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!)

October 28, 2006 Bangkok Day 3

Terry called me at 9am this morning to let me know that the Canucks game was on (using our sling box streaming it over the internet). So I got out of bed to watch my first complete hockey game of the season. At the end of the 1st period, we went downstairs for our daily buffet breakfast and I quickly ate. I just had a bowl of cereal and fruits... nice and healthy. I immediately headed back upstairs to watch the game. 2-2 at the end of the 2nd. I went downstairs to the lounge for the 3rd period and watched the game with Anth, Terry, Yuri, and Anne. We were hollering and hooting during the game which was okay, because the lounge was fairly empty. The Nucks ended up winning 3-2 in a shootout. I've been trying to read what I can over the Internet about the Nucks, but news is so sparse out here in regards to hockey. It definitely sucks! I'm not really too home sick... but things that I really really miss are watching the nucks, playing ice hockey, and playing volleyball. I'm itching to play again, yet it's a catch 22, because I don't want this vacation to end. Anyhow, there's only 1 week left... which really sucks! I've had so much fun here.

Bangkok has been very nice so far. It's not really what I expected... I was expecting it to be more like Manila (dirty, populated, busy, etc). It's actually very clean here, it's not busy, and the roads and drivers are very civilized. It also helps that our hotel is fabulous, and the staff here has been top notch.

After the game, we met downstairs and headed to the weekend market (Chatuchak) in Northern Bangkok. Chatuchak Weekend Market is the king of markets. The scale of it is pretty unbelievable - it covers an area of 35 acres, contains more than 15 000 shops and stalls, has over 200 000 visitors each day, and they spend an estimated total of 30 million baht (approx US$750 000). The range of products on sale is extensive, and includes household accessories, handicrafts, religious artifacts, art, antiques, live animals (which unfortunately are frequently caged in cruel conditions), books, music, clothes, food, plants and flowers etc...

One word to describe it: NUTS!

It's busy, hot, crowded... just nuts. Things were relatively cheap. I bought about 6 collared shirts for about 30 bucks CDN. Shirts that would typically cost me $40 bucks cdn each. So all in all, I left a happy camper. Lisa bought a bathing suit for 300 baht (9 bucks) and we bought some silk pillow covers (4 for 6 bucks). The household accessories are really nice here... Lisa and I keep wishing we had more room in our suitcases so we could bring some more stuff home... but all in all, I guess it's a good thing, it prevents us from spending more money.

We got back to the hotel at about 5:30PM, showered and headed down to the lounge. Happy hour commenced once again. We sat and drank till about 8PM.

Herny, Terry, Tammy, Anthony, Yuri and Anne went for a buffet dinner at the Sheraton, while Christina and Jimmy T went for dinner with Jimmy T's friends from Boston. Lisa, Becky, Darren and myself went out for dinner at a seafood restaurant called Bann something or other.. hehe We had soft shell crab, morning glory, prawns. Dinner was excellent. Here are some photos to prove it!

After dinner, we pretty much called it a night. Lisa crashed, and I went downstairs to hang out in Henry and Anth's room. We were watching this beauty pageant with all these hot girls. When I walked into the room, Darren and Anthony kept egging me on whether I liked this girl, or that girl... and of course I answered 'yes' cause they were pretty hot. Then Miss USA came out, and she was nasty! And then Miss Malaysia.. nasty again!!! I'm talking NASTY! Anyhow, I started thinking to myself that these people looked a lot like men. And then I respond "hey, these ARE men!" and Darren, Anth, and Becky are just cracking up and rolling around howling. hahahaha, it was pretty funny. I still think Miss Philippines and Miss Thailand are hot! hahahahha... Anyhow, Jimmy T followed into the room later, and we were doing the same thing to him, except it took him forever to figure it out! 15 minutes at least! hahahaha... too funny

Anyhow, time to call it a night. See you tomorrow!

October 27, 2006 Bangkok Day 3...

I didn't get up for breakfast today. Wes woke me up 10 min before breakfast was over (10am), so I just stayed in bed, but he got up to go to breakfast. He also went to to the gym after eating, and I just stayed in the room. At about 12:30. we met up with the other guys and went to a mall called MBK. It's a bazaar/flea market type mall about 10 min from our hotel. Ok first of all, I think the worst thing about Bangkok are the cab drivers. Instead of running on meter, a lot of them try to gouge you and charge you a flat fee which is 200-300% more!! It sucks that you have to negotiate with cabs!! Anyway, most of us got to MBK ok, except Tammy, Terry, Yuri and Anne who ended up somewhere else. I don't know how they got to MBK, but I didn't even see them there so I don't know if they actually got there.

MBK kind of reminds me of Green Hills in Manila. It's full of fake merchandise, but more expensive!! I was really surprised that you couldn't bargain with them that much! (Either that or I just really suck!) We didn't really buy much. Wes, Anth, and James ended up negotating for a bluetooth headset together which was the best deal of the day I thought. I think they got it for about $30 cdn each. The mall itself is pretty neat. Each floor sells a different type of merchandise. The first floor for example was food, and clothes. Second floor was more clothes, third floor was fake clothes, fourth floor was cell phones and electronics, fifth floor was more food and furniture, sixth floor was souvenirs and accessories. All in all, a pretty neat concept.

