The Mystic East - a tale of hot food, hot weather, airmiles and imodium.
Dec 27th, 2016, 05:41 PM
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Day 14: Hanoi
For our last full day in Hanoi we had quite a long wish list. Tommy wanted to visit another war remnants museum, I wanted to see the water puppet show we’d mentally pencilled in earlier in the trip, there was a larger lake we thought might be worth exploring, I was looking to buy vietnamese coffee beans to take home as gifts, and we both fancied more bahn mi. It’s probably worth mentioning now that we had found Hanoi to be the coolest/least humid of the cities we’d visited on our trip thus far, probably due to it being far and away the furthest north – we’d both remarked that we found the climate more like central Europe than south east asia - however, on this particular morning, the temperature seemed to have rocketed, and by the time we’d finished our 40 minute walk to the war remnants museum in the sweltering heat we were both feeling a bit rough.
The museum was set in a colonial style building in a palm fringed courtyard. Outside were helicopters and early jet fighters, including a well known exhibit which looked like a plane that had landed vertically on its nose, but was in fact the remnants of multiple crashed aircraft piled up together. To the side of the aeronautical exhibits were mock ups of prisoner cells, and even remnants of the 19th century French occupation, including an old wooden guillotine. Inside, there was less focus on the US/Vietnamese conflict than there had been in the Saigon museum, with more emphasis on exhibits from dynastic Vietnam through to French Indochina, although there were still a few 20th century artifacts – a giggly group of middle-aged Asian women took turns to take selfies with long sticks, posing themselves against an ancient Citroen and a small early tank.
We had iced coffees in a nice air-conditioned café on site before collecting Tommy’s rucksack from a locker by the ticket booth and then headed for Ho Tay, a lake so large that it made our turtle lake look like a puddle. Ho Tay is home to a large lotus farm and an impressive pagoda of well over 10 storeys, as well as pleasure boats, funfair rides, and wooded shorelines. It took us about 20 minutes to walk from the museum to Ho Tay, but we were so exhausted by the heat we didn’t really have the energy to explore much once we got there. We sat in a riverside café that had a gangplank (so may in fact have been a houseboat of sorts), drinking non-alcoholic mojitos. Alongside the café were hundreds of swan pedalos, in a roped off area that made it abundantly clear that they were not currently for hire. I love anything a bit kitschy, so this was a shame, however the chances of me being able to persuade Tommy into one were pretty much zero I would say, so it probably helped avoid some sort of domestic incident that there was no question of being able to rent one.
We wandered back from the lake to our hotel very slowly indeed. The road leading away from the lake toward the old quarter had lots of lovely looking bars and eateries but the heat had vanquished our appetites, so neither of us was keen to stop en-route. We passed through some areas of the city that we’d not seen before, with roadside hairdressers shaving men in dilapidated barbers chairs, mirrors fixed on brick walls opposite or hanging from adjacent trees. We also passed through an area with vendors of beautiful gemstones. I saw a lovely sapphire in that perfect limpid ceylon blue shade, and a fabulous firey orange one too, and the prices were really decent, but Tommy wouldn’t let me linger long, and I didn’t feel well enough to argue so we headed for the Essence D’Orient without purchasing, eating or drinking further.
Tommy confessed to feeling a bit ropey too once we got back to our hotel room, so we agreed to have an hour or so in bed to recover from the heat, then venture out again to have a late lunch somewhere, and complete our tourist hitlist when we were better. Here is where I made a grave mistake however. I decided I would take a precautionary Imodium – the first one I’d had on an empty stomach. As it turns out, though having relatively few side effects, imodium can be quite unpleasant if you haven’t eaten for a while, with the ability to cause bloating and a fair bit of stomach pain. Curled up with Tommy, I felt worse and worse as the afternoon went on. ‘Maybe do some small moans if it helps’ suggested Mr M. So I did. And it didn’t.
By late afternoon Tommy was feeling better, but I still felt rubbish. I suggested he go out and get some dinner, and he said he would, and possibly a foot massage too, and if I wanted anything to eat to message him and he would bring something back. I told him to enjoy himself (second mistake of the day!!) and off he went. I did start to feel marginally better an hour or so later and ate a banana from the complimentary fruit bowl and some Oreos from the minibar, but immediately began to feel crap again so went back to bed and felt extra sorry for myself. About 8pm Tommy messaged me to say he had found a great bar and was playing pool and sent me a couple of pictures of the venue. Around 8:30pm he messaged again to say (gleefully) that he had beaten three locals. He asked if I wanted anything bringing back to eat (which I took to mean he was coming home imminently) but I declined, explaining about the room snacks and how they'd not really helped. I signed off and looked forward to him coming in and probably making a fuss of me, and me in turn persuading him to rub my back because I was so poorly, and generally extracting a fair bit of sympathy etc etc.
An hour passed and no Tommy. Another hour passed and still no Tommy. Somewhere between half ten and eleven I messaged him but received no reply. I noticed that he’d not checked his phone for a couple of hours now. Midnight came and went - still no Tommy. I was starting to have a flutter of concern - we had to be up not long after 5am to get a taxi to the airport, then a flight back to Bangkok, a 5 hour private car transfer down the coast, a ferry across from the mainland to the island of Ko Chang, and then, last but not least, a 45 minute drive round the island to our next hotel on Lonely Beach.
Half twelve came and I started to imagine all sorts of terrible things that might have befallen Mr M – a beating from the locals who didn’t like being drubbed at pool, a collision with a speeding moped as he crossed the road, getting lost somewhere in a vast unfamiliar city of nearly 8 million people after misreading Google maps and falling into one of the lakes... I looked up the British Consulate just to be on the safe side.
It finally occurred to me that Mr M might not have been able to get back into the hotel, as I had the room key and I wasn’t sure whether the door or desk were manned at this late hour. So I got partially dressed (because I was ill and didn’t have the energy for socks, bras, shoes etc) and took the lift down to the foyer. There, to my relief, a tipsy jock was trying to order a taxi to the airport for the morning in a thick (and now also slightly slurred) Glasweigan accent that was clearly causing the staff much confusion. After translating for the hard of drink, I took Tommy back upstairs, where he spent about 20 minutes trying to set the alarm on his dead phone(!) before I exasperatedly got up and plugged it in for him. He was asleep about 45 seconds later, helpfully keeping me awake with his snoring until about 2am.
For our last full day in Hanoi we had quite a long wish list. Tommy wanted to visit another war remnants museum, I wanted to see the water puppet show we’d mentally pencilled in earlier in the trip, there was a larger lake we thought might be worth exploring, I was looking to buy vietnamese coffee beans to take home as gifts, and we both fancied more bahn mi. It’s probably worth mentioning now that we had found Hanoi to be the coolest/least humid of the cities we’d visited on our trip thus far, probably due to it being far and away the furthest north – we’d both remarked that we found the climate more like central Europe than south east asia - however, on this particular morning, the temperature seemed to have rocketed, and by the time we’d finished our 40 minute walk to the war remnants museum in the sweltering heat we were both feeling a bit rough.
The museum was set in a colonial style building in a palm fringed courtyard. Outside were helicopters and early jet fighters, including a well known exhibit which looked like a plane that had landed vertically on its nose, but was in fact the remnants of multiple crashed aircraft piled up together. To the side of the aeronautical exhibits were mock ups of prisoner cells, and even remnants of the 19th century French occupation, including an old wooden guillotine. Inside, there was less focus on the US/Vietnamese conflict than there had been in the Saigon museum, with more emphasis on exhibits from dynastic Vietnam through to French Indochina, although there were still a few 20th century artifacts – a giggly group of middle-aged Asian women took turns to take selfies with long sticks, posing themselves against an ancient Citroen and a small early tank.
We had iced coffees in a nice air-conditioned café on site before collecting Tommy’s rucksack from a locker by the ticket booth and then headed for Ho Tay, a lake so large that it made our turtle lake look like a puddle. Ho Tay is home to a large lotus farm and an impressive pagoda of well over 10 storeys, as well as pleasure boats, funfair rides, and wooded shorelines. It took us about 20 minutes to walk from the museum to Ho Tay, but we were so exhausted by the heat we didn’t really have the energy to explore much once we got there. We sat in a riverside café that had a gangplank (so may in fact have been a houseboat of sorts), drinking non-alcoholic mojitos. Alongside the café were hundreds of swan pedalos, in a roped off area that made it abundantly clear that they were not currently for hire. I love anything a bit kitschy, so this was a shame, however the chances of me being able to persuade Tommy into one were pretty much zero I would say, so it probably helped avoid some sort of domestic incident that there was no question of being able to rent one.
We wandered back from the lake to our hotel very slowly indeed. The road leading away from the lake toward the old quarter had lots of lovely looking bars and eateries but the heat had vanquished our appetites, so neither of us was keen to stop en-route. We passed through some areas of the city that we’d not seen before, with roadside hairdressers shaving men in dilapidated barbers chairs, mirrors fixed on brick walls opposite or hanging from adjacent trees. We also passed through an area with vendors of beautiful gemstones. I saw a lovely sapphire in that perfect limpid ceylon blue shade, and a fabulous firey orange one too, and the prices were really decent, but Tommy wouldn’t let me linger long, and I didn’t feel well enough to argue so we headed for the Essence D’Orient without purchasing, eating or drinking further.
Tommy confessed to feeling a bit ropey too once we got back to our hotel room, so we agreed to have an hour or so in bed to recover from the heat, then venture out again to have a late lunch somewhere, and complete our tourist hitlist when we were better. Here is where I made a grave mistake however. I decided I would take a precautionary Imodium – the first one I’d had on an empty stomach. As it turns out, though having relatively few side effects, imodium can be quite unpleasant if you haven’t eaten for a while, with the ability to cause bloating and a fair bit of stomach pain. Curled up with Tommy, I felt worse and worse as the afternoon went on. ‘Maybe do some small moans if it helps’ suggested Mr M. So I did. And it didn’t.
By late afternoon Tommy was feeling better, but I still felt rubbish. I suggested he go out and get some dinner, and he said he would, and possibly a foot massage too, and if I wanted anything to eat to message him and he would bring something back. I told him to enjoy himself (second mistake of the day!!) and off he went. I did start to feel marginally better an hour or so later and ate a banana from the complimentary fruit bowl and some Oreos from the minibar, but immediately began to feel crap again so went back to bed and felt extra sorry for myself. About 8pm Tommy messaged me to say he had found a great bar and was playing pool and sent me a couple of pictures of the venue. Around 8:30pm he messaged again to say (gleefully) that he had beaten three locals. He asked if I wanted anything bringing back to eat (which I took to mean he was coming home imminently) but I declined, explaining about the room snacks and how they'd not really helped. I signed off and looked forward to him coming in and probably making a fuss of me, and me in turn persuading him to rub my back because I was so poorly, and generally extracting a fair bit of sympathy etc etc.
An hour passed and no Tommy. Another hour passed and still no Tommy. Somewhere between half ten and eleven I messaged him but received no reply. I noticed that he’d not checked his phone for a couple of hours now. Midnight came and went - still no Tommy. I was starting to have a flutter of concern - we had to be up not long after 5am to get a taxi to the airport, then a flight back to Bangkok, a 5 hour private car transfer down the coast, a ferry across from the mainland to the island of Ko Chang, and then, last but not least, a 45 minute drive round the island to our next hotel on Lonely Beach.
Half twelve came and I started to imagine all sorts of terrible things that might have befallen Mr M – a beating from the locals who didn’t like being drubbed at pool, a collision with a speeding moped as he crossed the road, getting lost somewhere in a vast unfamiliar city of nearly 8 million people after misreading Google maps and falling into one of the lakes... I looked up the British Consulate just to be on the safe side.
