SQTraveller

Thanks for waiting ....

I only made the decision to stay at the Grand Mercure a couple of weeks beforehand so this review is going to be incredibly short. You can read the outbound trip report here. And then I had to make a last minute hotel booking. After much umming and ahhhing, I decided to go for the Grand Mercure Bangkok Asoke Residence for the price and almost unbeatable location (or so I thought).

The Mercure is part of the Accor Group, and as my neverending hunt for status, I decided that I wanted to start building Accor status. However, this trip was such a splash and dash that I really had a few important things to do and price and location were my highest priorities. Was this the best deal? Probably not, but I found the location decent and for about S$100 per night it wasn’t too bad.

As I mentioned previously, to get to the hotel, you can take the Airport Rail Link, a bus or go by taxi. Normally I take the Airport Rail Link (here is a guide from November 2015 on how to use the ARL). And on this trip it was no different as it was rush hour. The Airport Rail Link is at the basement of Suvarnabhumi Airport. As mentioned before, you need to just keep going down the escalators until you can’t go any further. Then you need find your way to the centre of that level and you will find a downward slope towards the ticket office and gates.

The Grand Mercure Bangkok Asoke Residence is located near Asoke station and to get there I decided to take the ARL all the way from Suvarnabhumi Airport station to Phaya Thai where you change for the Sukhumvit line. From there is about 6 stops (in the direction of On Nut) before you get to Asok.

Alternatively, you can go to Makkasan and change to the MRT at Phetchaburi and take one stop to Sukhumvit. Here you can walk to Asok.



There is a tuk tuk service that goes from the hotel to Robinson, which is right opposite Terminal21. Seems odd to me that they don’t go to Terminal 21, doesn’t it?

The schedule is pretty much every half our from 9.30 to 4pm (weekdays) and until 5.30pm (weekends). Like I said in my review on the Centre Point Chidlom, what’s the point in stopping the tuk tuk service at that time?!

Clearly people want to use the BTS and yet you stop the service so early? If someone is working and takes the BTS back, they may not get back to the BTS station until 6 or 7. Strange. What do you think?



LOCATION

Now my understanding was that the hotel was reasonably conveniently located to the Asoke BTS. However, having arrived there, I realise that it wasn’t that convenient. Of course if I am walking without luggage there is no problem, but when dragging my luggage, it was a bit of a distance. As everyone knows, the pavements are not really that easy to use. And often there are no pavements!!!

Nevertheless, if you are not encumbered by luggage you can easily get on a moto-taxi for betwen THB10-20 (30-60 cents) — in 2016 prices, which is pretty quick and convenient. Don’t let them go beyond 20THB.

They will drive you from the hotel to Terminal 21 which is where Asoke BTS is located.

This is obviously a review of the Grand Mercure Bangkok Asoke Residence, but in the interests of fairness, I would say that if you have the cash and want superb connectivity, you might consider the Grande Centre Point Terminal 21 which is super convenient and (at least at the lobby area) looks really really nice!! I might stay here next time to give you guys the review of the whole place!!

ROOM

There are a number of different room available at the hotel.

Apparently I was upgraded from the SUPERIOR SUITE to the DELUXE SUITE. The only discernible difference between the two was that one was 71 m² the other was 80 m², and both had the normal range of in room amenities (this is an abridged version of what they show on the website):

AC
Safe deposit box
Free in-room mineral water
Telephone
Radio
Opening windows
TV
Wi-Fi and ethernet cable
Full kitchen with Microwave and Coffee/tea making facilities
At the far end of the room are windows that open onto the balcony. I realise that I didn’t take a photo, and that was because, well the balcony sucked. It was so small you had to really squeeze to get out there!

The quality of the tv is only as good as quality of the cameras the shows are shot with. But with most programs it was decent. I do wish that all productions could switch to HD as I can video high quality videos on my smart phone than some of these shows have (of course some of these shows are a bit older).

The bed was pretty comfortable, that is to say I found it comfortable. It might be a bit hard for others, but



The bedroom was adjoined to a living space, which I hardly used. Except in the couple of hours before I checked out. It was very spacious and pretty well appointed.



BATHROOM

The bathroom was quite standard, but as you can see from the picture, the shower was huge!!! When I say huge, I mean it was actually way too big. A bit like SQ business class seats on the A380. In fact, I think a better use of space would have been the installation of a concrete/marble bench to sit on.



Swimming pool and Fitness Area



The pool is out doors and unheated. It is on the same level as the fitness centre…



The gym is small. The above picture is pretty much all there is. There is also a very very small area for stretching and some water. Nice and clean at least. Probably because there aren’t that many people who use it, but it doesn’t smell at all.

What’s better after a work out? Some ice and soft drinks of course

Actually this on the same level as the pool so I kinda get this. It’s base on an honour system, which is pretty interesting.



