Last Day in Bangkok

I am sad to say that this is the last post recapping our Thailand trip. Did you miss any posts? Here they are:

Overview

Christmas in Koh Samui

Temples around Chiang Mai

Baan Thai Cookery School

Sunday Night Walking Market

Riding Elephants

New Year's Eve

Floating Market

Wat Arun

Chinatown, Bangkok


Our hotel at the end of our trip in Bangkok was absolutely spectacular. It was the Grand Millennium Sukhumvit. I would say that is the best thing about Thailand, you get SO much for your money. A hotel this nice would never be in our budget if it were in Europe or America. It was nice to live a life of luxury for two days.

On our last evening there we went out to eat and then decided to go to a rooftop bar. We had read that it was a must to see the city from a rooftop at night, but we wanted to avoid the touristy ones, like the Sky Bar. We did our research and ended up finding Above Eleven, a rooftop restaurant close to our hotel. We took a quick cab ride down the street instead of walking, and ended up getting lost. We ended up walking more than we would have if we had just walked in the first place. After we finally found it, we were not disappointed. It has the coolest atmosphere. I felt so hip from the moment I walked in. The walls of the bathroom (not in the stalls) were entirely made of windows so that you could see the entire city. There were three different levels, each of them with a slightly different vibe. They had a swanky live band playing. It was somewhat crowded, but we were able to find seats on the very top level. The views really were awesome and I would say it is definitely worth seeing, especially if you don't go to big cities often. 

After that we spent awhile listening to a live band play at a cool restaurant down the street. They were taking requests and no one was giving any, so we requested a few songs and to our surprise, they knew most of them. It was so much fun and we wanted to stay for hours. 

The next day we slept in and then went to the breakfast buffet for the last time. Our flight wasn't until 2 AM, so we had quite a lot of time to kill, so we hung out in the room until we had to check out. Once we were checked out, we went across the street to a mall. We were shocked. It was the largest mall we have ever seen. It was seven stories high and each level had a different city as a theme. There were so many shops and restaurants, it was so overwhelming. Jake and I walked around for hours looking at things, and I still don't think we saw it all. We contemplated what to eat for a really long time. Jake was over Thai food, so we decided to get ramen. We were laughing at ourselves that we couldn't even make it back to Okinawa before we wanted ramen again. The chef of the restaurant was a world-famous ramen chef, so we didn't feel too bad. And the ramen did not disappoint. 

We didn't have much else to do after that, so we decided to just head to the airport. Once we were there, we found out that they would not let you check-in until 90 minutes before your flight. There were hardly any seats in that area of the airport, and everyone was waiting around miserably. Finally, we were allowed to go back to our gate. We had a layover in Hong Kong where we took naps in the wonderful lounge chairs, then it was home sweet home. Poor Jake, though. As soon as we landed he broke out in a sweat and his eyes were bloodshot. We had to stop at our friend's house on our way home so he could throw up. We ended up getting home late that evening and the next morning Jake had to leave for a work trip to South Korea at 5 am. I'm not quite sure how he held it together, because we were pretty certain he had a very bad case of food poisoning. Lesson learned, don't eat chili dogs at an airport Dairy Queen in another country.

Overall, it was an incredible trip. We experienced so much and learned so much about ourselves and the Thai culture. We would not hesitate to go back given the opportunity. And not to brag, but I was pretty proud of my trip planning skills. I planned everything myself, which I had never done before, and everything went without a hitch. All of our hotels were great and we stayed in budget. I can't wait to start planning our next trip! Any suggestions of where we should go next?? 

Linking up with Bonnie and Tina for Travel Tuesday!

Chinatown, Bangkok

We started our Thailand trip by flying into Bangkok. We got in late that evening and the hotel I had booked us was all the way in the middle of downtown. We needed to be by the train station because our train for Koh Samui left the next day. Come to find out, our cute little hotel was right across the street form the train station. Our hotel was the cutest and very swanky. Our room was small and the bed was hard, but it was ok for a couple hours of sleep. We woke up to a wonderful buffet breakfast and stunning views of the city. We had a couple of hours to kill before our train so we decided to walk down the street to Chinatown. This was our first impressions of Bangkok and Thailand. We were a bit overwhelmed. There were cars and motorbikes weaving around everywhere making it hard to even cross the road. We were harassed constantly to get into tuk tuks or buy something. Chinatown was a hit to our senses. There were so many colors and smells and sounds. The most common thing we saw were carts full of fresh fruit juice. We were very hesitant about street food at first, so we didn't try any. As we walked down the streets, we also noticed tons of gold shops, ducks hanging from the ceiling, big pots of something cooking, pig skins, and spices. We were a little overwhelmed by the crowd of people, but we were so excited to be there that we just tried to go with the flow. It was fun to get out of the touristy part of Chinatown and go into the back alleys where the locals do their day to day shopping. It was an interesting day and a good introduction to Thai culture. 