It finally occurred to me that Mr M might not have been able to get back into the hotel, as I had the room key and I wasn’t sure whether the door or desk were manned at this late hour. So I got partially dressed (because I was ill and didn’t have the energy for socks, bras, shoes etc) and took the lift down to the foyer. There, to my relief, a tipsy jock was trying to order a taxi to the airport for the morning in a thick (and now also slightly slurred) Glasweigan accent that was clearly causing the staff much confusion. After translating for the hard of drink, I took Tommy back upstairs, where he spent about 20 minutes trying to set the alarm on his dead phone(!) before I exasperatedly got up and plugged it in for him. He was asleep about 45 seconds later, helpfully keeping me awake with his snoring until about 2am.
Dec 29th, 2016, 03:38 PM
#43
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Day 15: Hanoi to Ko Chang
My alarm went off about half past five and I crawled out of bed, telling Tommy I was going to nip in the shower first, and suggesting maybe he could start the packing, as neither of us had been in a fit state to do it the night before. My stomach did feel a bit better after a few hours sleep, though still not completely back to normal. My mouth was dry as a bone however, and every time I put my toothbrush in it. I instantly gagged. I showered and washed my hair, and put a little bit of make-up on, which took about 20 minutes. Coming out of the bathroom, I spotted that Tommy was still in bed, so implored him to get up with more urgency than before. ‘I am up’ he lied from beneath the duvet. I think at this point I yanked the covers off and Mr M finally surfaced and headed for the bathroom. He was showered, shaved and packed whilst I was still sorting out my case, although he was too hungover to exude much smugness about being ready first.
We headed down to the foyer and Tommy took care of the bill whilst I kept a look out for the taxi. The receptionist was really concerned that we were leaving without breakfast and kept saying ‘But you got international flight!’. We explained that we needed to get straight to the airport and didn’t have time to eat anything. She then had a quick word with the two bellboys who had been about to take our cases out to the car, and they stopped wheeling them out to the street and guarded them inside instead, whilst she disappeared. A minute or two later the receptionist then reappeared with two carrier bags full of pastries, fresh fruit all neatly cut into portions in little plastic trays, yoghurt and water. We had already paid the bill so weren’t charged for this breakfast on the go as far as I can make out. I have to say, I was pathetically overwhelmed with gratitude for this small act of generosity, as I was desperately thirsty. I can’t remember your name but thank you, lovely lady of the hotel Essence D’Orient if by any slim chance you are reading this!
I had been, frankly, dreading the taxi ride with my poorly tummy, which I’d been told was at least 45 minutes long, however by some complete and utter miracle we had the best driver by miles of the trip so far, and he drove sensibly and smoothly (and there were even seatbelts). Again, with hindsight I think this was probably down to the hotel, who really did seem to care about every little detail. It stands to reason that they would not order us some maniac in a jalopy.
We got to the airport just over an hour and a half before our flight, which I thought was cutting it a bit fine, but happily once we got inside the terminal it was pretty empty. Hanoi airport is clean and modern and not that busy - of our various destinations and connections, probably only Chiang Mai was quieter. There was a good selection of coffee bars and souvenir shops, and first impressions of the airport were very positive indeed. These impressions rapidly evaporated at the bag drop however. We’d checked in online already and thus only needed to hand our suitcases over. There was a French couple in front of us and small group of maybe 4 or 5 asian students all travelling together, in front of them. That was all. 40 minutes later we were still queuing to drop off our bags and the French couple had changed lines in exasperation. The young lady managing the bag drop was working at a snail’s pace – I am guessing she was new – and seemed to be quadruple checking everything. To make matters worse 2 or 3 Air Asia staff were at adjacent desks with no queues (they’d finished checking in an earlier flight) and they just stood chattering and laughing as Ms Slowcoach checked the same passports and tickets for the same students yet again. I kept looking at the unoccupied staff with daggers, but no-one would make eye contact. To make matters worse a man shamelessly inserted himself between us and the Asian students instead of joining the back of the queue. Tommy said something cross and sweary and the French couple nodded in agreement. Eventually we completed bag drop, though not without being handed the wrong passports back first.
In the security hall there were probably about 10 lanes with luggage conveyers and scanners, but only 2 were actually open. The queues were huge. Slightly built, sallow skinned young men and women in olive military uniforms checked documentation lethargically or stared into space as hand luggage went through the scanner. Just before it was our turn to be scanned everything stopped for a change of shift. This was accompanied by a lot of unnecessary (imho) pomp and ceremony, with more olive-uniformed men and women marching in, stopping and saluting to music, before the old shift could stand down. I think everyone in that hall was mentally screaming ‘Hurry the f*** up!!’ We finally got scanned and I heard someone being called back – either me or the woman behind me – I’m not sure which tbh. I took a chance and carried on walking and nothing happened so it can’t have been me, can it.
By some miracle our plane was still at the gate and we even had time to eat our fruit (I just sucked my pineapple for its moisture content, being dehydrated and weak and pathetic). There was a moment of horror when the useless bag drop women appeared at the boarding gate and we thought she was going to be running that too, but she had just come to chat to friends and see the off, thank Christ. On board, Tommy and I were seated across the aisle from one other, but he reached across and held my hand for take-off and landing, which I thought was very sweet, and actually quite brave because we were right at the front of the plane and everyone could see and I think someone even sniggered. I awarded him 100 brownie points for that.
At Don Mueng airport they had a great system for people being met by prebooked cars – a lady with your name on a board met you off the plane, then took you to a special seating area and called the driver up. We had a people carrier for just the two of us and it had leather seats and wifi and bottles of cold water. (There is also a bus service down to the Ko Chang ferry but you have to cross Bangkok to connect with it, and had our plane been delayed we might have missed it, so we preferred the private transfer option). As our taxi left the airport we could see that the traffic was really not too bad at all and we were finally able to relax knowing we were well on course to make the ferry in time for the last crossing of the evening. I ate my almond croissant and pain au rasin as we passed wetlands and gem-mining towns and biotech parks as we sped south. The driver made one stop to refuel, and while I nipped to the loo, Tommy bought me ice cream and a bag of pineapple which came with a little sachet of brown sugar and chili to shake over it.
We passed through a very brief but very intense rainstorm, and then about four hours after leaving Bangkok we were at the dockside in Trat province, awaiting our ferry. Because we’d made such good time we could clearly see the island of Ko Chang across the strait in daylight, which was a bit of an unexpected bonus. The sun just started to set as we crossed on the ferry, which followed a route marked out by red bhoys, small islets off to the right, the odd fishing boat bobbing past. Our driver crossed with us and took us all the way to our destination – Lonely Beach - on the west coast of the island. Ko Chang is basically mountain covered in thick jungle with a thin fringe of flat habitable land all around the edge. As we drove around the top of the island and down the west coast, we saw pale crescents of sand at the intermittant beach resorts we passed through, bars and restaurants hugging the shore, their lights just starting to come on, strains of music sometimes audible. Every time we left a beach resort the road headed up into the mountains and jungle, with hairpin bends and spectacular views down to the sea below.
After about 40 minutes we arrived at our hotel – Nest Sense Resort. This was an eco resort of 18 rooms built on a rocky shoreline with the jungle abutting the grounds. Our villa was surrounded by huge palms and had stunning views out to sea through floor to ceiling windows. The design of the rooms was minimalist but still luxurious, with polished concrete floors, simple white bedding, rattan lamps, and a monsoon shower. The hum from the insects outside as the sun went down was so loud I genuinely thought some sort of alarm was going off the first time I heard it! We saw lizards climbing the villa walls as we headed for the restaurant, which overlooked a small but pristine turquoise infinity pool. Sat outside on wooden seats with giant cobalt cushions we ate spring rolls and satay chicken by candlelight in the humid tropical air.
My alarm went off about half past five and I crawled out of bed, telling Tommy I was going to nip in the shower first, and suggesting maybe he could start the packing, as neither of us had been in a fit state to do it the night before. My stomach did feel a bit better after a few hours sleep, though still not completely back to normal. My mouth was dry as a bone however, and every time I put my toothbrush in it. I instantly gagged. I showered and washed my hair, and put a little bit of make-up on, which took about 20 minutes. Coming out of the bathroom, I spotted that Tommy was still in bed, so implored him to get up with more urgency than before. ‘I am up’ he lied from beneath the duvet. I think at this point I yanked the covers off and Mr M finally surfaced and headed for the bathroom. He was showered, shaved and packed whilst I was still sorting out my case, although he was too hungover to exude much smugness about being ready first.
We headed down to the foyer and Tommy took care of the bill whilst I kept a look out for the taxi. The receptionist was really concerned that we were leaving without breakfast and kept saying ‘But you got international flight!’. We explained that we needed to get straight to the airport and didn’t have time to eat anything. She then had a quick word with the two bellboys who had been about to take our cases out to the car, and they stopped wheeling them out to the street and guarded them inside instead, whilst she disappeared. A minute or two later the receptionist then reappeared with two carrier bags full of pastries, fresh fruit all neatly cut into portions in little plastic trays, yoghurt and water. We had already paid the bill so weren’t charged for this breakfast on the go as far as I can make out. I have to say, I was pathetically overwhelmed with gratitude for this small act of generosity, as I was desperately thirsty. I can’t remember your name but thank you, lovely lady of the hotel Essence D’Orient if by any slim chance you are reading this!
I had been, frankly, dreading the taxi ride with my poorly tummy, which I’d been told was at least 45 minutes long, however by some complete and utter miracle we had the best driver by miles of the trip so far, and he drove sensibly and smoothly (and there were even seatbelts). Again, with hindsight I think this was probably down to the hotel, who really did seem to care about every little detail. It stands to reason that they would not order us some maniac in a jalopy.
We got to the airport just over an hour and a half before our flight, which I thought was cutting it a bit fine, but happily once we got inside the terminal it was pretty empty. Hanoi airport is clean and modern and not that busy - of our various destinations and connections, probably only Chiang Mai was quieter. There was a good selection of coffee bars and souvenir shops, and first impressions of the airport were very positive indeed. These impressions rapidly evaporated at the bag drop however. We’d checked in online already and thus only needed to hand our suitcases over. There was a French couple in front of us and small group of maybe 4 or 5 asian students all travelling together, in front of them. That was all. 40 minutes later we were still queuing to drop off our bags and the French couple had changed lines in exasperation. The young lady managing the bag drop was working at a snail’s pace – I am guessing she was new – and seemed to be quadruple checking everything. To make matters worse 2 or 3 Air Asia staff were at adjacent desks with no queues (they’d finished checking in an earlier flight) and they just stood chattering and laughing as Ms Slowcoach checked the same passports and tickets for the same students yet again. I kept looking at the unoccupied staff with daggers, but no-one would make eye contact. To make matters worse a man shamelessly inserted himself between us and the Asian students instead of joining the back of the queue. Tommy said something cross and sweary and the French couple nodded in agreement. Eventually we completed bag drop, though not without being handed the wrong passports back first.
In the security hall there were probably about 10 lanes with luggage conveyers and scanners, but only 2 were actually open. The queues were huge. Slightly built, sallow skinned young men and women in olive military uniforms checked documentation lethargically or stared into space as hand luggage went through the scanner. Just before it was our turn to be scanned everything stopped for a change of shift. This was accompanied by a lot of unnecessary (imho) pomp and ceremony, with more olive-uniformed men and women marching in, stopping and saluting to music, before the old shift could stand down. I think everyone in that hall was mentally screaming ‘Hurry the f*** up!!’ We finally got scanned and I heard someone being called back – either me or the woman behind me – I’m not sure which tbh. I took a chance and carried on walking and nothing happened so it can’t have been me, can it.
