Bangkok -
We’re now on our way down to Bali and what kind of twisted person would I be if I didn’t stop in Bangkok and Singapore? We had a little less than 24 hours in both cities before we arrive in Bali. Last year my wife and I spent a little over two weeks in Bangkok, she needed to be there for work and I needed to be there to annoy her. We developed a love/hate relationship with Bangkok, food, massages, the city are all fantastic, but the fact that we are Farang’s means everyone is trying to hassle you but who can blame them. It just gets to you after the 100th time declining a tuk-tuk ride to somewhere you don’t need to go.
We landed in from NRT and were given the buggy to immigration and cleared through the diplomatic line. We had a porter given to us by Thai who got our bags and brought us down to the taxi stand. When we got in the taxi the fun began and the taxi driver refused to use the meter and said how much are you going to pay me? I said I’ll pay what the meter says and just like that we were on our way. We were staying at the Four Points Sukhumvit on Soi sip ha. I had to learn where our hotel was the year before after many nights spent drinking Mekhong, learning Thai helped get me back in one piece.
It took forever to get to the hotel due to traffic. We needed to meet friends at 6pm at their apartment for dinner and we were still on the toll-way at 5pm. Once we arrived at the hotel we quickly exchanged some yen for baht, dropped our bags and freshened up. Since we were going to be in Bangkok only for the night my wife and I wanted to eat street food, particularly on Soi 39. Our friends more importantly the wife had other plans, she wanted to go to some fancy and not so Thai place near their apartment. Guess who won? I’ll give you a hint…it wasn’t us. Both my wife and I were upset and I thought about playing the ‘I’m coming to visit you for one night you could do what I wanted’ but it wasn’t worth the stress.
If you’ve never been to Bangkok this might come as a surprise, however if you have been then you can skip this part. We needed to get over to our friends apartment, we had very little time but they live near the MRT so that was an option. We decided we needed to take a cab so we stood in front of the four points and had them flag a cab(s) down for us. Taxi after taxi just stopped and drove away, the first one that stopped wanted 500THB for the 10 minute ride which is just comical. We eventually found one that would take us the 10 minutes for 100THB.
Once we arrived at our friends, we met their newborn and nanny, we also had some snacks and chatted a bit before we left. Dinner was within ‘walking’ (lies) distance to their apartment. It took us about 30 minutes to find the restaurant and if you’ve been paying attention from the start of this TR I’m not the most fit individual around and while I don’t mind the walking portion I did mind the unbearable heat I was also still pretty upset about where we were going. We just blew our budget in Tokyo on fine dining and the only thing in Bangkok we wanted to do was eat on the ‘cheap’. Well the restaurant we ended up at was expensive for Bangkok, my wife ordered an entire fish I assume by accident and I somehow managed to spend more than her on some piece of meat that was resembled jerky. Laughingly we spent almost 100USD, how? Your guess is as good as mine.
During dinner we got an email from the people we met in the FCT a couple of days before. Remember them? No? well then go back and read…I’ll wait…Ok. Back to the email they wanted to meet for drinks at the Sky Bar (sigh) but the faster I got drinks in me the faster I would forget about dinner and that experience. So we bid our friends a farewell until next time and since there won’t be a next time as they are moving who knows. Grabbing a taxi back to the hotel was shockingly easy and they even used the meter without us asking! Once again when we got back to the hotel we had little time, so I took the quickest shower of my life and threw on some nice clothes as I had a feeling this bar might be fancy?
Once again we needed to taxi it over, and re-living this in my head I wonder if the taxi drivers didn’t like the people at the four points? After 6 or so taxis we finally got one that agreed to take us over on meter. The drive was uneventful and we managed to get to tower that the bar was in. Once we found the elevator it became apparent that this would be full of Farang and not the typical Thai experience where I enjoy a bottle of Mekhong. We were standing trying to figure out how exactly we would contact our new friends as we didn’t have their number and only an email address. As luck would have it we literally bumped into them. They quickly broke the news that we wouldn’t be enjoying the Sky Bar on this particular night due to a poor choice in the footwear department. I’ll never understand the reason behind five-finger shoes as the last time I was in a gym was to purchase a soda, but I digress. We needed to quickly formulate a plan b. The bar at the Four Points was fairly Farangish so that’s where we decided to go. We took the elevator down and somehow got off on the wrong floor and were greeted by another bar in the hotel somewhere by the pool. A quick decision was made to get drunk instead of attempting to go back to our hotel. We sat, chatted and drank for hours until last call was announced. We parted ways and agreed to do what any person does in our day in age and ‘facebooklinkedintwitter’ each other when we got back the states.
We arrived back to the hotel and we needed to pack and get ready for the next day’s trip down to my favorite city in the world; Singapore.