Our cute hotel

ducks

We decided to get some roast duck and dim sum for lunch. The duck wasn't bad, just not something I would eat often. 

Linking up with Bonnie and Tina for Travel Tuesday!

Wat Arun, Bangkok

After we went to the Floating Market near Bangkok, our taxi driver took us to Wat Arun. I hadn't done much research on it, but the taxi driver said it was worth a look. The traffic was horrible getting there and I began to think that maybe we should just skip it. We finally made it, and I am so glad we did not skip it. It was so interesting and had beautiful views of the city from the top. We unfortunately didn't make it to the Grand Palace or to take a ride on the Chao Phraya, but more reason to go back to Thailand one day.

The main part of the Wat Arun was undergoing a bit of construction, but we were still able to climb up the steep stairs to the top. There were so many beautiful details, I spent some time examining it up close. The temples surrounding it were incredibly beautiful as well. Every square inch was made out of delicate, colorful stone. It is crazy to think of how many hours were put into creating such beauty.

Steepest stairs ever!

From far away, it just looked like grey rock. Up close, it was color and intricate.

Many people skip this site in Bangkok, because it is across the river and hard to get to, but I would definitely recommend going!

Linking up with Bonnie and Tina for Travel Tuesday!

Floating Market, Thailand

After our New Year's Eve in Chiang Mai, we got up early and headed to the airport just to be delayed for three hours. I had only scheduled us in Bangkok for one day at the beginning of our trip and one and half day at the end of our trip because I knew we would get sick of it pretty quickly. By the time we got to our hotel in Bangkok, we were exhausted. Our hotel was absolutely incredible, one of the nicest hotels either of us had ever stayed in. We took advantage of our comfortable bed and took a nap and then went down the the buffet in the hotel's restaurant. We pretty much wasted one of our days in Bangkok, but we were ok with it.

We were back and forth on whether we should go to the floating market. I loved all of the pictures I had seen, but it was an hour away and a lot of reviews had said that it was not worth it. We decided to call the front desk to see what they suggested. They told us that the tours are a waste of money, but that we could rent a taxi for $60 and it would be ours all day and we could go wherever we wanted. We thought that this would be a good idea, so we booked it.

The cab came and picked us up in the morning and took us an hour outside of Bangkok to the town where the popular Damnoen Saduak floating market was. We pulled into an area that was not the floating market and we were slightly confused. Our cab driver introduced us to some very interesting people and told us they would help us get a boat to the floating market. They sat us down and quoted us $50 a person. We were in shock! We did not know we had to pay an extra $100 just to get to the floating market by speed boat. At this point, we were mad we had driven all the way out there and now were getting scammed. We told the cab driver and he said, "Oh, I didn't know you didn't want to do the 2 hour tour on a speed boat. I can just take you to the market." Ok sir, that is what we wanted in the first place. They were obviously in cahoots.

We finally arrived at the floating market where we were able to walk around the foot market, look at the floating market from above, and rent a rowed boat for $5. We were so happy to have finally figured it out and that we didn't let them scam us. We joked that it wouldn't be a Thailand trip without someone trying to scam us at least once.

The boat ride was a lot of fun and a bit scary. It was hectic on the waterway, with boats going in every direction. We were rammed multiple times and were afraid we were going to capsize. We weaved in and out of the different waterways looking at all of the souvenir shops lining the sides and looking at fruits and prepared foods in the boats surrounding us. The souvenir shops had giant hooks and would hook your boat and pull you over so you could look at their stuff. Funny and interesting, but it was harder to ignore the pestering this way.

The souvenirs were pretty much the same as they are all over Thailand. They were a bit more expensive, though. We were really tempted by some beautiful paintings, but we knew getting it home  wasn't realistic. There were also fruits and vegetables being sold in boats rowed by cute old women. There were lots of boats selling the typical coconut drinks and mango and sticky rice. There were boats of women making food in giant woks. It was interesting to see people sitting on chairs on the side of the waterway and getting food from a boat.

Overall, the reviews are correct. It is not entirely filled with boats topped with beautiful fruits and vegetables like it was many years back. It has become super touristy and is mostly centered around the sale of souvenirs. There are still some boats with beautiful fruit, but they are few and far in-between. I am still very glad we went. It was so interesting to see and it was a lot of fun. I would recommend it to anyone who is considering it, but I would recommend not taking the expensive speedboat tour. The $60 taxi for the day was such a good deal, because he took us wherever we wanted to go for the entire day!

Linking up with Bonnie and Tina for Travel Tuesday!