By some miracle our plane was still at the gate and we even had time to eat our fruit (I just sucked my pineapple for its moisture content, being dehydrated and weak and pathetic). There was a moment of horror when the useless bag drop women appeared at the boarding gate and we thought she was going to be running that too, but she had just come to chat to friends and see the off, thank Christ. On board, Tommy and I were seated across the aisle from one other, but he reached across and held my hand for take-off and landing, which I thought was very sweet, and actually quite brave because we were right at the front of the plane and everyone could see and I think someone even sniggered. I awarded him 100 brownie points for that.
At Don Mueng airport they had a great system for people being met by prebooked cars – a lady with your name on a board met you off the plane, then took you to a special seating area and called the driver up. We had a people carrier for just the two of us and it had leather seats and wifi and bottles of cold water. (There is also a bus service down to the Ko Chang ferry but you have to cross Bangkok to connect with it, and had our plane been delayed we might have missed it, so we preferred the private transfer option). As our taxi left the airport we could see that the traffic was really not too bad at all and we were finally able to relax knowing we were well on course to make the ferry in time for the last crossing of the evening. I ate my almond croissant and pain au rasin as we passed wetlands and gem-mining towns and biotech parks as we sped south. The driver made one stop to refuel, and while I nipped to the loo, Tommy bought me ice cream and a bag of pineapple which came with a little sachet of brown sugar and chili to shake over it.
We passed through a very brief but very intense rainstorm, and then about four hours after leaving Bangkok we were at the dockside in Trat province, awaiting our ferry. Because we’d made such good time we could clearly see the island of Ko Chang across the strait in daylight, which was a bit of an unexpected bonus. The sun just started to set as we crossed on the ferry, which followed a route marked out by red bhoys, small islets off to the right, the odd fishing boat bobbing past. Our driver crossed with us and took us all the way to our destination – Lonely Beach - on the west coast of the island. Ko Chang is basically mountain covered in thick jungle with a thin fringe of flat habitable land all around the edge. As we drove around the top of the island and down the west coast, we saw pale crescents of sand at the intermittant beach resorts we passed through, bars and restaurants hugging the shore, their lights just starting to come on, strains of music sometimes audible. Every time we left a beach resort the road headed up into the mountains and jungle, with hairpin bends and spectacular views down to the sea below.
After about 40 minutes we arrived at our hotel – Nest Sense Resort. This was an eco resort of 18 rooms built on a rocky shoreline with the jungle abutting the grounds. Our villa was surrounded by huge palms and had stunning views out to sea through floor to ceiling windows. The design of the rooms was minimalist but still luxurious, with polished concrete floors, simple white bedding, rattan lamps, and a monsoon shower. The hum from the insects outside as the sun went down was so loud I genuinely thought some sort of alarm was going off the first time I heard it! We saw lizards climbing the villa walls as we headed for the restaurant, which overlooked a small but pristine turquoise infinity pool. Sat outside on wooden seats with giant cobalt cushions we ate spring rolls and satay chicken by candlelight in the humid tropical air.
Jan 1st, 2017, 02:39 AM
#44
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Days 16-19 : Ko Chang
Since Ko Chang was mostly down time for us, I’ve decided not to do a day by day account, but just combine the four full days into one entry to try to give you a general sense of the place.
As I’ve already briefly explained, the island is mountainous and covered in dense jungle. Monkeys, elephants, snakes, lizards and tropical birds are all to be found in the forest. Human habitation is concentrated very much around the edges of the island. The east side (facing the mainland) is much less touristy – there are some hotels and resorts, but they tend to be small and sparse. Most of the fishing villages are also found here, though there are also some on the south coast. On the west coast, facing out to sea and across to a number of satellite islands, are the majority of the beach resorts. The further you get from the main ferry port (which is in the north east quadrant of the island) the more low-key the resorts become. As well as the mountains, jungle and sandy beaches, there are also areas of mangrove swamp and lagoons. Our resort of Lonely Beach had a hippy/backpacker vibe, with thatched huts to rent just behind the shoreline, and numerous ramshackle cafes and restaurants on the road through town. The beach was small but pristine, bisected by a small creek running down from the mountains above.
Our typical day would start with breakfast at the hotel restaurant (since it was included in the room rate). It was a la carte rather than buffet and you could order as much as you liked; however we found the basics like fruit salad, home-made yoghurt, pancakes with mango or banana, and cereal a bit more reliable than any dishes with multiple ingredients. Cheese omelettes came filled with some sort of liquidy substance that was so sickly as to be almost inedible (Velveeta?) and hot offerings of ham, eggs etc, whilst of good quality seemed to take an age to cook and often came separately from their supposed accompanying dishes such as toast, so that you couldn’t eat them together, unless at least one of the dishes was stone cold. I don’t want to labour the point too much as the other hotel facilities were excellent and we would definitely recommend Nest Sense and happily stay there again - but the food did need some work.
After breakfast we would either laze by the pool, our routine consisting of a repeating cycle of sunbathing, swimming and mocktail-drinking, or we would head to the beach. The hotel offered a shuttle into town and on to the shore, several times a day, but it was an easy 10-15 minute walk to the beach through town, so we were always happy to go under our own steam. Going on foot also meant we got to peruse the facilities en-route – shops selling swimwear and tie-dye clothing, travel agents peddling excursions to neighbouring islands, Bangkok, or even Cambodia, a chemist which proved invaluable for aftersun and plasters, a 7/11, various massage parlours and of course a range of cocktailing spots and eateries.
Once at the beach we’d hire lurid tangerine-striped deckchairs and buy pineapple smoothies from a stall set up just behind the sand. Smoothies in Thailand don’t usually contain dairy products, generally just fresh fruit and tons of ice, and they always went down a treat. We’d swim in the tepid water which was crystal clear, admiring the view back to shore, with the jungle-choked mountains looming large as a backdrop. Infuriatingly, it was impossible to properly capture the drama of this, as neither of us dared to take our cameras into the water, and the view just wasn’t quite the same from the beach itself.
Our favourite place for lunch was The Guitar House, where whole chickens were cooked on a rotisserie, or portions grilled over charcoal. The chickens were stuffed with herbs – we think lemongrass, thyme and garlic – then served on the bone, with salad and a cold drink for 200 baht. We had the best smoothies of our trip here – made with just oranges and ice. The oranges were small like satsumas and green on the outside, but incredibly sweet. We also tried the lemon smoothies but these were so sharp after the orange version that we struggled to finish them! A little girl helped her mum out in this café, putting drinks and what looked like tubs of yoghurt or jelly into a glass fronted fridge. A large lop-eared rabbit would appear under our table every now and then – I think he must have been a family pet as he looked very well fed and not at all wild. The little girl was always on the look-out for him, but he did quite a good job of evading her, moving from table to table or hiding under the kitchen units!
Other places we ate at included a seafood restaurant (sorry, cannot remember the name) where we had a sort of mixed seafood bbq with flat fish, scallops, squid etc. The squid was a bit rubbery so we fed it to a passing stray cat. We also tried out a pizza place, which I think might have been called the Sleepy Owl, and that was pretty decent, though not particularly cheap.
In the afternoons, we had massages at one of the parlours on the main street – feet for me – Tommy went for full body, and the masseuse used aloe vera to soothe his sunburn. They had to recruit extra staff from a different parlour as there were only ever two ladies working in the place we picked – and one needed to stay and man the front desk (ie call out to passing punters – they always target the men, never the women!). A stray dog came into the salon half way through one of our massages, barked loudly, then abruptly left. We found this amusing as the strays – which loitered everywhere, sleeping in any sunny spot, including the middle of the road much to the consternation of mopeds and songtaews – were usually very quiet and anonymous.
We’d spend early evening back at the resort as there were often spectacular views of the sunset from our west facing villa. Standing on the concrete terrace, we’d snap photos – if you ventured onto the grass, very cross ants would swarm all over your feet and bite you. Once it got dark, we would head back into town for beers and cocktails – we found the best places for these to be Margueritaville and The Magic Cottage. Margueritaville in particular had a range of imaginative signature cocktails fashioned around sweets like the Bounty bar – ie a massive glass of coconut rum, chocolate syrup and shaved ice. Incidentally, they also did really good western food here (burgers cooked medium rare, vast bowls of nachos) if you fancied a non-asian fix. At night, back at the villa, we’d gaze out to sea, enjoying the dramatic electrical storms, bolts of lightning illuminating the distant horizon.
Our last full day on Ko Chang did actually involve us venturing a bit further afield. We booked a snorkelling trip to 3 different islands that departed from a fishing village near Bang Bao. Tommy packed bottled water and hotel towels into rucksacks for us both, and we crammed ourselves into the already overstuffed songtaew that was collecting all the trip participants for the short drive to the pier. At the fishing village, wooden boardwalk leads you through a sizeable covered market on stilts over the water, and out the other side to an area where multiple vessels are moored. I can’t remember the name of our boat specifically, but I do know the tour company was called Sea Hunter. We were directed to the upper deck of the boat, which was full of shouty beery Russians, carrying crates of Chang on their laps (at 9:30 am!!). There was a lengthy introduction – in Russian - and then the tour guide introduced herself to us in English and offered us lifejackets and seasickness pills (which we declined). The boat headed out to sea at a modest pace – the water was flat calm.
It was explained to us that the jetty at the first island had been destroyed in a storm earlier that year and the islanders had decided not to rebuild it as they liked the fact that big vessels could no longer dock there. We thus anchored a short distance off shore and jumped off the back of the boat (which I found quite exciting and a bit dangerous). Even though I’d spent ages picking my snorkel from the communal pile and adjusting it precisely, it still leaked (as did Tommy’s), so after a few mouthfuls of salty water, we eventually abandoned them and just used the masks instead. There were numerous small silvery fish swarming round the boat and I also saw a black angel fish – just the one – but that made it all the more special. I also loved the views of the palm-fringed island in the near distance, with flippered feet occasionally appearing between me and the land as someone else dove down into the water.
Our second island was by far the best of the three – the beach here was powder white sand and the sea a perfect gradient of turquoise. It really was breathtaking. There was a proper live reef here too, and I saw neon parrot fish, enormous but unidentified striped fish, prawns crawling along the seabed, and a terrifying spiky looking thing with huge black needles (anemone meets death star).
The third island was devoid of much to see underwater but was a good beachcombing spot, with shells and rope and all manner of flotsam and jetsam on the shoreline.
We were fed twice on the boat – a buffet of stir-fried chicken, crispy fish, and rice after the second dive, and later on, on the way back to shore, chicken and seafood kebabs were handed out. There was a water cooler on board and free tea and coffee (albeit the latter just instant). Before heading back to the fishing village we made one final stop just off the coast of Ko Chang, to see monkeys coming down onto the rocky shoreline. You aren’t supposed to feed the monkeys whilst you are on the island as it encourages them to come down from the mountain onto the roads where they can get run over, but from the sea (where there are no roads!) it is ok. Our boat sounded its horn and one of the crew hurled watermelon from a sack onto the rocks – and lo! monkeys appeared! It was a pretty cool end to the trip (if you overlook the drunk Russians doing orangutang mines and whoops).
For our final dinner, we caught a songtaew up to Klong Prao beach – about 8km north. We’d picked this destination as I was desperate to see fireflies, and according to TripAdvisor, a couple of the restaurants on the lagoon at Klong Prao gave free boat trips up and down the waterway to look for fireflies if you’d eaten there. The songtaew dropped us off on the main road and we continued the journey on foot, down a side street toward the lagoon. It really wasn’t that far to walk but it was very dark, very quiet and a bit creepy. We came to the Phu Talay seafood restaurant first, so stopped there by default. The restaurant initially put me in mind of a greek taverna, with an unusual (for Thailand) blue and white colour scheme, and we took seats on the terrace right by the lagoon. It was pitch black out on the water and you could hardly see anything beyond the confines of the restaurant. There were also hardly any other customers, and worryingly, no sign of anything that looked like a tender to take you up and down the lagoon on a firefly quest.
