Sunday, October 23, 2011

Arrival in Bangkok, Thailand

Our flight to Bangkok on Airasia was a bit bumpy but uneventful. I had forgotten that I didn’t order us a meal so we went hungry on our 3 hour plus flight. As we flew nearer to Bangkok, the flooding became visible. The rains since July have been excessive causing Thailand’s many rivers to overflow in central east Thailand and north of Bangkok. The river that runs through the city is swollen and many houses are surrounded by water. Ian and I had been watching the situation carefully from Indonesia before deciding to continue on with our trip to Thailand. Denise – the owner of the house we were staying in – had checked with the housekeepers and we were assured that there was no flooding in the neighbourhood.
The line up at airport immigration was long and slow but went smoothly. The officer didn’t ask us any questions, took our passports and gave us a 30 day stamp. We had received directions from Denise on how to get to her house so we went downstairs and paid 70 baht for two tickets on the airport rail to Makasan station. From there we took a taxi for 100 baht (including tip – it was about a 25 minute ride). The exchange rate is roughly 30 baht / 1 dollar. Taxis are cheap and all use a metre starting at 35 baht.
The house is about a 20 – 25 minute walk from the main road Thanon Sukhumvit. It’s a townhouse and our room is the only one on the top floor – which is a long way up. The room is quite large with a/c, couch, queen sized bed, storage, windows, and separate rooms for toilet and shower/sink area. There are two female housekeepers: Massi – who is Filipino, and Khun Pa – Thai. Massi lives on the first floor at ground level, the kitchen/dining area is on the second and third, then Sara is renting the room on the 4th, the 5th is the master bedroom which is currently empty, the 6th floor has an outdoor area, and then we are on the 7th floor. Each set of stairs isn’t a full set, but that’s still a heck of a lot of stairs to climb. This picture was taken from the 4th level and Ian is standing on the stairs between the living and dining areas.
There are two cats and a small beagle that socialize with guests and all are friendly.

Breakfast isn’t included but laundry is and we prefer that. We can use the kitchen, there's WIFI included and the livingroom TV has HBO and Starmovies - all for the bargain price of 32 dollars a night. The house is a bit further from the main road than I expected – but since cabs are so cheap, that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. We unpacked our stuff and off we went to explore the neighbourhood.
We walked to the closest mall called Emporium which has some pretty high end stores like Gucci, Prada, Coach, etc. Our guidebook recommended an inexpensive food hall on the top floor so that’s where we headed. We found an area called the International Food court with several different restaurants (seafood, Italian, pizza, Japanese) but we ate Thai of course. I had fried noodles with shrimp and Ian had a spicy Thai salad and both were excellent, averaging about 4 -5 dollars each. After eating we walked about a bit and discovered that we had missed the place recommended in our book and had actually eaten in a different area.
The Food Mall ran along the west side of the building with great views of a park. Here you bought coupons which you used as cash to purchase your food.  Several food stalls lined the wall opposite the windows and you could get noodles, soups, and curries for as little as 1.50 or as much as 3 dollars. All unused coupons had to be redeemed same day for your money back.
On the same floor is an amazing supermarket with a variety of food items – better than our supermarkets at home. It was hard to resist doing some grocery shopping. Beside this was of course a Starbucks, but better yet, on the top floor (there are 6 floors in this mall) was a movie theatre.  We purchased two tickets to see Contagion for about 6.50 each – more expensive than Indonesia but cheaper than Canada. Like Indonesia, you reserve your seats in advance and the seats are spacious and comfy.  Before the movie started we had to stand in respect to the King of Thailand while a montage of images of the King played before us. Thais take their royalty seriously and it would very disrespectful to ignore this.
The movie was okay, some dull moments, but we were thrilled to be seeing a movie after such a long time. The movie ended late and the mall was closed so it was a bit of challenge finding the exit. We stopped in at Villa Market on Suhkumvit on the way home and bought some water.
When we got home, our key would not open the door so we were locked out. Ian rang the bell and Sara, who was still up, opened the door for us. This was the first time we met.
