October 29, 2006 Bye Bye Bangkok...Day 4

We went down for breakfast at around 9:45 today but the buffet restaurant was packed! The restaurant was packed, and there was a huge line-up. So, Wes and I just ended up going to the club lounge because they also offered breakfast there. Breakfast was pretty good. You order from a menu instead of buffet, which was kinda nice because you got served – and service is excellent here.

Terry hung around the hotel to go swimming. Anth and Darren went to a high-end mall called Paragon. Tammy, Chris, Bex, James, Wes and I went to back to MBK again for some cheap, last minute shopping. The benefit of shopping in Asia this past month has now paid off, because everyone now knows how to bargain and what they should be paying for items.

However, we have limited funds though... cause we budgeted 50 dollars a day per destination, and we are kind of running out of Thai Baht. We've been conserving our money... but, because this was the last day in Thailand, and last day of really shopping (for we won't be shopping at Siem Reap and Singapore), we ended up borrowing 50 dollars from James so we could buy more =p. Here's MBK:

We had to be back at the hotel by 3:30 to checkout and leave for the airport for our flight was at 6:30. We took a cab back to the hotel and left at 4pm.

When we went to check-in for our flight, the woman said we could go to the Bangkok Air lounge! Sweet! But then we asked around to see where it was and they said we didn’t have enough time to go because the lounge was too far. =(( BOO!!!!!
We were all starving too and there was no food for us to buy after we got through the security check, and to top it all off, our flight was delayed! Bah!

I have to say that Bangkok really impressed me. I was expecting something somewhat similar to Manila but it’s not like that at all. The city is quite developed and not that busy. The streets are clean (at least where we were), and there weren't any squatter areas all over the city like we saw in Manila (again maybe we were only isolated to the nice parts of town). The buildings don’t seem that run down, traffic isn’t as chaotic, and the streets are not littered with people just sitting around. Overall, I had left Bangkok with a good impression. And Sofitel Silom hotel has been awesome – best hotel of the trip so far - loved it!

Sa-wat dee Thailand! Khawp khun kha! (Bye Thailand! Thank you!)