We ordered drinks and the staff seemed to really struggle to understand us – the first time we’d had problems anywhere on our trip, and even pointing to the menu didn’t help much as they bought Tommy completely the wrong beer. Actually, he thinks they might have run out of the one he’d asked for as they seemed to be deliberately trying to turn the bottle away from him so he couldn’t read the label. At this point, a bit grumpy at the lack of Singha, he also warned me he was going to poke me with pointy sticks if he got any insect bites whilst we ate. I reminded him he’d used enough deet for the entire island before we set off and also that i was the one the mossies had preferred nibbling on in Chiang Mai anyway, and happily this diffused the situation. We both ordered thai red chicken curries with rice, and slightly unexpectedly after the drinks fiasco and worrying lack of other customers, these were delicious. I enquired about the firefly trips and was met with completely blank stares from the staff, so after settling the bill we cut our losses and flagged down a songtaew back to Lonely Beach where we spent the rest of the evening in Margueritaville.
Ko Chang and snorkelling island pics attached:-
https://www.flickr.com/gp/49452305@N02/0uZK1H
Since Ko Chang was mostly down time for us, I’ve decided not to do a day by day account, but just combine the four full days into one entry to try to give you a general sense of the place.
As I’ve already briefly explained, the island is mountainous and covered in dense jungle. Monkeys, elephants, snakes, lizards and tropical birds are all to be found in the forest. Human habitation is concentrated very much around the edges of the island. The east side (facing the mainland) is much less touristy – there are some hotels and resorts, but they tend to be small and sparse. Most of the fishing villages are also found here, though there are also some on the south coast. On the west coast, facing out to sea and across to a number of satellite islands, are the majority of the beach resorts. The further you get from the main ferry port (which is in the north east quadrant of the island) the more low-key the resorts become. As well as the mountains, jungle and sandy beaches, there are also areas of mangrove swamp and lagoons. Our resort of Lonely Beach had a hippy/backpacker vibe, with thatched huts to rent just behind the shoreline, and numerous ramshackle cafes and restaurants on the road through town. The beach was small but pristine, bisected by a small creek running down from the mountains above.
Our typical day would start with breakfast at the hotel restaurant (since it was included in the room rate). It was a la carte rather than buffet and you could order as much as you liked; however we found the basics like fruit salad, home-made yoghurt, pancakes with mango or banana, and cereal a bit more reliable than any dishes with multiple ingredients. Cheese omelettes came filled with some sort of liquidy substance that was so sickly as to be almost inedible (Velveeta?) and hot offerings of ham, eggs etc, whilst of good quality seemed to take an age to cook and often came separately from their supposed accompanying dishes such as toast, so that you couldn’t eat them together, unless at least one of the dishes was stone cold. I don’t want to labour the point too much as the other hotel facilities were excellent and we would definitely recommend Nest Sense and happily stay there again - but the food did need some work.
After breakfast we would either laze by the pool, our routine consisting of a repeating cycle of sunbathing, swimming and mocktail-drinking, or we would head to the beach. The hotel offered a shuttle into town and on to the shore, several times a day, but it was an easy 10-15 minute walk to the beach through town, so we were always happy to go under our own steam. Going on foot also meant we got to peruse the facilities en-route – shops selling swimwear and tie-dye clothing, travel agents peddling excursions to neighbouring islands, Bangkok, or even Cambodia, a chemist which proved invaluable for aftersun and plasters, a 7/11, various massage parlours and of course a range of cocktailing spots and eateries.
Once at the beach we’d hire lurid tangerine-striped deckchairs and buy pineapple smoothies from a stall set up just behind the sand. Smoothies in Thailand don’t usually contain dairy products, generally just fresh fruit and tons of ice, and they always went down a treat. We’d swim in the tepid water which was crystal clear, admiring the view back to shore, with the jungle-choked mountains looming large as a backdrop. Infuriatingly, it was impossible to properly capture the drama of this, as neither of us dared to take our cameras into the water, and the view just wasn’t quite the same from the beach itself.
Our favourite place for lunch was The Guitar House, where whole chickens were cooked on a rotisserie, or portions grilled over charcoal. The chickens were stuffed with herbs – we think lemongrass, thyme and garlic – then served on the bone, with salad and a cold drink for 200 baht. We had the best smoothies of our trip here – made with just oranges and ice. The oranges were small like satsumas and green on the outside, but incredibly sweet. We also tried the lemon smoothies but these were so sharp after the orange version that we struggled to finish them! A little girl helped her mum out in this café, putting drinks and what looked like tubs of yoghurt or jelly into a glass fronted fridge. A large lop-eared rabbit would appear under our table every now and then – I think he must have been a family pet as he looked very well fed and not at all wild. The little girl was always on the look-out for him, but he did quite a good job of evading her, moving from table to table or hiding under the kitchen units!
Other places we ate at included a seafood restaurant (sorry, cannot remember the name) where we had a sort of mixed seafood bbq with flat fish, scallops, squid etc. The squid was a bit rubbery so we fed it to a passing stray cat. We also tried out a pizza place, which I think might have been called the Sleepy Owl, and that was pretty decent, though not particularly cheap.
In the afternoons, we had massages at one of the parlours on the main street – feet for me – Tommy went for full body, and the masseuse used aloe vera to soothe his sunburn. They had to recruit extra staff from a different parlour as there were only ever two ladies working in the place we picked – and one needed to stay and man the front desk (ie call out to passing punters – they always target the men, never the women!). A stray dog came into the salon half way through one of our massages, barked loudly, then abruptly left. We found this amusing as the strays – which loitered everywhere, sleeping in any sunny spot, including the middle of the road much to the consternation of mopeds and songtaews – were usually very quiet and anonymous.
We’d spend early evening back at the resort as there were often spectacular views of the sunset from our west facing villa. Standing on the concrete terrace, we’d snap photos – if you ventured onto the grass, very cross ants would swarm all over your feet and bite you. Once it got dark, we would head back into town for beers and cocktails – we found the best places for these to be Margueritaville and The Magic Cottage. Margueritaville in particular had a range of imaginative signature cocktails fashioned around sweets like the Bounty bar – ie a massive glass of coconut rum, chocolate syrup and shaved ice. Incidentally, they also did really good western food here (burgers cooked medium rare, vast bowls of nachos) if you fancied a non-asian fix. At night, back at the villa, we’d gaze out to sea, enjoying the dramatic electrical storms, bolts of lightning illuminating the distant horizon.
Our last full day on Ko Chang did actually involve us venturing a bit further afield. We booked a snorkelling trip to 3 different islands that departed from a fishing village near Bang Bao. Tommy packed bottled water and hotel towels into rucksacks for us both, and we crammed ourselves into the already overstuffed songtaew that was collecting all the trip participants for the short drive to the pier. At the fishing village, wooden boardwalk leads you through a sizeable covered market on stilts over the water, and out the other side to an area where multiple vessels are moored. I can’t remember the name of our boat specifically, but I do know the tour company was called Sea Hunter. We were directed to the upper deck of the boat, which was full of shouty beery Russians, carrying crates of Chang on their laps (at 9:30 am!!). There was a lengthy introduction – in Russian - and then the tour guide introduced herself to us in English and offered us lifejackets and seasickness pills (which we declined). The boat headed out to sea at a modest pace – the water was flat calm.
It was explained to us that the jetty at the first island had been destroyed in a storm earlier that year and the islanders had decided not to rebuild it as they liked the fact that big vessels could no longer dock there. We thus anchored a short distance off shore and jumped off the back of the boat (which I found quite exciting and a bit dangerous). Even though I’d spent ages picking my snorkel from the communal pile and adjusting it precisely, it still leaked (as did Tommy’s), so after a few mouthfuls of salty water, we eventually abandoned them and just used the masks instead. There were numerous small silvery fish swarming round the boat and I also saw a black angel fish – just the one – but that made it all the more special. I also loved the views of the palm-fringed island in the near distance, with flippered feet occasionally appearing between me and the land as someone else dove down into the water.
Our second island was by far the best of the three – the beach here was powder white sand and the sea a perfect gradient of turquoise. It really was breathtaking. There was a proper live reef here too, and I saw neon parrot fish, enormous but unidentified striped fish, prawns crawling along the seabed, and a terrifying spiky looking thing with huge black needles (anemone meets death star).
The third island was devoid of much to see underwater but was a good beachcombing spot, with shells and rope and all manner of flotsam and jetsam on the shoreline.
We were fed twice on the boat – a buffet of stir-fried chicken, crispy fish, and rice after the second dive, and later on, on the way back to shore, chicken and seafood kebabs were handed out. There was a water cooler on board and free tea and coffee (albeit the latter just instant). Before heading back to the fishing village we made one final stop just off the coast of Ko Chang, to see monkeys coming down onto the rocky shoreline. You aren’t supposed to feed the monkeys whilst you are on the island as it encourages them to come down from the mountain onto the roads where they can get run over, but from the sea (where there are no roads!) it is ok. Our boat sounded its horn and one of the crew hurled watermelon from a sack onto the rocks – and lo! monkeys appeared! It was a pretty cool end to the trip (if you overlook the drunk Russians doing orangutang mines and whoops).
For our final dinner, we caught a songtaew up to Klong Prao beach – about 8km north. We’d picked this destination as I was desperate to see fireflies, and according to TripAdvisor, a couple of the restaurants on the lagoon at Klong Prao gave free boat trips up and down the waterway to look for fireflies if you’d eaten there. The songtaew dropped us off on the main road and we continued the journey on foot, down a side street toward the lagoon. It really wasn’t that far to walk but it was very dark, very quiet and a bit creepy. We came to the Phu Talay seafood restaurant first, so stopped there by default. The restaurant initially put me in mind of a greek taverna, with an unusual (for Thailand) blue and white colour scheme, and we took seats on the terrace right by the lagoon. It was pitch black out on the water and you could hardly see anything beyond the confines of the restaurant. There were also hardly any other customers, and worryingly, no sign of anything that looked like a tender to take you up and down the lagoon on a firefly quest.
We ordered drinks and the staff seemed to really struggle to understand us – the first time we’d had problems anywhere on our trip, and even pointing to the menu didn’t help much as they bought Tommy completely the wrong beer. Actually, he thinks they might have run out of the one he’d asked for as they seemed to be deliberately trying to turn the bottle away from him so he couldn’t read the label. At this point, a bit grumpy at the lack of Singha, he also warned me he was going to poke me with pointy sticks if he got any insect bites whilst we ate. I reminded him he’d used enough deet for the entire island before we set off and also that i was the one the mossies had preferred nibbling on in Chiang Mai anyway, and happily this diffused the situation. We both ordered thai red chicken curries with rice, and slightly unexpectedly after the drinks fiasco and worrying lack of other customers, these were delicious. I enquired about the firefly trips and was met with completely blank stares from the staff, so after settling the bill we cut our losses and flagged down a songtaew back to Lonely Beach where we spent the rest of the evening in Margueritaville.
Ko Chang and snorkelling island pics attached:-
https://www.flickr.com/gp/49452305@N02/0uZK1H
Jan 3rd, 2017, 08:00 PM
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Great report, great fun!!! Thank you!! Except for HaLong Bay and Hanoi (where I also stayed at the marvelous Essence Hotel) I havent been to these places. Thanks for the memories, and the "learn about it" information.
