Bangkok Day 1

For the Vesak holiday I took the opportundiy to visit another great city in Asia, Bangkok. Nima and I met for the long weekend on Thursday and would have a chance to explore through Sunday night.

I arrived in Bangkok around noon on Thursday after a decent flight on Sri Lankan Airlines. Nima made it an hour earlier from Singapore, so as soon as I cleared customs we hopped in a cab to our hotel for the weekend, the Old Bangkok Inn. Nima found the place from Trripadvisor reviews, which were all very glowing and filled us with high expectations. The OBI is located close to some of the historic and cultural sites like the Grand Palace ans Democracy Monument, rather than by some of the more major hjotels downtown. As soon as we got to the OBI we were welcomed by the inkeeper, Nantiya, who was kind enought to let us check in early and have a nap before heading out for the afternoon.


We got directions to downtown from one of the friendly desk clerks at OBI, so we headed down to MBK, Bangkok's best shopping mall. We took a canal taxi boat, something that most tourists miss out on when in Bangkok. The taxi boat is great for several reasons: its a true "local" experience that takes you through many neighborhoods, its a way to beat the notorious Bangkok traffic, and its dirt cheap at 8 baht, or 25 cents. Once we got to MBK we grabbed a bite to eat at what looked to be a true local fast food restaurant, as all the patrons were Thai. I had an okay pork dish, but Nima's Pad Thai was excellent. After MBK we headed to Siam Square, a hip, trendy area with tons of clothing shops for budding designers and fashionistas. Nima visited Siam Square on her previous trip to BKK and wanted to go back to show me and possibly find some cool clothes. She ended up with a really hip pair of pants, and I ended up finding an A&W restaurant where I had a satisfying root beer float. So far, so good...

For dinner we went to the Seafood Market near Phrom Phong - a true tourist spot but a Bangkok "must do". The Seafood Market's motto is "If it swims, we have it." The restaurant is set up basically like the seafood aisle of a supermarket, you grab a shopping cart and pick from a collection of raw (and sometimes live!) seafood what you want for dinner. You are charged by quantity/weight. Then you take the seafood back to your table and a cook comes to take your order regarding how you'd like the food cooked. Shocker - Nima and I chose way too much food. We had garlic tossed scallops, battered/fried prawns, yellow curry crabmeat, and grilled fish (idiot! I don't remember what fish it was). The crab curry was really tasty, and obivously the srimp was good, how can fried food go wrong? I liked the fish the best though, I don't know what it was but it was a nice fleshy white fish and the Thai spices went well with it. After all that seafood, I was definitely finished and done for the night, so we headed home and passed out after a long, eventful day in Bangkok.