Day 41: Race Against Rain

DID: Woke up to beautiful sunshine, of course today is the day we leave for Bangkok! Made the most of it with breakfast on the outdoor terrace, a bit of swimming, a manicure at the nail bar next door, and a final walk around the neighborhood. Really sad to leave this hotel, it will be hard to find a place with such warmth and personality. Staff took about 1000 pix of GnR over the course of the morning and were all waving goodbye at the taxi as we left. 

Spa/salon on Soi 1, Nimman

Shop on Soi 1, Nimman

Our neighbors on Soi 9, Nimman

Pool deck at the hotel - pillows out, no rain!

In for a swim

Drying off

Nailista

Picking a color...he chose blue sparkly for me.

Blue sparkly on middle fingers, dark green index fingers, dark blue thumbs.

Rhys' choice for coffee

My sister's kind of place!

Room for 2 in new stroller!

Arrived to sunny Bangkok but could see a line of clouds rolling in. Touched down at 3.15 and wanted to get to the pool quickly before rain started coming down, but everything was working against us. Bags took forever, taxi rank was impossible to find (strangely it was located on a different level than domestic arrivals…), hit lots of traffic just as we got off the highway in the city, and somehow managed to get to the check-in desk just behind another enormous group (like 75 people swarming the desk at once). We could see the clouds rolling in and just starting to overtake us as we got to the hotel, ahhhh!  Out of absolute “necessity”, I pulled one of my mom’s tricks and sort of created a new line where one line was previously feeding two agents. It worked but still required throwing a few elbows and maintaining constant eye contact with the agent directly in front of me. Eyes on the prize!!

Dinner adventures ensued (see ATE) followed by a walk around Siam Square. First impression is that it shuts down early compared to the other places we’ve been. Lights out 9pm in the big shopping areas. Since (with the kids) we’re not able to enjoy the bar/club scene, and the night markets we’ve been to so far in Thailand seem to be a. tourist traps and b. cesspools of stench, we might have to turn into morning people while here.

Rode the metro back to the hotel, nice way to get around. Clean, cheap (60 cents/ticket), not too crowded. Rain never came so maybe our weather luck is changing.

Forgot to mention this previously but I was surprised to learn that they drive on the left side of the road here. Never thought about it before I guess.

And a big lesson learned re: items from the Pearl Market in Beijing and ‘you get what you pay for’. We bought two 16MB SD cards there and both of them only hold about 40 pictures. After that the files become corrupted and are irretrievable. Have tried reformatting both cards but no luck.

ATE:  Final breakfast @ Niman, but this time poolside instead of under cover. Fruit plate had a new addition today – mango. I’ve never really liked mango before but these Thai ones are incredible.

Breakfast outside - yay!

Fruit + dessert

Couldn't leave Nimman without final bakery (Mont Blanc Patisserie) and iced coffee (Wawee coffee shop) stops.

Pastry

Coffee (and rodeo)

Lunch on the plane. BangkokAir. Trio of sandwiches and a piece of chocolate cake. Not bad.

Dinner. Ugh. Concierge led Jason to an area of town that was tourist central. Nothing looked inviting, and very little of the restaurants seemed be Thai (saw lots of Indian, Persian, Italian, but no Thai). Didn’t realize until later that Jason was trying to combine dinner with a trip to the tailor. Had I known this, I would have pushed harder to find something acceptable in the area. But without this info (and after having walked down a street that was filled with bars/massage parlors with too many women in front and only men inside to have just been ‘regular’ bars/spas) I was strongly suggesting (maybe demanding, haha) that we catch a tuk tuk and get the driver to lead us to a good noodle shop. Tuk tuk driver brought us to a place called the ‘Seafood Market’ (which incidentally, the first taxi driver also tried to bring us to – either kickbacks involved or an assumption that this is what tourists like to eat?). In spite of the name, it did have noodles and meat items on the menu but prices were extortionate in Thai terms and it was filled with tourists. No-go. Back in the tuk tuk, this time to a place we’d read about in the BankokAir magazine, top 3 pad thai places in the city. (Jason happened to have taken a photo of the article with his iphone.) Place he picked ended up being in a food hall in the MK Centre, a massive shopping mall near Siam Square. By the time we got there it was 8.45 and everything was shutting down (closing time 9). On top of that, there were no mall directories and all the information booths had closed at 8. Finally found the food hall on the 5^th floor, but the place mentioned by the article had closed (as in, went out of business, not closed for the day). Unfortunate timing since the article was in the August issue of the airplane magazine!!! Luckily there was another noodle shop within the food hall. And we all ended up with a decent meal. Just a bit rushed because everything was clearly shutting down and we were eating in semi-darkness. By the time we left the food hall at 9.30 they were literally shutting the lights and escalators off in the main sections of the mall.

Side note 1: They take the term 'street food' to the extreme here, as in your meal may include pieces of asphalt, petroleum by-products, and/or fragrance of carbon monoxide. From the tuk tuk we saw noodle bars in 2-car garages (car on one side, ‘kitchen’ on the other, tables in front), gas stations, alleyways, major intersections, in front of convenience stores, etc.

SLEPT: Swissotel Nai Lert Park in Bangkok. An unusual choice for us, definitely. We labored over this one a long time. Had trouble finding any small/boutique-y hotels that weren’t classed as hostels, so in the end we went with the hotel with the best rated pool and good access to the metro.  The room itself is big, clean, comfortable, bland. View of the canal (although I wouldn’t say this is necessarily a good thing). Hallway leading to the room overlooks a fish pond at lobby level (we’re on the 4^th of 5 floors). This is problematic because every time we go to/from the elevators Rhys runs up to the railing and says ‘Fish! Jump in?’ and tries to climb over.  Internet access may or not be free, we’re still figuring that out. If it’s not, it will be the first time in 41 days that we’ll have to pay for it. Grrrr.

But the pool is spectacular indeed. It’s a tropical paradise with an island and waterfall in the middle, underwater benches to relax on, a nice poolside bar, loads of space to move around, water a lovely temp. Hope the weather complies so that we’ll be able to enjoy it.