Jan 4th, 2017, 05:08 AM
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Day 20: Ko Chang to Bangkok
The very last part of our trip consisted of a couple of nights back in Bangkok before the flight home. Unlike the journey down to Ko Chang, we weren’t under time pressure to make multiple connections, so took a cheaper alternative to the private car we’d had a few days earlier, booking seats on a shared minibus. I think it was about 700 or 800 baht per person for the trip door to door, i.e. pick up at Nest Sense resort, drive to island ferry terminal, ferry crossing, mainland ferry terminal to hotel in Bangkok. We booked tickets at the same place we’d booked our snorkeling trip (Leopard tours?), and were up bright and early on Tuesday morning for the 8:30am pickup. Being nearly at the bottom of the island was a big advantage on the return journey, as we were the first to be collected and could nab the best seats, rather than being crammed in the back.
Most of the other passengers were dutifully waiting outside their accomodation, bags packed and ready to go as we pulled up, however one guy kept us waiting further up the island, and on top of that proceeded to try and get the driver to change the itinerary for him and drop him off at a hotel, instead of the airport destination that he’d originally specified. Amusingly, the guy’s wife called him during the ride back and whatever he’d been planning in Bangkok was curtailed as he sheepishly got off at the airport after all. Anyway, I digresss. Thanks to the aforementioned latecomer, we missed the ferry we were scheduled to catch and had an hours wait at the terminal for the next one. There were stalls selling drinks and a shaded area to sit though, so it wasn’t the end of the world, and we waited patiently with iced coffees, saying our last goodbyes to the island.
The ferrys are a bit delapidated – old and rusty - but the service is very efficient – all the vehicles are loaded onto the lower deck in a matter of minutes, and then passengers get out and climb the metal staircase to the upper deck with seating, drinks vendors, and I think, a loo. We sat watching the island slowly recede behind us as we crossed the strait and felt a bit sad. Once on the mainland, the journey back to Bangkok took longer than the one coming down due to heavier traffic in the city centre, and a few unscheduled stops for a poorly passenger to visit a pharmacy, and later on, to be let out to get some air as she was feeling so faint. Tommy wasn’t very sympathetic and as divine punishment lost his phone down the side of one of the seats and wasn’t able to retrieve it till close to the end of our journey.
Finally (it took 8.5 hours in total) we were at the Marriot Sukhumvit. This was our splurge hotel for the last two nights (we’d allowed ourselves a larger room budget as a treat to end the holiday). We actually found it harder to decide on a hotel once we'd upped the budget, as Bangkok has an absolute wealth of luxury accomodation, and it was quite difficult to narrow it down – I fancied the Shanghai Mansion (too girly/pink/silky for Tommy), he liked the Muse (too dark and blokey for me), we both liked the Sala Rattanakosin right on the river with views of the stunning Wat Arun, but Tommy pointed out that the temple was covered in scaffolding for restoration, and even though scheduled to be finished by the time we got out there, might well not be (he turned out to be right on this). In the end, we plumped for the Marriot, which had simple oriental styling (silver japanese screens on the bedroom wall, dark furniture, marble bathrooms, a rooftop bar, lots of promising looking eateries, and 5 star rating) – and, even though I'm not normally a fan of big chains, this turned out to be an excellent choice.
We had made it to the hotel in the nick of time for sunset, so both quickly got changed into something a bit smarter for the Octave rooftop bar (which turned out to be unecessary, as the dress code was much more relaxed than we’d originally been led to believe). The bar complex consisted of about 4 different levels at the top of the hotel, and we went up to the very top one initially, where an illuminated circular glass bar was manned by waistcoated staff shaking and pouring all manner of delicious things as the sun started to go down. The hostess led us to a table right by the glass barrier at the edge of the building so we could see out across the city. The incredible 360 panorama included distant skyscrapers, all manner of rooftop gardens and swimming pools on buildings closer by, a mercurial Chaopraya threading its way through the metropolis, and the skytrain coming and going silently, 49 floors below us. As the sky became increasingly orange, we worked our way through a good percentage of the signature cocktails, which were all half price for the three hour happy hour. I started with Angel Lips (chivas regal, grand marnier, pink grapefruit juice and bitters) and I think Tommy had a Jack Twist (more chivas regal, this time with antica, vanilla, herb syrup and bitters). We progressed onto Shining Suns (Havana club, tamarind, pomelo, pineapple and absinthe) and then I ticked off my bucketlist ‘blue cocktail on a rooftop bar’ going for a Bee Tranquil (gin, lychee syrup, yuzu, honey and blue curacao) which was almost aquamarine in colour and made me feel a bit funny. Staff passed effortlessly by with carefully balanced trays of martini and highball glasses, stopping occasionally to deposit bowls of nuts on the tables, or to take photos of customers silhouetted against the sunset.
I really didn’t want to leave, but we’d not eaten much all day, so eventually we tore ourselves away and headed down a couple of levels to another part of the bar that also served food. The staff here were incredibly apologetic that they didn’t have any of the seats with the really stellar views left on this lower level, but we were perfectly happy with where we were put, still by the glass balustrade, and still with a vast expense of the city stretched out in front of us. We ordered a yakatori platter and it was cooked on an outdoor grill just a few feet away from us. This was honestly one of the best things we ate all trip – wagyu beef which was like butter in texture, salmon, black cod, mushrooms, prawns and broccoli, all on skewers. More cocktails to help it down, and the staff (we had a lovely femboy serving us) coming over every now and then, asking if we wanted to be moved to better seats and checking if everything was alright.
After dinner it was back to our room where I had a long bath in the circular tub, which had fabulous views of the skyline. Tommy had bought me Molton Brown goodies to use on holiday and I used half a bottle of the Heavenly Gingerly bubble bath in one go, making enormous amounts of suds and topping up the water every time I started to go a bit pruney and wrinkled. Did I mention I loved this hotel!
Pictures attached:-
https://www.flickr.com/photos/494523...57676533261921
The very last part of our trip consisted of a couple of nights back in Bangkok before the flight home. Unlike the journey down to Ko Chang, we weren’t under time pressure to make multiple connections, so took a cheaper alternative to the private car we’d had a few days earlier, booking seats on a shared minibus. I think it was about 700 or 800 baht per person for the trip door to door, i.e. pick up at Nest Sense resort, drive to island ferry terminal, ferry crossing, mainland ferry terminal to hotel in Bangkok. We booked tickets at the same place we’d booked our snorkeling trip (Leopard tours?), and were up bright and early on Tuesday morning for the 8:30am pickup. Being nearly at the bottom of the island was a big advantage on the return journey, as we were the first to be collected and could nab the best seats, rather than being crammed in the back.
Most of the other passengers were dutifully waiting outside their accomodation, bags packed and ready to go as we pulled up, however one guy kept us waiting further up the island, and on top of that proceeded to try and get the driver to change the itinerary for him and drop him off at a hotel, instead of the airport destination that he’d originally specified. Amusingly, the guy’s wife called him during the ride back and whatever he’d been planning in Bangkok was curtailed as he sheepishly got off at the airport after all. Anyway, I digresss. Thanks to the aforementioned latecomer, we missed the ferry we were scheduled to catch and had an hours wait at the terminal for the next one. There were stalls selling drinks and a shaded area to sit though, so it wasn’t the end of the world, and we waited patiently with iced coffees, saying our last goodbyes to the island.
The ferrys are a bit delapidated – old and rusty - but the service is very efficient – all the vehicles are loaded onto the lower deck in a matter of minutes, and then passengers get out and climb the metal staircase to the upper deck with seating, drinks vendors, and I think, a loo. We sat watching the island slowly recede behind us as we crossed the strait and felt a bit sad. Once on the mainland, the journey back to Bangkok took longer than the one coming down due to heavier traffic in the city centre, and a few unscheduled stops for a poorly passenger to visit a pharmacy, and later on, to be let out to get some air as she was feeling so faint. Tommy wasn’t very sympathetic and as divine punishment lost his phone down the side of one of the seats and wasn’t able to retrieve it till close to the end of our journey.
Finally (it took 8.5 hours in total) we were at the Marriot Sukhumvit. This was our splurge hotel for the last two nights (we’d allowed ourselves a larger room budget as a treat to end the holiday). We actually found it harder to decide on a hotel once we'd upped the budget, as Bangkok has an absolute wealth of luxury accomodation, and it was quite difficult to narrow it down – I fancied the Shanghai Mansion (too girly/pink/silky for Tommy), he liked the Muse (too dark and blokey for me), we both liked the Sala Rattanakosin right on the river with views of the stunning Wat Arun, but Tommy pointed out that the temple was covered in scaffolding for restoration, and even though scheduled to be finished by the time we got out there, might well not be (he turned out to be right on this). In the end, we plumped for the Marriot, which had simple oriental styling (silver japanese screens on the bedroom wall, dark furniture, marble bathrooms, a rooftop bar, lots of promising looking eateries, and 5 star rating) – and, even though I'm not normally a fan of big chains, this turned out to be an excellent choice.
We had made it to the hotel in the nick of time for sunset, so both quickly got changed into something a bit smarter for the Octave rooftop bar (which turned out to be unecessary, as the dress code was much more relaxed than we’d originally been led to believe). The bar complex consisted of about 4 different levels at the top of the hotel, and we went up to the very top one initially, where an illuminated circular glass bar was manned by waistcoated staff shaking and pouring all manner of delicious things as the sun started to go down. The hostess led us to a table right by the glass barrier at the edge of the building so we could see out across the city. The incredible 360 panorama included distant skyscrapers, all manner of rooftop gardens and swimming pools on buildings closer by, a mercurial Chaopraya threading its way through the metropolis, and the skytrain coming and going silently, 49 floors below us. As the sky became increasingly orange, we worked our way through a good percentage of the signature cocktails, which were all half price for the three hour happy hour. I started with Angel Lips (chivas regal, grand marnier, pink grapefruit juice and bitters) and I think Tommy had a Jack Twist (more chivas regal, this time with antica, vanilla, herb syrup and bitters). We progressed onto Shining Suns (Havana club, tamarind, pomelo, pineapple and absinthe) and then I ticked off my bucketlist ‘blue cocktail on a rooftop bar’ going for a Bee Tranquil (gin, lychee syrup, yuzu, honey and blue curacao) which was almost aquamarine in colour and made me feel a bit funny. Staff passed effortlessly by with carefully balanced trays of martini and highball glasses, stopping occasionally to deposit bowls of nuts on the tables, or to take photos of customers silhouetted against the sunset.
I really didn’t want to leave, but we’d not eaten much all day, so eventually we tore ourselves away and headed down a couple of levels to another part of the bar that also served food. The staff here were incredibly apologetic that they didn’t have any of the seats with the really stellar views left on this lower level, but we were perfectly happy with where we were put, still by the glass balustrade, and still with a vast expense of the city stretched out in front of us. We ordered a yakatori platter and it was cooked on an outdoor grill just a few feet away from us. This was honestly one of the best things we ate all trip – wagyu beef which was like butter in texture, salmon, black cod, mushrooms, prawns and broccoli, all on skewers. More cocktails to help it down, and the staff (we had a lovely femboy serving us) coming over every now and then, asking if we wanted to be moved to better seats and checking if everything was alright.
After dinner it was back to our room where I had a long bath in the circular tub, which had fabulous views of the skyline. Tommy had bought me Molton Brown goodies to use on holiday and I used half a bottle of the Heavenly Gingerly bubble bath in one go, making enormous amounts of suds and topping up the water every time I started to go a bit pruney and wrinkled. Did I mention I loved this hotel!
