Bangkok Ending

So, since Dad’s usual hotel was booked we stayed at the Prince Palace in a pair of very nice suites. The Palace seems apply named. It’s a massive multiple tower structure with beautiful ornate hallways, an 11th story bar with a terrace overlooking the city, beautiful wood carvings and statues, comfortable beds, and a fantastic view from our 37th story window.

Statue at the entrance of the Prince Palace

 That being said, it had some oddities to it as well. For starters, it had no free internet, which seemed odd for a place this high end. It also odd that your room key doubled as a power source for the room. When you unlocked your door, there was a slot just inside the room that you then put your key into which turned on the lights, AC, etc. This had two big issues. #1, if anyone left the room they would have to do so without the key if anyone else inside wanted to have any power. Number two it meant that when you left your AC went off. Not a huge issue, as the place was well insulated, but it meant that the rooms weren’t as cool as they could have been given the near hundred degree days. 

    The next issue we had with it was that, unlike our hotel on Sukhumvit, the Prince Palace was not on the BTS route, so we couldn’t just walk out and catch the train. This is a bit of a headache since taxis and tuk tuks require much negotiations to get where you want to go (the taxis want to charge you a large flat fee rather than using the meter, and the tuk tuks want to take you by a tailor first to get measured for a suit... go figure). Still, the Palace is listed as one of the top hotels and if you’re going to be staying at your  hotel a lot and have your own transportation, it isn’t a bad place to stay. If you’re just looking for a place to crash I have to say the City Lodge Sukhumvit 9 Hotel is probably a cheaper and more convenient bet. 

      We left the Palace mid morning, roaming out to seek some breakfast. Dad negotiated with some taxis until he found one willing to use the meter to take us to our first destination, the Siam Paragon mall. Wow. If you’re ever looking for an amazing high end shopping experience, this should be your destination of choice. From Lamborghini to Louis Vuitton, if it’s high end then it’s here. Cars, clothes, bikes, handbags, make up, electronics, groceries and toys of all kinds, this mall had pretty much every major name brand I could think of in its own store. Even its food court was full of high end gourmet dining. We initially laughed when Barb decided she wanted to try a mexican food place for brunch, then glancing at the menus Crys and I noticed they had fish tacos made with red snapper. We decided perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea after all and we all roamed over to join her. The tacos were very tasty. The mexican rice and beans were good too, though I will say they didn’t really taste much like tex-mex. 

Surprisingly the Chips and Salsa were very tasty

    After some more window shopping in the Siam, we decided to catch the train to Chatuchak. Crys and I had both found a few clothes there the first time that we really liked, but since you can’t really try things on there we were unsure at the time whether they would be as cool on as they looked. Having confirmed now they were we went back in search of extra copies of them. I picked up a thai shirt in Indonesia about six years or so ago, and have been looking for more of them since. Unfortunately it appears they’re hard to find outside of Thailand itself, so I definitely wanted a few more to hold me over until our next visit. Chatuchak was as we remembered it, almost the equal and opposite of the mall we started our day in. A sprawling twisting endless array of shops that sell pretty much any and everything you can think of. If you ever get a chance to go, do so. The people watching alone is fun and the sheer variety of what is available for sale is staggering. Just remember if you do that you are expected to haggle. Prices are actually reasonable, but in most of the shops they’re priced well above what the proprietors actually expect to sell them for. 

     After a few hours of shopping, we successfully found all that we were looking for and eventually decided to roam off to a new destination. Barbara had forgotten an item at the hotel the last time we were in Bangkok and was curious to see if they still had it so we decided to wander back to Nana station to Sukhumvit and check back into that area. As we remembered, the streets were full of more shopping stalls, as well as all of the stores, restaurants and services we had roamed past before. 

    This seems a good place to mention the laid back attitude Bangkok seems to have towards sex and vulgarity. During our initial foray around Bangkok I noticed periodically we would hear songs like Lily Allen’s “Fuck you very much”.  We thought at first that they just didn’t know what those songs meant. Now I think that they do, they just don’t care. Roaming Sukhumvit, it was not uncommon to see condoms, viagra and sex toys at some of the stalls, with labels that you would normally not see outside of adult stores here. Sex and nudity attracted no more attention than T-shirts or kids toys. Another interesting note is that throughout all of Thailand and Malaysia, everywhere we went there was something somewhere for sale with Psy doing his Gangnum style. It’s amazing how much that song has infiltrated pop culture over there. 

