Travel

Saturday, November 2: Dinner Addendum

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Good music after good food, November 2019

I forgot to mention that our butler gave us a bunch of recommendations for dinner, and one of them turned out to be great. We drove over in a Grab (1) car that the hotel ordered for us, and had a great meal. To our surprise, they had a trio singing western-style music with a great singer. They started after we finished dinner, but we stayed and listened for almost another hour.

We went back to the hotel by tuk tuk.

(1) Grab is similar to Uber, but offers a cash payment option.

Thursday, October 31: All that glitters

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Our guide, Moo (1), picked us up at 8:00 this morning for our half day Temple & Palace tour. Meeting at 8:00 means getting up before 7, which seems very un-vacation like, but we’re 11 hours ahead of EDT and still jet lagged anyway. We were a bit late, but light traffic enabled us to recover the time and we got to the first stop before it even opened at 8:30.

I can’t even tell you what we actually saw, at least not without doing a lot of research from guide books. It felt to me like we ran for three hours straight, visiting temples and palaces built by various kings over the last hundreds of years. Between Moo’s accent, my unfamiliarity with anything to do with Thai history, and the seemingly endless number of Kings named Rama (2), I quickly lost track of who built what.

Not that it mattered.

Can you say “glitz”, children?, October 2019

Everything was covered in gold and jewels. I don’t mean swords, crowns and furniture, I mean entire buildings. And statues of angles, Buddhas, devils, and monkeys.

Monks, a guard and us, October 2019

By shear luck, we came to a temple built by someone or other where a group of monks were chanting and blessing people. We got sprinkled with holy water, were given string bracelets and apparently were blessed. He didn’t say much (that I could understand).

More glitz. And us. October, 2019

There were an endless number of statues of angles, devils and monkeys. And lots of gold leaf, except for the stuff that was solid gold. And Buddhas.

After three hours of this, we were ready to retreat.

Siam Hotel, October 2019

We came back to the hotel around noon, where we had lunch. We spent the rest of the day at the hotel, getting massages, lounging around, using our private pool, and just generally relaxing.

The spa at Siam, October 2019

(1) She told us Moo is the nickname her mother gave her as a baby. Confusingly, it means “pig” in Thai. Which is not considered an insult.

(2) Rama IV was immortalized by Yul Brenner in The King and I

Wednesday, October 30: River of dreams

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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.

Tuesday, October 29: Here we are

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The flights from home to Dubai, and then from Dubai to Bangkok were uneventful but long. The first and longer flight was on a 777, and had nice but pretty standard business class with all the usual amenities: big screen tv, power outlets, lay-flat seats for sleeping. The second flight was on a 380 and we were on the upper deck in the newer and more luxurious “pod” style seats. On both the Emirates attendants were excellent.

Sky Pod, October 2019

After landing in Bangkok we found our airport escort who guided us through the maze and crowds that is Bangkok’s airport, put us on the Fast Track passport control line, collected our luggage and took us to our guide, Moo, and driver. The ride into the city was okay until less than a mile from the hotel, where it took us 20 or so minutes to go one block. Moo chatted for the entire 1:15 trip. I know she was just doing her job and trying to entertain us, but neither Sally or I were in the mood.

Antique horns in the bar, October 2019

We’re staying at the Siam Hotel, which is furnished with antiques of all sorts. Our room has the usual chests and accessories, but one bar has 20 or more tubas, French horns, etc. hanging above the bar.

I did take pictures of our room (of course), but it was dark already when we arrived. I may try again later. Suffice to say that it’s quite spacious with a private pool and roof deck, where one can sit in the heat and humidity.

Sunday, October 27: All revved up and some place to go

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Tomorrow we’re off on our next journey, heading east to Bangkok and beyond. It’s about 8,667 (1) miles away and we stop in Dubai on the way.

Packing is always the same, and always different. You’re going to a different climate (or climates), you’re planning different activities, you’re using different modes of transportation.

This trip will have a warm 🥴 climate – the highs at our stops average from 75 to 90, while the overnight lows go from 61 to76. I always find it hard packing for a warm climate when it’s cool at home. And I expect we’ll have some rain along the way.

It’s a long trip, so we need to bring enough consumables (like meds and some toiletries) that we probably can’t acquire while traveling.

And finally, we’re taking a number of regional flights from city to city, and so we will be packing for air travel many times. Batteries, fragile items, meds, valuables, etc. need to be hand luggage. And some of the regional carriers have ridiculously restrictive carry-on limits (2).

All that said, we are pretty much packed for our morning departure. As usual, I’m taking one hard-sided suitcase as checked baggage, and carrying-on my camera bag. Fortunately the camera stuff itself isn’t that big, as all the other stuff needs to fit in it as well. My checked bag is only 36 lbs, and the backpack is 11 lbs. Both inside the limits we face on this trip.

The usual bags, October 2019

Anyway, I’m pretty excited and looking forward to seeing some new places. Should be interesting.

(1) The Earth’s circumference is 24,901 miles, so we’re going more than a third of the way around.

(2) Bangkok Air limits your one piece of cabin luggage to 5 kg or 11 lbs.