Pictures attached:-
https://www.flickr.com/photos/494523...57676533261921
Jan 5th, 2017, 01:05 PM
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Great photos of your last days. Of all the times I have been in BKK and the river, I have never seen the "people" sitting on the docks. Where was that? I'm hoping there are a couple more post from you for your last days. The hotel sounds like a wonderful splurge and the food looks delicious.
Jan 6th, 2017, 08:15 AM
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Day 21: Bangkok
We left the Marriot for an early morning stroll, keeping an eye out for somewhere suitable to eat breakfast en-route. Heading first down Soi Sukhumvit 55, then turning into a little side street (Soi Thonglor 17) we came across The Commons, a small but very smart mall, specialising in gourmet food shops and cafes. The complex was only just opening when we arrived, and we started at Roots on the ground floor, a coffee bar with concrete counters and 50s-style teal-coloured espresso cups. We tried a different roast each and ate huge, flaky almond croissants, whilst chatting with the proprietor, who let Tommy test free samples of the unusual cold filtered coffees that were also on sale there, telling him to look out for marmalade notes, malty notes etc.
Moving on round the mall we passed an egg counter just setting up – ‘Egg My God’ - with a vast menu of both savoury and sweet dishes, eggs poached, scrambled, fried, boiled, in crepes, and en cocotte. Opposite the egg place was a lobster bar, devoid of any seafood at that point, trays of ice still awaiting their crustacea, and just round the corner, a large craft beer terrace. There was also an indoor bbq area – Meat and Bones - which we earmarked as a possible venue for our evening meal.
Upstairs we came to Roast, which had an enormous brunch menu, and decided we’d have our second breakfast here – a croque monsieur for me, full of strong mustard and proper melty cheese – and I can’t remember what Tommy had - it might well have been eggs benedict because he loves that and chooses it a lot, but I couldn’t put my hand on my heart and say that it definitely was. I do know that he had a cherry coke float to drink, which I thought stretched the definition of breakfast/brunch somewhat, but he was completely unrepentant.
We finished by perusing a few of the non-foody shops in the complex – there was quite a nice audio store where we tried on very hipster-looking square leather and wood headphones, but they didn’t sound nearly as good as they looked unfortunately. There was also a boutique full of lovely bohemian clothes and jewellery, a florist, and a couple of crèches for wealthy thai mummies to dump the kids at whilst they ate pancakes or French toast upstairs.
After a brief diversion to a currency exchange type place for Tommy to get out (or pay in – I’m not quite sure which) some cash, we grabbed a taxi to our next port of call - a snake farm and clinic. The farm site was right by Chulalongkorn hospital, the entire complex comprising a mixture of 60s high rise plus older colonial style buildings with wooden shutters and verdant gardens. The purpose of the farm is to produce venom for anti-venom medication and medical research. Although you could see a lot of the snakes in a small zoo-like area, consisting of footpaths and wooden boardwalk weaving round tanks and cages outside, we’d come mainly to catch the daily show, in which the snakes are actually brought out to meet visitors face to face.
There was an area of concrete terracing, about 5 or 6 rows deep to view the show from, and knowing Tommy is not a huge fan of snakes, I opted for the back row. ‘Is this far enough’ I asked. ‘Not nearly’ came the dry reply. After a short wait, white coated attendants started to appear, holding the various exhibits up for photos, whilst a compere told us a bit about each species, such as their natural habitat, how poisonous they were etc etc. Most of the snakes seemed quite docile and used to being handled, and the staff would often put them down on the concrete floor and let them slither around a bit before collecting them up again. However, at one point two cobras were bought out, and unlike the other snakes, these were very bad tempered – the minute they were released they turned round to face the audience, reared up and spat into the crowd. It didn’t help alleviate any fears when I spotted that one of the attendants had a heavily bandaged arm! At the end of the show a large yellow python was also brought out and people came down to pose for photos with him – we passed on this, because as interested as we were in the good work done by the clinic, we didn’t particularly want to interact with any of the snakes ourselves.
It was a fairly short walk from the farm to the nearest BTS station, where we caught the train to Thong Lo, a stop handily situated right outside our hotel. Once back in our room, Tommy opted for a nap, and I decided to visit the pool and spa complex. Taking the lift down to the 9th floor, I found a sizeable infinity pool outside, with a large decked area where there were wooden loungers, parasols, and a poolside bar. Almost all the loungers were taken but the pool itself was empty, so I was able to have really quite a decent swim. There was also a smaller plunge pool/Jacuzzi type thing but some selfish arses had parked their loungers right next to it, so it was almost impossible to gain access. I had an hour or so by the pool alternating between swimming, sunbathing and reading my book, but the sun was moving round rapidly, and there was something a bit disturbing about seeing dozens of people all lined up silently on their loungers, pink and sunburnt, staring at tablets like intelligent prawns on a giant rooftop grill, so I made my way back to the room just before 5pm.
After rousing Tommy, we got changed for another rooftop cocktail session in the Octave and stayed even longer than the previous night. So long in fact, that we did not have the energy to go out after all, instead heading to a little café in the hotel foyer where we purchased an in-room picnic of fabulous lamb and mint pies and French patisserie. Amusingly, the café also had a happy hour, so everything we brought there was half price too, just like our earlier cocktails. Back in our hotel room the sizeable amount of booze I’d consumed earlier kept me awake a fair while, so whilst Tommy slept, I got myself a cold Pepsi from the minibar and sat on the windowsill, watching the BTS trains come and go across the Bladerunner-like landscape below.
We left the Marriot for an early morning stroll, keeping an eye out for somewhere suitable to eat breakfast en-route. Heading first down Soi Sukhumvit 55, then turning into a little side street (Soi Thonglor 17) we came across The Commons, a small but very smart mall, specialising in gourmet food shops and cafes. The complex was only just opening when we arrived, and we started at Roots on the ground floor, a coffee bar with concrete counters and 50s-style teal-coloured espresso cups. We tried a different roast each and ate huge, flaky almond croissants, whilst chatting with the proprietor, who let Tommy test free samples of the unusual cold filtered coffees that were also on sale there, telling him to look out for marmalade notes, malty notes etc.
Moving on round the mall we passed an egg counter just setting up – ‘Egg My God’ - with a vast menu of both savoury and sweet dishes, eggs poached, scrambled, fried, boiled, in crepes, and en cocotte. Opposite the egg place was a lobster bar, devoid of any seafood at that point, trays of ice still awaiting their crustacea, and just round the corner, a large craft beer terrace. There was also an indoor bbq area – Meat and Bones - which we earmarked as a possible venue for our evening meal.
Upstairs we came to Roast, which had an enormous brunch menu, and decided we’d have our second breakfast here – a croque monsieur for me, full of strong mustard and proper melty cheese – and I can’t remember what Tommy had - it might well have been eggs benedict because he loves that and chooses it a lot, but I couldn’t put my hand on my heart and say that it definitely was. I do know that he had a cherry coke float to drink, which I thought stretched the definition of breakfast/brunch somewhat, but he was completely unrepentant.
We finished by perusing a few of the non-foody shops in the complex – there was quite a nice audio store where we tried on very hipster-looking square leather and wood headphones, but they didn’t sound nearly as good as they looked unfortunately. There was also a boutique full of lovely bohemian clothes and jewellery, a florist, and a couple of crèches for wealthy thai mummies to dump the kids at whilst they ate pancakes or French toast upstairs.
After a brief diversion to a currency exchange type place for Tommy to get out (or pay in – I’m not quite sure which) some cash, we grabbed a taxi to our next port of call - a snake farm and clinic. The farm site was right by Chulalongkorn hospital, the entire complex comprising a mixture of 60s high rise plus older colonial style buildings with wooden shutters and verdant gardens. The purpose of the farm is to produce venom for anti-venom medication and medical research. Although you could see a lot of the snakes in a small zoo-like area, consisting of footpaths and wooden boardwalk weaving round tanks and cages outside, we’d come mainly to catch the daily show, in which the snakes are actually brought out to meet visitors face to face.
There was an area of concrete terracing, about 5 or 6 rows deep to view the show from, and knowing Tommy is not a huge fan of snakes, I opted for the back row. ‘Is this far enough’ I asked. ‘Not nearly’ came the dry reply. After a short wait, white coated attendants started to appear, holding the various exhibits up for photos, whilst a compere told us a bit about each species, such as their natural habitat, how poisonous they were etc etc. Most of the snakes seemed quite docile and used to being handled, and the staff would often put them down on the concrete floor and let them slither around a bit before collecting them up again. However, at one point two cobras were bought out, and unlike the other snakes, these were very bad tempered – the minute they were released they turned round to face the audience, reared up and spat into the crowd. It didn’t help alleviate any fears when I spotted that one of the attendants had a heavily bandaged arm! At the end of the show a large yellow python was also brought out and people came down to pose for photos with him – we passed on this, because as interested as we were in the good work done by the clinic, we didn’t particularly want to interact with any of the snakes ourselves.
It was a fairly short walk from the farm to the nearest BTS station, where we caught the train to Thong Lo, a stop handily situated right outside our hotel. Once back in our room, Tommy opted for a nap, and I decided to visit the pool and spa complex. Taking the lift down to the 9th floor, I found a sizeable infinity pool outside, with a large decked area where there were wooden loungers, parasols, and a poolside bar. Almost all the loungers were taken but the pool itself was empty, so I was able to have really quite a decent swim. There was also a smaller plunge pool/Jacuzzi type thing but some selfish arses had parked their loungers right next to it, so it was almost impossible to gain access. I had an hour or so by the pool alternating between swimming, sunbathing and reading my book, but the sun was moving round rapidly, and there was something a bit disturbing about seeing dozens of people all lined up silently on their loungers, pink and sunburnt, staring at tablets like intelligent prawns on a giant rooftop grill, so I made my way back to the room just before 5pm.
After rousing Tommy, we got changed for another rooftop cocktail session in the Octave and stayed even longer than the previous night. So long in fact, that we did not have the energy to go out after all, instead heading to a little café in the hotel foyer where we purchased an in-room picnic of fabulous lamb and mint pies and French patisserie. Amusingly, the café also had a happy hour, so everything we brought there was half price too, just like our earlier cocktails. Back in our hotel room the sizeable amount of booze I’d consumed earlier kept me awake a fair while, so whilst Tommy slept, I got myself a cold Pepsi from the minibar and sat on the windowsill, watching the BTS trains come and go across the Bladerunner-like landscape below.
Jan 6th, 2017, 11:37 AM
#51
but the sun was moving round rapidly, and there was something a bit disturbing about seeing dozens of people all lined up silently on their loungers, pink and sunburnt, staring at tablets like intelligent prawns on a giant rooftop grill, so I made my way back to the room just before 5pm.>>
great image, RM. sunbathing in general strikes me as a weird "activity" [if you can call it that]. The most I can tolerate is half an hour or so reading a book before I have a dip; another 30 mins lounging about getting dry and that's really my lot.
great image, RM. sunbathing in general strikes me as a weird "activity" [if you can call it that]. The most I can tolerate is half an hour or so reading a book before I have a dip; another 30 mins lounging about getting dry and that's really my lot.
Jan 7th, 2017, 09:17 AM
#52
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I get burnt quite quickly, Ann, even with factor 50, so I'm not usually one for spending the whole day on a lounger. But a couple of hours with a good book to read and a pool adjacent to cool off in every now and then, especially after a few days of hectic travel, I quite enjoy. Also I found there was just enough intermittent cloud cover on this trip to avoid roasting alive.
Jan 7th, 2017, 10:30 AM
#53
RM - I'm the same re burning which I'm sure has influenced my attitude to sunbathing. Also never being able to find a comfortable way of reading whilst lying prone on the sand or on a towel and disliking finding sand in strange places.
