Bangkok

Early Flights - Savings With Penalties

If you want to try to avoid extra days off from work, or if you wish to lower your transportation costs by getting a cheap, unpopular flight you can pick ones in the early morning or late at night.  But this seems to defeat either the purpose of cost-reduction, or the purpose of the trip - to explore and/or relax.  We took a very early morning flight to Bangkok.  It was quite cheap, saved us from taking Friday off, but it also ruined our first day in Thailand.  We were too tired to do anything as a group (us, and Connie's aunt and uncle).

Our hotel would not let us checkin before 11am, so we decided to drop our bags and start exploring/relaxing.  We found the pool and toured the grounds, then went outside to look for breakfast - a street vendor who fried an egg over rice on-demand.  We found a nearby 7-11 for some sundry items, and got oriented (found the nearest Skytrain station, and the main artery that is Silom road).  After this, Connie, Lizzy and Uncle were done for the day.  Auntie and I went for a walk to the nearest bank of the Chao Phraya river for some boat gazing, ducking in and out of street markets along the way.


Bangkok is a very developed city and it is undergoing some modern urbanization projects (like establishing a mass transit system).  In areas along the newly-built Skytrain there are wires everywhere above and along the sidewalks, and some look downright exposed and dangerous.  There are street vendors everywhere, selling drinks, fruits, mango salads, satay meats, and all manner of stuff.  Near hotels and tourist attractions there are many tuk-tuk drivers bothering everyone to take their cab.

In the evening we met ex-Bloomberg colleagues of ours who are now stationed there - the husband, John, works for the State Department.  We had a Chinese banquet meal at Paragon mall.  This is one of the nicest malls I've ever been to, and Singapore has its fair share.  Lizzy really enjoyed the company of their 5-year-old daughter, Heather, and spent the rest of the trip and some of the following days begging us to reunite them.  As I'm writing this, two weeks later, she has just woken up from sleep screaming that she wants to go to Thailand...

What's a Wat?

The following day we woke up early to fill up on breakfast buffet and take a semi-guided tour of three of the city's many and varied Wats or Temples.  The first was Wat Traimit, an old Chinatown temple complex with a brand, new shrine built to house a Buddha statue made of 5.5-tons of gold - the world's most valuable sacred object.  Lizzy and Connie earned merit by getting a monk to splash them with sticks dipped in holy water, buy some flowers and incense as offerings, ring bells, and throw money into a large urn.

Next we visited Wat Pho (also know as Wat Phra Chettuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Ratchaworamahawihan, but why?).  It holds a huge reclining Buddha and a mind-boggling attraction made of buckets where you can throw in fake money you buy with real money - ie earn merit.  The buckets are lined against the wall, and the coins are dropped one by one in a long procession, and when lots of people are playing this game, this holy temple sounds like the winingest casino in Vegas... Lizzy liked it.  I am still trying to find out the meaning of it all.  The vast temple grounds are also really interesting, with loads of Buddhist statues and symbols, and beautiful tombs as well.

Finally, we walked through the well-kept grounds of Wat Benchamabophit - the Marble Temple.  I'm not sure we earned any merit here.  We played the collection of drums in the courtyard nearby, which I think counts...

We also managed to go on a short canal tour - off the Chao Phraya.  The canals wind around people's backyards, where some have setup shop to sell this and that.  We saw a small crocodile on one house's fence, and we bought some bread from one of the sellers to feed catfish congregated just for this purpose in the canal in front of their home.

After a short rest back in the hotel we went out to see Siam Niramit - a cultural/historical/fantasy extravaganza.  The production quality left something to be desired, and the story-line was not at all clear or educational.  But the staging was nice, some bits like an underwater scene were even spectacular, and it had something for everyone.  One part (a scene depicting hell) was a bit scary for Lizzy, but after each act and curtain drop she demanded more - "there's another one... another one..."

This was a very full day.

Shopping

We spent half the following day at MBK mall for some bargain-shopping.  We did not bring a stroller with us and by mid-midday Lizzy was going crazy (as was I)...  We had a nice lunch (tom yum, satay, rice and vegetables), waited out a rainstorm, and headed back to the hotel.  We spent the afternoon soaking sun pool-side.  We met Heather and her family for dinner again, and the girls spent some time at a kiddie arcade together.  Lizzy liked whack-a-mole.

Ascott - Travel 2 Cents

The Ascott Group is a Singapore-based chain of serviced apartment properties with locations all over South East Asia.  We first stayed at one for our temporary stay through my company when we moved to Singapore.  For our last two trips (4 adults, 1 child) we've booked 2-BR apartments instead of getting 2 rooms in a hotel.  This comes out a lot cheaper and you get a proper living room, dining room and kitchen.  We highly recommend serviced-apartments as a primary choice for families travelling in this region.  We plan to continue travelling this way ourselves.

We spent the last hours of our trip in the lap of luxury that is breakfast at the Bangkok Sathorn Ascott, and chilled in the swimming pool, readying ourselves for the short flight back.  And the following workday...