Now they claim to have golf, tennis and a running track but I suspect the former two are not on site, but I didn’t get a good look around. The jogging track was also missing but again I didn’t look enough around the hotel to find it.

I had picked up quite lot of things to take to Singapore so decided to take a cab to the airport. And boy is it expensive!!! About THB 300 for the cab and then about THB75 for the tolls.


Next up is my review of Angsila Seafood restaurant... definitely worth visiting!


You can see also read the hotel review here and all my other travel and food adventures on the globetrekka blog

SQTraveller

This is one of those reviews I’m not that I should be writing as selfishly I don’t want too many people flocking here.

Angsila Seafood Restaurant is a bit further out of town and you really need to know where you are going. However, if you give the location to your hotel reception they should be able to sort you out with a taxi that will take you directly there. Bear in mind that if you are travelling along Sukhumvit you will probably want to give yourself extra time given the traffic.

Bear in mind that this restaurant is not near public transport at all. Put it in perspective it’s about a 10-15minute walk from Mega Bangna — and anyone who knows Bangkok (and Thailand in general), walking is not entirely recommended on major roads.

Personally I like to take public transport nearby and then take a taxi. This means you avoid the traffic on Sukhumvit Road.

If that’s what you want to do, make your way to On Nut BTS and look for The Verve apartment (which is at exit one)



Make your way down and take a taxi. This is the journey I took via car



Call them ahead of time to make sure they are open on any given night or else you will be disappointed, but they are usually open every day from 11am to 8pm. Yes. It shuts at 8pm, so you late eaters out there, be warned.

What follows are the photos of the food. However, you must bear in mind that these were taken on more than one occassion! I eat a lot, but not this much. All my previous experiences with this restaurant were at night, but on this trip, I went when they first opened at 11am on a Saturday.

Steamed crab legs



Crab roll



Interesting mix of crab rolls and something else



Stir fried fish



Prawns with pepper corns



Crab Cake



Crab fried rice



Salted egg squid



Crab curry



Deep fried fish



Prawns with beans. This was the offering when I asked for vegetables.



Don’t forget your vegetables! And this was the second attempt to getting them to serve just vegetables.



With salted fish — very salted fish!!! HAHA



This is a coconut based desert. Annoyingly small dishes … and it’s very very moreish!!! It’s apparently kha-nom-thuai … but I can’t guarantee it

Anyway, it was being prepped outside the restaurant so just go and grab some!!







If you enjoyed this post, you can read it in the native environment on my globetrekka page . Subscribe to my blog so you can get all the latest stories.

SQTraveller

First I want to apologise for not updating this very quickly. I am currently on the road so updates are a lot slower than usual. Of course you can keep up to date on the globetrekka blog - please feel free to subscribe!

Mah Boon Krong or MBK as it is known among regulars is one of the large shopping malls in Bangkok. When you visit here you will see a mix of both locals as well as tourists who are looking for good deals and wide choices. Bangkok has been experiencing a mall building boom of late but many of these new malls are typically more upmarket and cater less to the ordinary tourist. Mah Boon Krong is one of the older malls (opened in the mid 1980s) and hence the target audience is not at the top end of the shopping spectrum.

It is very close to Siam Square and you can get there by BTS Skytrain at the National Stadium. It is also apparently within walking distance of Siam station but I have never gone from there so I can’t really say. At National Stadium BTS, you need to take Exit 4 to MBK Center.

I generally make a small side trip here every trip, but my most recent trip was Singapore Airlines SQ978 staying at Grand Mercure Asoke Residence.

There is also a previous post on places to visit in and around Bangkok which will give readers a bit more of an idea of things to do.

TOP TIP: EVERYTHING IS NEGOTIABLE (except the food)



MBK really needs a whole day to wander around, there are shops, restaurants, massage shops, electronic vendors and trinket sellers. There are the standard shops and also there is a bazaar.

I realise that this is not a comprehensive review of MBK, so I apologise to everyone for not going into detail for you.

This is in a warren of shops which is set up in a bazaar type layout. I said before everything in MBK can be bargained for, and especially here. Bear in mind that 25% reduction is the price you should be targeting. For those of you who hate bargaining, this is really a bad place for you. The mark ups are high because they expect you to bargain. Having been raised in the West where bargaining is of the “what’s your best price? oh ok” type. The attitude here is to really go for it.



For those who tell you that there are hard and fast rules about bargaining, the only rule I would say is “if you are comfortable and happy with the price, then accept it”. For example, I wanted to buy something, so I went to the first shop, and asked how much. They give me a price. I then ask for their best price. Usually it’s cut by 10%, that means I know I can probably take it down another 10% easy. I left the shop and wandered around looking for other places selling a similar product (and there are lots of those) and basically did what they call in financial markets “price discovery”. Basically trying to find where every shops price range is.

