What a great day at the orphanage and how fortunate that Beth was able to share in it. The drive couldn't have been too boring with tong for company.
I love hearing about your hotel escapades. No wonder you can afford to travel in such luxury. Waiting to hear about all your latest freebies.

Karen here...One thing Bob forgot to say is, Tong bought 2 large brass Buddhas. She had Andy's name and birth date inscribed on both. One was given to the orphanage, and on June 7th, every year, the date of his death, the kids will remember him in their prayers. The second one Tong took to the turtle temple here in BKK, along with some of Andy's ashes to be blessed by the monks. The ashes are placed in the Buddha and it resides at the temple.

Ah, Karen, I'm reading about the Buddhas just before going to bed. I'm so glad you posted this. It is giving me warm feelings to know GPanda is being so loved and cared for in Thailand.

I can't wait to see your photos. Thanks again for letting us tag along with you and Bob on your journeys.

i can't believe that i forgot the Buddhas, that was such an unexpected, and important part of our day Saturday.

The fact that something permanent remains in Thailand connected with andy warms all our hearts and more.

And again thank you for those of you, including Fodors staff, who contributed to this...

There are tons of pics that i will begin to work on at the end of the week.

We leave here on Korean Air tomorrow night about 11. We will be home the next day by dinner time...

So what did we do for our last full day in BKK?

Roger came for us after breakfast at about 10AM. BTW, during breakfast we were approached by Alex the german ops manager. He is really a very nice man. He told me he had heard about our "smokey rooms" problem. I asked if we might have a meeting later in the day and he said sure...

So our first stop was the Bangkok doll factory and museum... A new place for all of us. It is actually not far from Platinum Mall, set down a narrow soi in a working class neighborhood. Roger had to twice ask for directions once we got into the neighborhood.

R & I stayed in the van and the girls took a tour. They observed the construction of the dolls, their painting, and decoration. They said it was interesting. B & K made purchases. The dolls being produced are all small traditional thai figures, the museum has dolls from all over the world. K says a great take for ladies. Free

I forgot to mention that on the way we made a quick stop at central chitlom dept. store to see if i could get a new watch band but they no longer carry them... i got a nice leather one a few years ago.

This was followed by a lunch stop at the Jim Thompson House restaurant. K had her usual pasta with ham, M had a pasta with cheese sauce, I had a pomello salad with shrimp (they have the best in bkk), and B had a pomello salad and a brown rice dish.

After that we made a stop at Langsuan to buy some pastry cookies from our friend to give to the girls at js thai silk who have done really good work on K's new clothing.

That was followed by a longer stop at River City at K's dressmaker, JS Thai Silk. K had a number of items to pick up, some needed a few more tweeks, and the girls each found some ready made items. There was a Loy Krathang show going on at RC in their exhibition hall. The girls bought some clothing there and other items.

Poor Roger was patiently waiting.... Bravo, this finished our last day almost. Back to the hotel.

Alex came to our room as I had requested for a brief discussion of the last few days at his place of employment.

I smiled as much as I could but I was very serious. He was extremely courteous and we had a frank discussion. I told him that I had received an email notifying me of 20,000 pts being deposited into my account and I thanked him for that BUTTTTT that was based on the initial problem. He agreed and said 'here is what I would like to do....'

Please pay for the first night of your stay and I will offer you.........................

the rest of your nights free. I thanked him and told him that I thought that was over generous, BUT that we accept that. Being the PIG that I am, I asked if he might consider some additional points as well. His response, "let me see what I can do..."

We shook hands and he made me promise that on our next trip that I contact him first. Oh, I just could never do that..... like shall I contact him tomorrow??

I think I mentioned that there were 99 soccer players (kids and some parents---farang---you know the entitled kind) from HK staying here over the weekend. He said they drove the staff crazy and the staff, being polite, did not know how to handle them... sounds like a usa hotel weekend with the same crowd... we observed them out of control.

saga ended... we are happy, but would of course have been much happier had things have gone smoothly.


Face Thai for dinner tonight... Hope it is as good as the last time we were there...

Hope you're going by BTS as it's raining cats and dogs! Enjoy your last night in Bangkok for 2012 and we hope to see you again in 2013. You will probably be persona non grata at all the Marriott hotels so I will keep an eye out for new properties for you to stay at.

thanks pook, i can always count on you...

we no sooner got our seats at face and it began to rain...finished by the time we left...

we had a wonderful dinner. Face is very attractive both inside and out. it is on soi 38, sukhumvit. we had not been there for a number of years. The food was even better than we remembered. we ate thai, although they have Indian too.

we had chicken satay
white rice
pineapple fried rice with shrimp and chicken
a whole grilled fish in a banana leaf
chicken cashew
coconut giant shrimp--fab
eggplant and yellow bean sauce

2 glasses of wine

4896 B

we will return again on our next trip
its very dark inside which is a bit of a shame as the decorations are so attractive.

taxi back to the marriott... BTW, we saw the new marriott and it is out near to soi 55---probably further out than we might want to be, but i expect we may try it---both hotel and serviced apartments. opening soon??

a farewell in the lobby to B&M as they leave here at 3:30AM.

we will be leaving at dinner time

In looking this over a bit, I think that I failed to mention that coming here on Korean /Air we were treated to our first exposure to the new A380 jet. It is simply fabulous... very quiet... very large---2 decks... huge seats in economy.. decent overhead room.. big screen tv's.. good bathrooms, etc.

it will be hard to revert to some old favorites like the 747 and 777

Safe travels! I enjoyed your report as always.Hello from Amsterdsm but we leave on an overnight 1st class train for Zurich shortly.

