had a great band playing and it was packed full so we decided we should check it out. We sat outside at a table on the sidewalk and ordered some food. Originally we were going to split something but then each wanted something different so Andrew got a burrito and I got a quesadilla (not expecting much).  It was surprisingly really good for not having much cheese. While we were eating we noticed a flier on our table for a Muay Thai match that was happening that night. It was our last night in Chiang Mai, and Andrew was DYING to see a fight, so we figured, why not?! So we asked our waitress about it and she said they would give us a discount on the tickets and get us a tuk-tuk to get there...$30 later we were SOLD. Around 30 minutes later our tuk-tuk arrived. It was one of the most dangerous ride's I've ever been on (second to riding in the back of a truck in Haiti). These contraptions are ridiculous. The cart where you sit is strapped OVER the motorcycle...not connected by a hinge...it's alllllllll one thing. So when you turn...oh dear, hold on. And did I mention they like going fast? Yikes!!

When we got to the fight we were a bit weirded out haha. There were pretty girls everywhere and they lead us to our seats in the middle of this strange area surrounded by lots of bars. A girl ran and got our drinks really quickly and then we waited for a long time for the fight to finally start. We were thinking it would be packed so we got there early. It ended up being almost full, but we definitely had a while to wait. The atmosphere as I mentioned was pretty strange. One of the bars had GORGEOUS transvestites working there. There were kids walking around trying to sell flowers and leis. Girls were basically running to be the first person to take your drink order.  It was odd. The fight started and I thought we had been jipped and we were at a fake fight because they were clearly rehearsed in their fighting, but apparently its tradition to do a dance before a fight, which was what we were seeing. We watched like 6 rounds of fights, all pretty hard core. No one bit off an ear or anything but it was definitely some real fighting! The final fight was an "international fight" between a Frenchman and a Thai fighter...when he came out Andrew decided it was a waste of time because he sucked haha. So we headed out to get another tuk-tuk and go back to the hotel.

Overall - I would say Chiang Mai had the potential to be my favorite place of the trip. There's something about a mountain city that I just love. The food was great, the markets were great, the people were super nice, and it was a beautiful place.  The city was pretty modern and it was relatively cheap. I feel like it would be a great place to live for a while some day. I definitely plan to come back because 2.5 days were not enough.