Today was our first full day in Bangkok. One of the choices we made in planning this trip was to have a mixture of scheduled and non-scheduled days; this was a non-scheduled one, mostly because we assumed we would be pretty jet-lagged, as we are 11 hours ahead of EDT here. We both took sleeping pills Tuesday night and both managed a few hours of sleep.

River scenes, October 2019

After breakfast we took the complimentary shuttle boat that the Siam Hotel runs up and down the Chao Phraya River, which runs through Bangkok. Traffic is terrible, and boats are a very efficient way of getting from one place to another as long as your start and end points are on or near the river. Our hotel sits right on the river, with its own dock, and we headed 30 minutes down to an area with some art galleries and other shopping to see what’s up.

Just another glitzy mall, October 2019

The art galleries were mildly interesting. We took a ferry across the river to ICON SIAM, a very new and very large shopping center that rivals any upscale mall in the US. After cruising through it (1) we found a place that we thought might have acceptable food (2) and had lunch.

We came home on the hotel boat after some uncertainty about where they would pick us up. Then after relaxing and cleaning up, we got back on the boat to return to the same area for dinner in a restaurant that wasn’t all that good. I enjoyed mine, but I think that was more from being hungry than the quality of the food. And finally another boat ride home. So more than two hours on boats today, going up and down the Chao Phraya.

Night on the river, October 2019

I promised some pictures of our suite at the Siam, so here you are.

Room 105, Siam Hotel, October 2019

(1) Everyone at the hotel and Moo, our guide, all thought the mall was worth seeing. But once you’ve seen Gap, Apple, Uniqlo, Dior and Louis Vuitton at a hundred malls, the next one isn’t that exciting.

(2) Between Sally’s garlic issue and my food pickiness, we run out of good choices real fast.