What a tale! Perhaps we should all travel with you for the extra miles and perks. Safe trip home. Enjoy the Korean air flight.

who is roger???

yes you already mentioned the A380 you flew out on to INC then the same plane to HKG.

hahaha a comp room....good for you!!! we all try for that in our travels but none of us can pull a kimball out of our hats....all ends well.....
wonder what the mgr says when you call next year as a gold, his reaction should be interesting.....

looking back on this report shows you had a wonderful trip to be envied by most on this forum except maybe for the likes of spygirl, AO or Don Topaz...... ;)

where is your last dinner going to be in bangkok this year? L & I have a bet on what it will be.....

if your flight out to ICN is like ours two weeks ago on KAL it will be at the g gates a long long way(the last) to the end of the terminal.

thanks for doing this report so i didn't have to ;)

Aloha!

YOU STILL HAVE TO DO A REPORT HT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

our last dinner, or in this case will be it a lunch will be at Lord Jim in the Oriental. They have a fab seafood centered buffet each day at lunch. we think we can eat enough to carry us all the way home, or at least we hope so.

Roger is one of Tong's drivers, although he freelances too. We have used him for a number of years on various excursions..
He is a really sweet guy with a wonderful personality. His driving is both careful and reactive. he knows all the short cuts too. I paid him 2500 B per day plus we gave him a sizable appreciation tip last night. You can arrange for him thru tong. He drives a large comfortable van which I believes belongs to tong and/or roger.

We had a leisurely breakfast with the mcbeanies at 9:15 this AM.. They are here for several more days... Alex, the operations manager stopped by to say hello and in fact we got to meet his mother who is visiting from Germany.

While saying goodbye to the McB's in the lobby we got to meet the GM who apologized for our problems here and hoped that things were fine now, which they are. We talked to him briefly about his history in thailand and about the industry in bkk as we move forward. it was interesting.

I will write something later about our lunch today, but K has just returned from a swim and i need to get ready to leave for the across town drive to the oriental.

A car has been ordered for us for 7:00, but as alex says TIT (this is thailand) so he made the time 6:30PM.

SAD, of course to be leaving, but glad to be going home to the festive christmas season and seeing our grand kids. Secure to be knowing that we will be returning to Asia in less than a year, for sure. LIFE IS GOOD..

THANKS FOR READING ALONG....

so last entry before we fly...

the last of K's new clothes just arrived by messenger, so she feels good about that.

my robe from jack is yet another mystery..

Lunch at Lord Jim--

After several years of bypassing this buffet lunch we returned today and were not disappointed. The sushi is amongst the best in BKK... the turkey, roast beef, duck and other roasts looked wonderful... the grilled 1/2 lobster tails were very fresh tasting.. the shrimp in many forms was delicious... the raw tuna was heavenly.. the dried meats and cheeses were very european... the salads looked and tasted great... the tempura looked good... steamed bass was good.. lots of stir fries of every sort... asian soups... breads.. to name some items, and then there was dessert.

There must have been 50 varieties of desserts, most individually plated. There was fruit and cheese too.

And then there was the bill... 1400 ea++... cheap for the quality and variety. the place was full... we had a res for a window table for our last river fix for this year.

proper attire required--no shorts, T's etc.

Did you not speak with the mgr @ Lord Jim?

no need to speak to him, everything was perfect...

its mostly thr managers who want to speak with me. certainly you have felt the same way in our prior encounters??

I have never actually <i>wanted</i> to speak to you, but have on occasion put on a false smile and pretended to be vaguely interested in your opinion or comments.

I couldn't possibly say, of course, whether this sentiment also applies to the various GMs in your Roladex.

Can you let us "newbies" know who Tang is? Is Tang someone we should be in contact with if we are visiting Bangkok for the first time -- or is she a friend?

Thanks for letting us all live vicariously through your wonderful 6 weeks of travel (it was 6 wasn't it?) -- not something I have been able to arrange since I was young and carefree.

Have a wonderful holiday season and thanks for all of the restaurant reviews. Can't wait to try some of them out.

How old is RHK? Five? My 6 year old thankfully behaves better than this. Seems like he is content spending his days "sulking" in his room and making general managers grovel because The King wasn't happy. Delusions of grandeur syndrome?

Pompous jerk comes to mind.

Tong has a company Tour with Tong and is an excellent tour guide.

Outofhere1, I see that is is your first posting. Welcome to Fodor's where bantering humor and variations on the themes of some long-standing shared jokes are part of the charm for many of us. You are missing the tongue-in-cheek humor.

First appearances may be deceiving. Or, in the words of Gilbert &Sullivan, "Things are seldom what they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream..."