The lyrics of the 1984 song “One Night in Bangkok” by Murray Head perfectly captures the spirit of visiting Bangkok (and Thailand). I was lucky enough to visit Thailand and experience it myself a few days ago. I was there for 9 days but was working for 3 days in the middle. We (Jani and Me) flew out from Bangalore on Saturday morning which in itself was quite exciting. I had to come home from Whitefield to pickup my luggage and then drive to the Airport. For some reason I couldn’t get any cabs from the office at the time so had to book a shared cab instead which went all over the place and I wasn’t sure if I would make it home on time but luckily I did make it back and was there at the Airport in plenty of time to catch the flight.
The flight was nothing special so not much to say about it. We got to Bangkok early in the morning and since Jani was there for a conference and was a panelist we got the VIP treatment. There was a lady from the conference waiting right outside the flight door and escorted us through the entire process of immigration, baggage pickup etc. Once we collected our luggage there was a car waiting for us to take us to the Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park hotel which was sponsoring a 3D/2N luxury experience for the Panelist (I got to tag along without having to do anything which was great 😉 ).
We reached there early in the morning and once we had breakfast we just crashed for a bit since it had been a long few days before the flight. The hotel was great and the facilities were very comfortable. We didn’t do much the first day except walk around the hotel for a bit but the next day we had some fun activities. I got to make a traditional Thai dish that I couldn’t sample because it had shrimp/Fish oil in it. However the chef did give me alternate ingredients to use when I got home. I can imagine all of you who know me well shaking their heads at the idea of me cooking something but it was an interesting experience.
What we cooked
At lunch since I was the only vegetarian in the group I got served a special meal. I have to say that the staff went out of their way to make sure I had a great experience. Although there were times when I felt a bit discriminated against as you can see in the photograph below where the white bowl at the bottom of the pic is the bowl in which I was served soup and the big silver dish in front of Jani is what the rest of the folks were served in.
What vegetarians got vs what the rest got
On Monday we moved to the Centara Grand and Bangkok Convention Center at Central World which is where the conference was being held. We visited the ‘Uno Mas’ restaurant near the top of the hotel and the views were amazing. Not much happened for the next few days as Jani was busy with the conference and I was busy at work. Below is my ‘office’ during the stay there and as you can see it was an great place to work from. I did consider working from the pool side but that would have been too distracting and too hot to be a feasible option.
My Office in Thailand
The hotel has a great bar/restaurant on the roof called the Redsky and because we had heard such great reviews we decided to have dinner there one night and even though the cost was a bit on the higher side it was worth it because the views were spectacular and the drinks were quite nice as well. We were there for a few hours and the time flew. Plus they don’t have the idiotic shutdown at 11:30 that Bangalore has during weekdays so we could stay there as long as we wanted. I did get Jani to try out Blue cheese and she absolutely hated it. I have a lovely video of her trying to control her expression after eating it but in the end she made such amusing disgusted expressions that I was on the floor laughing. (Ping me if you want to see the video 😉 )
Dinner at Red Sky
Having drinks on the rooftop
Bangkok skyline
Bangkok skyline Part 2
On Friday we took a city tour of Bangkok starting early in the morning which in retrospect was a mistake as Bangkok is a city that is dead during the day for the most part as everyone is sleeping, nights are when the city actually comes alive. Inspite of that the Golden Buddha temple and the other sites were quite spectacular. Unfortunately since we were a bit strapped for time we didn’t stop at the flower market but rather just drove through it. We did but a few souvenirs but for the most part refrained from shopping.
The Golden Buddha
The Golden Buddha
Shortly afterwards we bid farewell to Bangkok to drive over to Pattaya for the remainder of the trip. We got in touch with Sunny from Sunny online Travel who helped us plan out our itinerary for the last few days of the trip. He went above and beyond to suggest things to do and places to see within our budget. Thanks to him we didn’t have to worry a bit about what to do and where to go in Pattaya. If you are in the neighborhood do visit him and he will ensure that you have a great experience at a reasonable cost. To give you an idea of his hospitality he personally picked us up from the hotel and drove us to see the Alcazar Show and then drove us back to the hotel once the show was done. In all my years of travel I can’t remember any other guide doing this without charging a ridiculous price for it.
