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!