Day 2 – Jim Thompson’s House
We were up early because Massi was making us a welcome breakfast at 8am: eggs, toast, muesli and yogurt, tea and coffee – all good. Today we were visiting Jim Thompson’s house via taxi.
Jim Thompson was an American architect who volunteered for service in World War II. At one point he was sent to Bangkok where he fell in love with Thailand. After leaving the service, he returned here to live permanently focusing his attentions on the silk industry. Worldwide, he was known as a highly gifted designer and textile colourist.
He constructed his own house using 6 teak buildings, many of which were 2 centuries old. They were dismantled, reassembled and joined together on his property. The houses are elevated a full story above ground and follow Thai traditions. Doorways have high platforms so you have to step up and over to get into a room – this was to keep babies in and keep evil spirits out. Throughout the house, there are several paintings, statues and antiques. Thais believe it is bad luck to keep anything broken in one’s house but Jim Thompson had several items that were broken e.g. Buddhist statues with no heads or arms. Some think that this was the cause of his demise. When he was 61 years old, he disappeared on a visit to Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands without a trace.
He left behind quite a legacy. His silk products are quite lovely (but expensive!).
We walked down the road to find some lunch and a Thai gentleman worried about our safety. He asked us where we were from and was thrilled to hear we were from Toronto because he was travelling there mid-November to meet with a friend. This friend turned out to the owner of the first Thai restaurant, Young Thailand. Ian not only knew of the restaurant but owns the cookbook. We chatted for some time warning him about the cold winters in Canada and headed on our way.
I’m not sure how we knew about the food court in MBK mall (perhaps the taxi driver told us?) but we headed there for lunch. We followed the signs and ended up in an area with an extensive selection of international foods: Japanese, Thai, Middle Eastern, Greek, etc – similar to the one at the Emporium. We both had Thai – Ian had a delicious curry and I had scrumptious noodles; it was about 3 – 4 dollars a dish. It was déjà vu because after our meal, we discovered another floor with even cheaper food but we were quite happy with the food we had had so we filed away the information for another time.
After lunch, we headed to Siam Centre and the very upscale mall called Paragon. On the top floor was a cinema and we decided to catch a 5:00 show of The Three Musketeers. The woman behind the counter explained that the 5:00 show was the VIP theatre but the only other showing of the movie was the 4D experience (involving moving seats which neither of us wanted) so we reserved our seats at the VIP theatre. After we paid for our tickets, we realized we had just paid about 26 dollars a ticket – oops!
The VIP centre was separate from the other theatres and we had a seat in the lounge area where we received our complimentary tea and coffee. The bathrooms were impressive – each stall was large with the biggest toilets I’ve ever seen (the term throne comes to mind). The theatre itself was intimate with leather lounge lazy boy chairs with foot rests that go horizontal. We had pillows and blankets and there was a small wall around us providing total privacy.  We stood for the King (and noted that some foreigners beside us did not – the only ones who didn’t).  The movie was pretty bad – which was unfortunate because it had potential. I expected a similar experience to the one in Indonesia, but no one ever came to get our order so I went without popcorn (maybe the first time ever??!). Oh well….
We took the Skytrain home and had our first Bangkok rainfall but it didn’t last long. We stopped for a bite and headed home.
Day 3
Over breakfast we chatted with Sara who had been sent home from work the day before because of the worry over potential flooding. The Bangkok canals had been closed to prevent flooding in the city but this meant that all the water to the north of the city had nowhere to go since it needed to travel through Bangkok to get to the ocean. The Prime Minister was ordering the Bangkok government to open the canals to let the water through but the canals could overflow since there were millions of tons of water needing to travel through these canals. Sara had been sent home to stockpile water and food and she had gone to 5 stores before she found some water (which explained why the convenience store closest to us hadn’t had water the night before). So Ian headed out to search for water and bought 5 large bottles. Sara also filled her tub with water just in case.