The Alcazar Show was an amazing experience, and I have to be honest that initially I was a bit skeptical about going to a lady boy show but the show was so tastefully done that I was floored by the experience. I wish I could have taken pics with all the staff but that wasn’t possible. But we did manage to get a pic with one of the main stars and she was super nice about it.
Pic with the leading lady
After the show Sunny dropped us at the Walking Street which is one of the biggest and busiest party hotspots in Thailand so that we could explore the nightlife. There was a ton of great pubs/bars/exotic dancers in the street and it was a very different experience for other such party places in the world that I have seen in the past. We walked around for a while and then it looked like it was going to rain so we started walking back to the hotel and just as we were about a third of the way there it started pouring. As Jani always carries an umbrella in her humongous purse we didn’t get too wet but for a while it felt like someone was pouring water on us with a bucket.
Walking Street
Once we made it back to the hotel we crashed early as we had a hectic day planned. We started the day with a visit to the Floating market of Pattaya where we were one of the first people to get there and the iconic floating shops were still in the process of setting up. In a way it was good because as the place was still starting up there was not much stink and it wasn’t very crowded either. We started of with a canoe ride to the other side of the market where we checked out some cool shops and interesting items for sale. We walked around the whole market and attended a few shows like a monkey show that kept things interesting. They also had a zipline which looked interesting so we did a round on the lines. Due to the fact that we were there early in the day we didn’t have any queues anywhere which was great.
The Floating Market
All dressed up in traditional dresses
After we were done with the market we went over to Nong nooch tropical Botanical garden which was ok, nothing too special. There was an hour long cultural show which honestly felt boring especially after having been to the Alcazar show. The pots and the garden there was quite nice but in my opinion we could have spent that time at the floating market and enjoyed it more.
After the garden we drove over to the marine Underwater world and it was good. A bit of a let down after having seen the one in Europe in summer but still quite nice overall. If I hadn’t seen the one in Europe I would have def been wow’d by it. Fun fact was that Jani spent most of the time telling me about which of the exhibits she had eaten already, in the end I had to tell her to only tell me about the ones she hadn’t yet eaten and that list was a lot shorter 🙂
After the exhibit we drove over to Ripley’s Believe it or Not and we did all 7 exhibits. I liked most of them except for Tussaud Wax works which wasn’t too great. The horror rides were great fun though Jani did manage to confuse everyone in the cast by keeping her eyes closed throughout both the haunted ride & haunted house. Unfortunately I listened to her and didn’t get the photo they had taken of us and now regret that decision. Ah well.. The next time I am taking the pics no matter what. This visit concluded our day so we headed back to the hotel and it started raining again… But we weren’t in the mood to do much so we just crashed as the next day we had an even earlier start to go Diving :).
The next day we again woke up early to go diving with the nice folks from the Jomtien Dive Center. They picked us up from the hotel and then we sailed for about an hour and half to get to the first diving spot. The water was a bit muddy but we did manage to see some great sea life. Lots of sea urchins and fishes. After the first dive we had lunch and got to our second spot where we dived again, this spot was a lot better with more sea life and corals etc. I did see some sea horses as well which was quite cool. Both dives were approximately 45 mins each (which is the usual length for a recreational dive). The entire thing took us the most part of the day so once we got back to shore we walked about a bit and then called it a night.
Pic on the boat, on the way to the diving spot
Shot of me in water (I am the one in the center)
On our final day in Pattaya we again got up early (which is something I would like to avoid in future trips) and started the drive back to Bangkok. Since our flight back was at night we stopped at the Jungle safari where we spent the entire day walking around in the heat to see the various animals. It was quite fun but I really didn’t like the heat and would have prefered to be in an AC car or something. Still the birds & animals we saw were worth the effort so… There were quite a lot of shows highlighting the various species so it was fun.
Front row seats for the seals show
Entry to the park (Apparently it was quite stinky)
Once we were done with the safari we drove to the airport and bid adieu to Thailand for a flight back. I would want to go back again for a longer trip so that I can explore the rest of the country but probably will travel to other countries first. I took quite a lot of photos (~600) so I am not going to be posting them, although Jani has posted the highlights on Facebook so if you are interested you can check them out there.
I finally finished this post just about a month after I made the trip which is all thanks to Jani for bugging me everyday about the blog. This is all for now, will write more later.
– Suramya