It turns out the first shop was the one offered the best price and I returned there, to complete the deal. Now my own method is to look for something else in the shop I want and then negotiate the package price. So I might get a 20% discount on one thing, but could get a 25-30% discount on the product I really want.

My best shop is this one call Thai Fruit which basically sells dried fruit and also dried meat. Really worth taking a look at.



Food being served at random locations



While the above places serve snacks, the main deal is at the food court on level 5. They call it The Fifth food avenue.



There are plenty of places to sit so don’t worry about finding somewhere if you are travelling alone. However, if you are travelling in a group, my best piece of advice, is to find a table with the right number of empty seats and then have on person sit there while everyone else gets their food.



There is also a department store called Tokyu covering 4 (?) floors which has a wide variety of the normal department store wares.

The full post is available here

SQTraveller

Since the flight was later in the day, and I was in no rush, I considered taking the Airport Rail Link as opposed to taking a bus or taxi (here is a guide from November 2015 on how to use the ARL) to get back to the airport. Of course my previous note only talks about the trip from the Airport to the city, I was taking the opposite journey. However, as I had picked up quite lot of things to take to Singapore so decided to take a cab to the airport from the Grand Mercure Bangkok Asoke Residence where I had been staying for this trip. And boy is it expensive!!! About THB 300 for the cab and then about THB75 for the tolls.



Check in was quick and efficient, and didn’t involve any FAST self check kiosks (see outbound trip report Singapore – Bangkok flight on SQ978 for the hilarity of fast FAST kiosks). Normal check in desks work perfectly fine, thank you very much.



Since I didn’t have lounge access I just went shopping and then trundled to the gate. Yes, despite already being over loaded with goodies, I did what any self respecting person does, buy more stuff.



When I got to the gate, my ride wasn’t there. Disappointing in some ways, but it meant that I had the opportunity watch the plane arrive at the gate which I kinda like to see.



Fortunately she finally made it to the stand, and the turnaround race began. It’s always impressive to watch the co-ordination that goes into this. Like a dance that just needs on thing to fail and it all fails.



Soon enough, the boarding commenced and we were off!! I always find boarding really very very interesting, especially when they start calling by section/rows/class. Though who knows what was going on really? People were just wafting past the staff and not even showing their boarding passes.

SQ979 BKK-SIN
June 2016
Airbus A330-300
Class: Economy
Estimated duration: 2hr 25mins
Actual duration: 2hr 23mins
Scheduled Departure: 18:30
Actual Departure: 18:46
Scheduled Arrival: 21:55
Actual Arrival: 10:09
Plane registration: 9V-SSB
EIS: April 2014

My window seat. I stupidly hadn’t checked in on line until the very last minute and realised no aisle seats were available. This error was made even worse by the fact I felt sick and wanted to be able to make the toilet dash if need be.

Fortunately the SQ A330 has only two seats on the side of the cabin so it would mean only having to inconvenience one passenger.

This leg of my trip report can be found at m, while all my trip reports and other travel musings can be

I love these kinds of photos if I can get an opportunity to shoot them. Sunset at pushback time. The mix of bright yellow-orange colours is pretty magical, and I think it looks good reflecting off the wing.



They served me my special meal. This time it was non-seafood. What this meant, was dry-ish chicken with some tomato sauce to try to make it a bit more palatable. I like the spinach though. Always happy to have a bit spinach.



Unfortunately as they were serving dinner, the pilot came over the speaker and basically warned us that there was turbulence ahead as well as the plane probably being late. This was due to thunderstorms over Singapore. Of course as you can imagine, the actual duration was still shorter than the scheduled duration by SQ. But when compared with the other SQ979 flights, this was was significantly longer.

As we descended we hit several patches of turbulence. One in particular was the type that makes the plane feel like it’s dropping out of the sky. That led to some screams from fellow passengers. Of course this does nothing for motion sickness, of which I am prone. This lead to me having a nauseating headache for the final 30mins of the flight.

What made the circling and landing particularly difficult was I was feeling a bit under the weather and there were two guys in front of me talking to the cabin crew, which I think is a good thing. Treat them like they are humans rather than just automatons. However, with my raging headache it really wasn’t what I needed. And then they started talking about inappropriate things, like where to pick up women and other such exciting topics. Bear in mind that this was on the front row EMEX seat so just across the aisle were kids. Anyway maybe my throbbing headache made me more sensitive to these kinds of discussions. Do you think I was being overly sensitive?

Anyway, after landing, I thought that would be the end of my troubles. No, we obviously landed, at what appeared to be the furthest point away from the gate, and it took us another 20mins to get to the gate.

Finally, disembarkation was fairly swift as was immigration and luggage pick up. I made my way to the almost empty taxi rank and got into a blue cab. After my nausea inducing flight, I had to sit in the front of the cab!


This leg of my trip report can be found on my blog