   After wondering about doing more exploration of the surrounding areas, we were discussing what we wanted to do to finish up the day. Sadly, we were a good distance from the cool temples, so we decided we probably were going to make it to any of those on this trip. We weren’t very hungry yet so Dad offered a way to kill a little time prior to dinner: Thai foot massages. Crys is normally extremely against anyone (including me) touching her feet, but to my surprise decided since were in Thailand we really should give it a try. So we agreed and wandered into one of the many places just off the street that offered haircuts, shaves, and massages. We each sat down in a line of recliners against the wall and were quickly attended to by masseuses who washed our feet before going to work on them. They spent the next forty five minutes rubbing, stretching and gently poking our feet and legs, mostly with their hands but sometimes with a strange wooden tool I suspect to be part of some kind pressure point type tool. They then moved on to our arms and shoulders, finishing up with what was at times awkward or painful stretches. The end result was extremely relaxing though, and changed Crys’s opinion on the idea of professional massages. She’s ready to go back and get some more as soon as possible. 

    Our much more relaxed crew then left and walked down to Dad’s favorite local restaurant there, the Lebanese place from our first Bangkok outing. We ordered roughly the same meal, which wasn’t a bad thing at all, and enjoyed one last group meal together. Afterwards we again set about finding a good taxi to get us back to the hotel. The one we finally settled into was a very nice driver who spoke pretty good English. He had recently moved to Bangkok from Northern Thailand with his wife to try and make more money than he could where he was from. His kids were still living with family back his village since schools were apparently far pricier in the Bangkok area than his village. We had a good chat with him on the way back, and he told us he could actually pick Crys and I up at 3am for our trip to the airport, and he could do so for 500 baht, including the toll. Given that we’d paid 2200b to leave the airport that was a great deal. It meant we were paying the equivalent of about $17 to take the toll road from South Austin to Georgetown. 

   We returned to the Prince Palace, said our goodbyes to Barb since we knew she wouldn’t make it until our leaving and then set about cleaning ourselves up and packing. It was close to 11pm by then and since we had to leave at 3am we saw little reason (despite our bodies’ objections) to try and go to sleep. After getting our bags settled in we decided to roam around the hotel one more time. When we had arrived at 11pm there had been much in the way of New Years celebrating going on, but here closer to 2am all was quiet. We roamed down to the 11th floor to the outside deck overlooking the city and enjoyed the view for awhile. Looking back towards the outside pool and bar area, however, we saw what I would say was my last strike against the Prince Palace, three ROUSs roaming about. Granted they were not quite Princess Bride level, but these Rodents of Unusual Size really were close to cat sized and looked more like brown opossums than rats. It was a bit creepy, though I doubt they are seen much during the daylight. A strange finish to the night. 

    About 2:30am, Dad came over to our room and we spent the last part of the eve talking of the trip and of hopes for future trips. Finally at three we went down stairs where we found that our driver from earlier had sent one of his friends to pick us up. The new driver was just as nice as the first, so we said our goodbyes to Dad and set upon our final drive for the trip through Bangkok. 

   If we have anything to say about it in the future, however, it will not be our final drive through Bangkok ever. Many people see South East Asia as rice patties and small villages, and while those places still exist there it is amazing to think of all of the sites and experiences we saw on this trip in both Thailand and Malaysia. Both have extremely modernized cities with experiences available you couldn’t hope to find in the states and incredibly awesome people at every turn. If you are ever looking for a vacation destination, I would suggest either country be added to your list of options. We could spend another month easily in just Bangkok and not see everything we wanted to see, and looking at the options of other cities there as well as the surrounding islands opens a near endless amount of possible options for exploration. I’ve been lucky enough to do some amazing things in my lifetime, but this trip ranks high on the list of most interesting. If any of you get the chance to go any of these places, take that chance as fast as you can.