Jan 8th, 2017, 04:17 AM
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Day 22: Bangkok
Our last day in Bangkok started with breakfast in the hotel. I had scrambled eggs with chopped peppers, a range of pastries, fruit and yoghurt, and then apple crumble with cream and flambed bananas. Don’t ask me how the latter two qualify as breakfast – I wouldn’t have expected to see them on the buffet to be honest, but it would have been rude not to try them, since they were there. At the same station as the apple crumble I also saw crème brulees, and took one for Tommy so he would be complicit in puddinggate and couldn’t tell me off.
Plans for the day ahead included a bit of shopping in the upmarket malls, a visit to Lumpini Park, and then a trip to one of the lesser known sights – an artists house on the klong (canal), with a puppet show thrown in for good measure.
The posh malls were not that far from our hotel, so we opted to walk, despite the building heat and humidity. En-route we passed patisseries, massage parlours, and food vendors starting to set up their charcoal grills on the street, or chopping mango and papaya and arranging the slices neatly on ice. Lime green and bubblegum pink taxis honked angrily at mopeds crossing their path. Though the area was quite a bit smarter than that surrounding our first hotel, the pavements were still just as uneven in places, and if you glanced up, the familiar tangle of wires still criss-crossed the sky.
In the mall Tommy bought new earbuds to replace an old set that had worn out due to a mixture of heavy usage and a lilac-furred feline that liked to gnaw the wires. We also perused beautiful silk accessories in Jim Thompson - only after I’d had my iced chocolate milk confiscated by the eagle-eyed staff though. Then on to the jewellery section of the mall, which had virtually every high-end jeweller and fashion house you could possibly think of. We started in Tiffany, as I have coveted one of their key pendants pretty much since the dawn of time. It was pay day and I was sorely tempted to treat myself to a last minute souvenir, however my car was due its MOT the day after I got back to the UK, I had a plumbing invoice still outstanding, and it was of course Christmas in a couple of weeks time, so by superhuman willpower I resisted.
We next wandered passed Mikimoto (I am not a huge fan of pearls truth be told) and Bvlgari, which was a bit blingy for me, and then finally Cartier, probably my most favourite jewellery house of all. In the window of Cartier they had a jawdropping panther bracelet exactly like the one owned by Wallace Simpson, a mass of diamonds and sapphires, the cat’s mouth acting as the clasp. I had no idea they were still making the Panthere range, though I suppose there’s always a chance it was an isolated antique piece from the deco era. I actually prefer the Le Baiser Du Dragon range from a few years back, which is much more oriental in style, and very delicate, lots of onyx, jade and baguette-cut diamonds. I helpfully explained the fundamental differences between the two collections to Tommy, and I could tell he was fascinated.
We spent longer than anticipated at the mall, so ended up scratching Lumpini Park from the schedule, to ensure we didn’t miss the puppet show. Hopping onto a skytrain, we made for Wongwian Yai, the nearest stop to the canals, fortuitously managing to snag seats for most of the journey. I say nearest stop – we were still not within walking distance of our final destination and had to grab a taxi from outside the BTS. This proved more problematic than we had expected as none of the drivers had heard of the address we wanted, and it took three attempts before we managed to find someone to agree to take us, and then only if Tommy had Google maps up on his phone and took charge of navigation. Not knowing the thai for things like ‘straight ahead’, ‘slip road’ and ‘underpass’, said navigation also necessitated a fair bit of gesturing from Mr M and the odd sneaky peek at the phone from the driver, but they did a great job between them, and we found ourselves at the end of a side road leading to a bridge over the canal in quite short order.
I loved the canals! Devoid of the crowds we’d seen everywhere else in the city, they felt like a real oasis. Wooden houses on stilts crouched low over the water, baskets of flowers and trailing greenery hanging from almost all of them. Using the planked walkways fronting each building we wandered past a hairdresser’s salon (complete with poodle sleeping on one of the cracked old leather chairs), people with makeshift stalls in their doorways selling food to feed the canal fish, and old women firing up woks over gas burners, ready to cook the family lunches. Long thin river taxis sped up and down the waterway, reckless captains at the tiller, creating huge bow waves which slapped against the wooden piers.
We found the artists house on a corner and, after taking off our shoes and putting them on a rack, nipped inside. A couple of people were working at old wooden school desks, their palettes caked in years’ worth of dried oil paints. On the wall were etchings of the canals. A small wooden counter served coffees, and we ordered iced ones and sat at a table enjoying the views out on to the water. Enormous open-mouthed carp were surfacing as a young woman threw fish food to them, the water a boiling mass as they thrashed against one another fighting for the brightly coloured pellets. Eventually we moved to another area of the house which had two or three rows of seating set up overlooking an internal courtyard where the puppet show was to be performed. The seats were a mixture of folding chairs, cinema style rows and even an old sofa.
The puppeteers came out and introduced themselves, and then after a brief speech and a film acknowledging the dead king, the show began. It was a short but enjoyable performance depicting the story of a mermaid and her beau. The puppets were beautifully costumed in silks and rich brocades. There were three puppeteers to each puppet, allowing the most subtle of movements, and the operators receeded into the background with their black clothes and blacked out faces. At the end of the play, puppeteers and puppets ventured out into the audience, to steal handbags, baseball caps and kisses from those watching!
I really loved this bit of the trip, partly because it made up for missing the Hanoi water puppet show when we were ill, and partly because it was just such a tranquil part of Bangkok, and it felt as though we’d discovered a bit of a hidden treasure. 100 more brownie points to Tommy for finding something so special to end the holiday!
We made our departure as soon as the show finished, as we had to be back at the hotel by 4ish for the Emirates car service to pick us up and take us to the airport. Luckily, just across the canal bridge, there were songtaews waiting to ferry you back to the main road, saving a long walk, and once there, we had a much easier time nailing down a taxi to take us to the BTS than on the way there. Back at the hotel we drank coffee in the foyer and collected our bags, which had been held for us after check out. The car arrived a bit early and we had a very smooth journey to the airport with almost no traffic, which sounds great, but actually it upset me a bit as it meant the last precious moments of the holiday flew by.
Once at the airport, I dithered over whether to change the sandals I was wearing to ankle boots for the journey home – Tommy said not to, and I didn’t really want the hassle of opening my case in the middle of the terminal to swap footwear over to be honest. I will just say though, that the woman in front of me in the business queue was upgraded to first and I bet I would have been too if I’d had proper bloody shoes on!!
Our last day in Bangkok started with breakfast in the hotel. I had scrambled eggs with chopped peppers, a range of pastries, fruit and yoghurt, and then apple crumble with cream and flambed bananas. Don’t ask me how the latter two qualify as breakfast – I wouldn’t have expected to see them on the buffet to be honest, but it would have been rude not to try them, since they were there. At the same station as the apple crumble I also saw crème brulees, and took one for Tommy so he would be complicit in puddinggate and couldn’t tell me off.
Plans for the day ahead included a bit of shopping in the upmarket malls, a visit to Lumpini Park, and then a trip to one of the lesser known sights – an artists house on the klong (canal), with a puppet show thrown in for good measure.
The posh malls were not that far from our hotel, so we opted to walk, despite the building heat and humidity. En-route we passed patisseries, massage parlours, and food vendors starting to set up their charcoal grills on the street, or chopping mango and papaya and arranging the slices neatly on ice. Lime green and bubblegum pink taxis honked angrily at mopeds crossing their path. Though the area was quite a bit smarter than that surrounding our first hotel, the pavements were still just as uneven in places, and if you glanced up, the familiar tangle of wires still criss-crossed the sky.
In the mall Tommy bought new earbuds to replace an old set that had worn out due to a mixture of heavy usage and a lilac-furred feline that liked to gnaw the wires. We also perused beautiful silk accessories in Jim Thompson - only after I’d had my iced chocolate milk confiscated by the eagle-eyed staff though. Then on to the jewellery section of the mall, which had virtually every high-end jeweller and fashion house you could possibly think of. We started in Tiffany, as I have coveted one of their key pendants pretty much since the dawn of time. It was pay day and I was sorely tempted to treat myself to a last minute souvenir, however my car was due its MOT the day after I got back to the UK, I had a plumbing invoice still outstanding, and it was of course Christmas in a couple of weeks time, so by superhuman willpower I resisted.
We next wandered passed Mikimoto (I am not a huge fan of pearls truth be told) and Bvlgari, which was a bit blingy for me, and then finally Cartier, probably my most favourite jewellery house of all. In the window of Cartier they had a jawdropping panther bracelet exactly like the one owned by Wallace Simpson, a mass of diamonds and sapphires, the cat’s mouth acting as the clasp. I had no idea they were still making the Panthere range, though I suppose there’s always a chance it was an isolated antique piece from the deco era. I actually prefer the Le Baiser Du Dragon range from a few years back, which is much more oriental in style, and very delicate, lots of onyx, jade and baguette-cut diamonds. I helpfully explained the fundamental differences between the two collections to Tommy, and I could tell he was fascinated.
We spent longer than anticipated at the mall, so ended up scratching Lumpini Park from the schedule, to ensure we didn’t miss the puppet show. Hopping onto a skytrain, we made for Wongwian Yai, the nearest stop to the canals, fortuitously managing to snag seats for most of the journey. I say nearest stop – we were still not within walking distance of our final destination and had to grab a taxi from outside the BTS. This proved more problematic than we had expected as none of the drivers had heard of the address we wanted, and it took three attempts before we managed to find someone to agree to take us, and then only if Tommy had Google maps up on his phone and took charge of navigation. Not knowing the thai for things like ‘straight ahead’, ‘slip road’ and ‘underpass’, said navigation also necessitated a fair bit of gesturing from Mr M and the odd sneaky peek at the phone from the driver, but they did a great job between them, and we found ourselves at the end of a side road leading to a bridge over the canal in quite short order.
I loved the canals! Devoid of the crowds we’d seen everywhere else in the city, they felt like a real oasis. Wooden houses on stilts crouched low over the water, baskets of flowers and trailing greenery hanging from almost all of them. Using the planked walkways fronting each building we wandered past a hairdresser’s salon (complete with poodle sleeping on one of the cracked old leather chairs), people with makeshift stalls in their doorways selling food to feed the canal fish, and old women firing up woks over gas burners, ready to cook the family lunches. Long thin river taxis sped up and down the waterway, reckless captains at the tiller, creating huge bow waves which slapped against the wooden piers.
We found the artists house on a corner and, after taking off our shoes and putting them on a rack, nipped inside. A couple of people were working at old wooden school desks, their palettes caked in years’ worth of dried oil paints. On the wall were etchings of the canals. A small wooden counter served coffees, and we ordered iced ones and sat at a table enjoying the views out on to the water. Enormous open-mouthed carp were surfacing as a young woman threw fish food to them, the water a boiling mass as they thrashed against one another fighting for the brightly coloured pellets. Eventually we moved to another area of the house which had two or three rows of seating set up overlooking an internal courtyard where the puppet show was to be performed. The seats were a mixture of folding chairs, cinema style rows and even an old sofa.
The puppeteers came out and introduced themselves, and then after a brief speech and a film acknowledging the dead king, the show began. It was a short but enjoyable performance depicting the story of a mermaid and her beau. The puppets were beautifully costumed in silks and rich brocades. There were three puppeteers to each puppet, allowing the most subtle of movements, and the operators receeded into the background with their black clothes and blacked out faces. At the end of the play, puppeteers and puppets ventured out into the audience, to steal handbags, baseball caps and kisses from those watching!
I really loved this bit of the trip, partly because it made up for missing the Hanoi water puppet show when we were ill, and partly because it was just such a tranquil part of Bangkok, and it felt as though we’d discovered a bit of a hidden treasure. 100 more brownie points to Tommy for finding something so special to end the holiday!