Ian and I were figured there was no point in getting overwrought so we carried on as usual. I decided to get my hair done because it had been 11 weeks since I had my last cut and colour, and I asked Massi and Khun Pa if they knew someone who could do it. They took me down the street to a small salon but light brown was the closest colour to blond that the stylist had. So Ian and I headed to the Emporium. On route, a tuk tuk went by and we decided to take it up to the mall. It was fairly comfortable and cost about $1.50 for the ride. This wasn’t the tuk tuk we took but the photo below shows what one looks like.
Salon de BKK is located on the 2nd floor of the Emporium. I went up to the counter and asked if they had my colour (bleach blond) and a very funky fellow replied “of course.” He spoke fluent English and started explaining what he needed to do my hair to treat the roots and I was confident I was in good hands. They scheduled me in and Ian and I went to grab a bite for lunch.
This time we went to the cheap food court and Ian bought 200 baht worth of coupons. He got a spicy noodle soup and I got some green curry. Ian’s meal was fantastic but I am sad to say mine was pretty bad. It had nondescript patties of some sort of reconstituted meat that was pretty tasteless and the spongy texture was yucky. Can’t win them all!
I returned to the salon and was shown a seat. Tom (the funky guy) runs the place and it turns out, he lived in Vancouver for 7 years and his partner is a Canadian from North Bay. What a small world! We hit it off, chatting the entire time.  I was spoiled rotten and pampered by a very attentive staff.  I received a bottle of water and a yummy cappuccino and a great haircut.
I met Ian who was waiting patiently at Starbucks, and we wandered around for a bit till dinner time. I was determined to try the food court again, so we returned and ordered pad tai – which I am happy to say, was yummy and cheap.
Day 4 – Siam’s Ocean World
Today we headed back to Siam Centre and one of the largest aquariums in Southeast Asia. We timed our arrival with lunchtime and were lucky to again find a food hall. This food court was bright, busy, and had many more food stalls than the one at the Emporium. We purchased a card and loaded it with 400 baht and ordered a spicy noodle soup and kiwi iced tea. Everything was yummy. We returned the card and received our refund for money we hadn’t spent and headed downstairs for the aquarium.
It was quite pricey, about 30 dollars each, considerably higher than the one in Kuala Lumpur. There was a large aquarium with a walkway through it like the one at Petronas Towers, except there wasn’t a moving walkway and was more crowded with fish and sharks. One shark had some sort of dental problem; its upper teeth protruded out as if it had a bad overbite – very scary looking. There was a variety of fish and we enjoyed seeing huge king crabs and lobster; seahorse; moray eel; a massive parrotfish; rock, scorpion and lion fish (a brush with a scorpion fish can kill a man in two hours); pineapple fish (yes, they do resemble pineapple); different varieties of jellyfish (some very colourful ones); frog fish; and nautilus. After several hours at the aquarium, we wandered the Paragon mall with its fancy stores and canal of water (reminds me of Vegas hotels) and had a coffee break.
On the way home, I stopped for an hour foot massage for 250 baht (about 9 dollars). The place was simply decorated with lazy boy chairs lined up against one wall and fish tanks on the other. The fish spa is where you can allow the tiny fish to eat away the dead skin and calluses off your feet (yuck). I leaned back in one of the few empty chairs and one of the girls washed my feet before going to work on them. Most of the place was filled with men. The technique was quite similar to the massage I had in Indonesia except for the addition of a wooden tool used to apply pressure to various spots on your feet and on each toe. After a short back and arm massage I was finished – and feeling pretty good.
For dinner we decided to go with Sara’s recommendation of Bella Napoli, a pizza place on our street soi 31, just up from Sukhumvit. The place was packed with only a few empty tables so we were lucky to get a spot. The manager is Italian and the Italian owner, who has lived in Thailand for 20 years, opened the restaurant 10 years ago. We had the Stagioni: 2 slices of mushroom, 2 of artichoke, 2 of ham, and 2 of spinach. The pizza was light and tasty and went perfectly with the house wine. We plan on returning.

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