We made our departure as soon as the show finished, as we had to be back at the hotel by 4ish for the Emirates car service to pick us up and take us to the airport. Luckily, just across the canal bridge, there were songtaews waiting to ferry you back to the main road, saving a long walk, and once there, we had a much easier time nailing down a taxi to take us to the BTS than on the way there. Back at the hotel we drank coffee in the foyer and collected our bags, which had been held for us after check out. The car arrived a bit early and we had a very smooth journey to the airport with almost no traffic, which sounds great, but actually it upset me a bit as it meant the last precious moments of the holiday flew by.
Once at the airport, I dithered over whether to change the sandals I was wearing to ankle boots for the journey home – Tommy said not to, and I didn’t really want the hassle of opening my case in the middle of the terminal to swap footwear over to be honest. I will just say though, that the woman in front of me in the business queue was upgraded to first and I bet I would have been too if I’d had proper bloody shoes on!!
Jan 8th, 2017, 03:06 PM
#55
Join Date: Mar 2005
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I am hoping to visit Thailand for the first time later this year. Your report was not only very interesting but extremely informative for a newbee like me. Thank you very much for taking the time to write such a detailed report. I am going to start reading again from the beginning and will be taking notes so I may have some questions coming your way.
Jan 8th, 2017, 04:01 PM
#56
Join Date: Jun 2014
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Just found your TR and loved reading it all at once. We were in Thailand 2014, for the first time Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Kanchanaburi, cannot wait to return and add Vietnam and Cambodia as well. Will read this again when researching. Thanks really enjoyed.
Jan 10th, 2017, 11:17 AM
#58
Join Date: Apr 2013
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Hotels for the trip
Bangkok
http://www.goldentulipmandison.com/
http://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/tra...tel-sukhumvit/
Chiang Mai
https://www.booking.com/hotel/th/tha...7f1605c0c77ec0
Bangkok
http://www.goldentulipmandison.com/
http://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/tra...tel-sukhumvit/
Chiang Mai
https://www.booking.com/hotel/th/tha...7f1605c0c77ec0
Jan 10th, 2017, 11:25 AM
#59
Join Date: Apr 2013
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Hotels for the trip
Bangkok
Golden Tulip Mandinson Suites
http://www.goldentulipmandison.com/
Marriot Thonglor
http://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/tra...tel-sukhumvit/
Chiang Mai
Thanatee Boutique Hotel
https://www.booking.com/hotel/th/tha...7f1605c0c77ec0
Ho Chi Minh City
Paradise Saigon Boutique Hotel
https://paradisesaigonhotel.com/
Hanoi
Essence D'Orient Hotel & Spa
http://essencedorienthotel.com/
Halong Bay
Gray Line Halong
http://www.graylinehalong.com/
Koh Chang
Nest Sense Resort
http://www.nestsenseresort.com/
Bangkok
Golden Tulip Mandinson Suites
http://www.goldentulipmandison.com/
Marriot Thonglor
http://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/tra...tel-sukhumvit/
Chiang Mai
Thanatee Boutique Hotel
https://www.booking.com/hotel/th/tha...7f1605c0c77ec0
Ho Chi Minh City
Paradise Saigon Boutique Hotel
https://paradisesaigonhotel.com/
Hanoi
Essence D'Orient Hotel & Spa
http://essencedorienthotel.com/
Halong Bay
Gray Line Halong
http://www.graylinehalong.com/
Koh Chang
Nest Sense Resort
http://www.nestsenseresort.com/
Jan 11th, 2017, 05:41 AM
#60
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Day 22-23 Bangkok to UK
Once in the Emirates business lounge I didn’t fancy a full meal, instead opting for the cheeseboard, taking a vintage cheddar, some brie, walnuts and crackers. I got one of the lounge staff to pour me champagne and sat reading my Kindle for a while. Pudding was lemon meringue pie and coffee.
Upon boarding, I had a bit of a dilemma, as the film list had updated since my last flight and there were quite a few things I fancied, however since take off was scheduled for 8:30pm, I suspected that after dinner I’d probably just want to try and sleep. Eventually I decided I could always catch the movies on my second leg, which was a 7am-ish departure from Dubai, and thus a less snoozy daytime/daylight flight. Dinner on board was asparagus soup, Arabic roast chicken, and a crème fraiche cheesecake with raspberry coulis. About half way through pud the attendant came rushing up to me with another plate of dessert and an expression of concern, explaining that she’d given me the mousse with lychee and redcurrants instead. I said it was fine – I was quite enjoying the lychee thingy (even though I never would have knowingly ordered it in a million years), but she was really worried and wanted me to have both (I declined). I can only assume they have some real a-holes who would make an a-grade fuss about things like that for her to have been so upset. After dinner there were Valrhona chocs and coffee. Oh I nearly forgot – more champagne before take-off and another breakfast martini once airborne.
I did actually manage to sleep for a little while on this flight, which is almost unheard of for me – I’m quite a nervous flyer - but I think the 8 flights in the space of 3 and a bit weeks had inured me somewhat, and I feel like I’ve made really significant progress with this. We landed at Dubai shortly after midnight and got off the plane for the near 7 hour wait in the business lounge before the final leg to London. I kept dozing off in the lounge and got so frightened I would miss my next flight that I actually ended up setting the alarm on my phone. During my wakeful hours I had the odd coffee and pastry from the lounge freebies, and also ice cream from a ‘help yourself’ Haagen Dazs freezer.
When the time for boarding finally came, it turned out to be quite a long way to the boarding gate for the final flight (they’d changed the gate about 3 times btw) , and I was really glad my luggage was checked all the way through to Heathrow and I only had a handbag. Once on the A380, I couldn’t manage champagne at 7am so just had orange juice. There was a light breakfast of pastries and coffee, and then I switched on the ICE system to watch my films. To my annoyance, I found a completely different film menu to the last flight, and basically everything I had mentally bookmarked was missing, including ‘Elf’ which I’d been really looking forward to watching to get me in a Christmas frame of mind for my return. Although as it turned out, the weather was quite bad in the middle section of the flight and it would have been difficult to concentrate on anything anyway. Cabin crew were told to return to their seats and no hot drinks to be served. We bounced up and down for about two hours, uncollected glasses clinking menacingly. I was fortunate enough to have already been served my lunch as I was right at the front (8B) and had been one of only about 3 or 4 people to get their grub before the service was suspended. I had spicy pumpkin soup, a hot chicken schnitzel sandwich from the Rockpool restaurant in Oz (Emirates partner with Qantas and this was a Qantas menu option), and then yule log. Finally the weather calmed and drinks spills were cleared up and heart rates returned to normal. I noticed that despite it being a daytime flight a lot of people still opted to snooze, hidden under warm blankets on their fully reclined seats.
At Heathrow we had to wait to disembark as there was an unspecified medical emergency onboard, but finally, we were off and through security. In common with all my previous flights, despite having a fast-track card I was ushered into the normal queues with the rabble. One final little perk however – at Heathrow, Emirates have a dedicated waiting area where you sit until your car is ready. This had tea, coffee, a fridge full of cold drinks and various snacks and biscuits. I waited about 10 minutes for my car which took me home along a grey and miserable M25.
All in all, this was an amazing trip which I will remember for the rest of my life. Thanks to Mr M for arranging everything (we both looked at hotels and drooled over in-flight menus prior to booking, but he did all the really crap stuff, like keeping an eye on internal flight schedules and prices, train tickets and exchange rates, not to mention making sure I was suitably full of ice cream, iced coffee and cocktails once out there – kop khun ka Tommy!)
Footnote: I’ve left the blue business class tags on my bags to remind me
Once in the Emirates business lounge I didn’t fancy a full meal, instead opting for the cheeseboard, taking a vintage cheddar, some brie, walnuts and crackers. I got one of the lounge staff to pour me champagne and sat reading my Kindle for a while. Pudding was lemon meringue pie and coffee.
Upon boarding, I had a bit of a dilemma, as the film list had updated since my last flight and there were quite a few things I fancied, however since take off was scheduled for 8:30pm, I suspected that after dinner I’d probably just want to try and sleep. Eventually I decided I could always catch the movies on my second leg, which was a 7am-ish departure from Dubai, and thus a less snoozy daytime/daylight flight. Dinner on board was asparagus soup, Arabic roast chicken, and a crème fraiche cheesecake with raspberry coulis. About half way through pud the attendant came rushing up to me with another plate of dessert and an expression of concern, explaining that she’d given me the mousse with lychee and redcurrants instead. I said it was fine – I was quite enjoying the lychee thingy (even though I never would have knowingly ordered it in a million years), but she was really worried and wanted me to have both (I declined). I can only assume they have some real a-holes who would make an a-grade fuss about things like that for her to have been so upset. After dinner there were Valrhona chocs and coffee. Oh I nearly forgot – more champagne before take-off and another breakfast martini once airborne.
I did actually manage to sleep for a little while on this flight, which is almost unheard of for me – I’m quite a nervous flyer - but I think the 8 flights in the space of 3 and a bit weeks had inured me somewhat, and I feel like I’ve made really significant progress with this. We landed at Dubai shortly after midnight and got off the plane for the near 7 hour wait in the business lounge before the final leg to London. I kept dozing off in the lounge and got so frightened I would miss my next flight that I actually ended up setting the alarm on my phone. During my wakeful hours I had the odd coffee and pastry from the lounge freebies, and also ice cream from a ‘help yourself’ Haagen Dazs freezer.
When the time for boarding finally came, it turned out to be quite a long way to the boarding gate for the final flight (they’d changed the gate about 3 times btw) , and I was really glad my luggage was checked all the way through to Heathrow and I only had a handbag. Once on the A380, I couldn’t manage champagne at 7am so just had orange juice. There was a light breakfast of pastries and coffee, and then I switched on the ICE system to watch my films. To my annoyance, I found a completely different film menu to the last flight, and basically everything I had mentally bookmarked was missing, including ‘Elf’ which I’d been really looking forward to watching to get me in a Christmas frame of mind for my return. Although as it turned out, the weather was quite bad in the middle section of the flight and it would have been difficult to concentrate on anything anyway. Cabin crew were told to return to their seats and no hot drinks to be served. We bounced up and down for about two hours, uncollected glasses clinking menacingly. I was fortunate enough to have already been served my lunch as I was right at the front (8B) and had been one of only about 3 or 4 people to get their grub before the service was suspended. I had spicy pumpkin soup, a hot chicken schnitzel sandwich from the Rockpool restaurant in Oz (Emirates partner with Qantas and this was a Qantas menu option), and then yule log. Finally the weather calmed and drinks spills were cleared up and heart rates returned to normal. I noticed that despite it being a daytime flight a lot of people still opted to snooze, hidden under warm blankets on their fully reclined seats.
At Heathrow we had to wait to disembark as there was an unspecified medical emergency onboard, but finally, we were off and through security. In common with all my previous flights, despite having a fast-track card I was ushered into the normal queues with the rabble. One final little perk however – at Heathrow, Emirates have a dedicated waiting area where you sit until your car is ready. This had tea, coffee, a fridge full of cold drinks and various snacks and biscuits. I waited about 10 minutes for my car which took me home along a grey and miserable M25.
All in all, this was an amazing trip which I will remember for the rest of my life. Thanks to Mr M for arranging everything (we both looked at hotels and drooled over in-flight menus prior to booking, but he did all the really crap stuff, like keeping an eye on internal flight schedules and prices, train tickets and exchange rates, not to mention making sure I was suitably full of ice cream, iced coffee and cocktails once out there – kop khun ka Tommy!)
Footnote: I’ve left the blue business class tags on my bags to remind me