We left at about 5:30ish and rushed back to the hotel in time for happy hour. Everyone was there, except for Tams, Ter, Yuri and Anne. We had a few drinks and headed off to the restaurant at about 8:15. The restaurant was called Sarah Jane. (Again, we had a hard time finding a cab who go on meter!) The food was pretty good! Again, can't complain about the food even though we were the only ones there! Labour in Thailand is obviously cheap, because there had to have been 20 employees (waiters, waitresses) at this restaurant, and we were the only customers (14 of us). So service was obviously very good, however... it's kind of weird eating dinner, and having a bunch of people just standing there watching you eat, and to top that off, speaking a language you don't understand... so for all we know, they could have been mumbling crap about us. (spoiled tourists!)

We walked back to our hotel, and just chilled in the lobby for a bit.

James, Chris, Bex, Dar, Tania, and Anth went off after dinner to watch some 'shows' at Patpong. The rest of us went back and just chilled at the hotel with some beers. Apprently, they didn't really get to watch a 'show' tonight, and Anth ended up joining us at Tams' room for some card games. Cards and beers, what can be better!

Terry winning as the dealer:

Victory!

Here's Yuri winning:

Here's Tammy thinking she won:

Here's us finding out that Tammy cheated:

Here's Herny's face after Tammy's lipstick art:

Nite nite!

October 26, 2006 Bangkok Day 2... (just posted video of Lisa jumping on Anth's bed below)

We woke up way too early today. I got a wakeup call from the automated machine at the hotel at 7AM. Gosh.. it was tough to wake up. Well, first things first right? Straight to breakfast downstairs (included with the hotel of course). I think I'm getting used to eating 3 meals a day now, hopefully my metabolism is kick starting itself earlier because of the first meal of the day! (I doubt it though) Breakfast at Sofitel Bangkok isn't as good as the breaky at Boracay or Ko Samui, but it's still pretty good. Fresh fruits, lots of selection, and fresh fruit shakes blended for you by request. Here's the spread:

After breakfast, we were on our way to the Grand Palace (where the King used to live). It's huge, and very Grand indeed. The freaking cab drivers here are a bunch of thieves. When we left our hotel, the bell hop told us the ride would be about 100 baht. Darren, Becky, Lisa and myself took a cab, and he got us to the destination. When we were about to pay, he said “300 baht”… “what the hell!?? The bell hop told us 100 baht!”. So he says “okay, 150 baht”… and Darren’s replies “okay okay, fine”. Right when he’s about to pay, the cabbie says “200 baht”… and Darren’s says “fine whatever”. Right when we’re about to exit the cab (Dar’s riding shotgun), the cab driver grabs Darren’s thigh, and says “I love you.” Hahahahaha, I was freaking howling… and then I told all the other guys and they were cracking up too. Darren was like “what the f?” hahahahahaha

Meanwhile, Terry, Tammy, Ron and Tania’s cab driver wanted to bring them to the ship port, and then from there, you have to take a ferry over to the palace for 1100 baht! Yeah right! So they just got out of the cab (without paying of course), and took a different one. Since the previous driver had driven them halfway already, their other cab was only 50 baht to the Palace.

The palace itself was nice… you know, a tourist destination that you have to see. Grand buildings with gold, and hand constructed everything. Everything is very detailed. There’s a hand painted mural that surrounds the Palace, and it basically describes a story. It’s quite impressive.

After the palace, we walked over to the Relaxing Buddha. It’s a huge Buddha (about a block long in size), basically laying on its side. Here’s are a couple of pics:

After doing the touristy stuff in the scorching heat (35 degrees Celsius), we proceed to take a cab to Central Chit Lom (an upscale mall) for lunch. Again, the cab drivers were all trying to rip us off. Man, it’s so frustrating…. Anyhow, we managed to get a metered cab, and instead of paying 300 baht, it was 80 baht. The mall itself was really just an upscale department store. You know, designer clothing, designer bags, etc. The only reason we went here was because of the food fair on the top floor. It’s quite the food fair. There was comfortable, contemporary seating with excellent food. There’s an international flair to the food fair, because you can get Indian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, and Italian. Here’s a photo (I would of taken more, but we weren’t allowed to!)

After lunch, we split up and headed back to the hotel. Lisa and I ventured off on our own and took the Sky Train back to our hotel. It would have been more worth it to take a cab, for it would have dropped us off in front of our hotel, but at least we can say we took public transit.

There was happy hour at our hotel on the private lounge on the 27th floor from 5pm-7pm, so we had to take advantage of it. There was free alcohol, beers, wine, mixed drinks, etc. Being the Chinese people that we are… we ordered tones of beer and drinks…and ate what we could hehe. Yuri and Anne also arrived today, so they're hanging out with us now too!

After the lounge, we went to an outdoor rooftop lounge. It was breathtaking. It was located on the 64th floor, high up above the city, with a view of the Bangkok skyline (which isn’t that impressive by the way). I took a couple of photos:

The place was called Sirocco (the Dome) on top of the State Tower. It was really cool. Our friends ordered drinks (about 10 bucks cdn per drink) and well… I managed to avoid the waiters and not order.. hehe (my Chinese cheapness kick in again). We hung out on the roof top and there was a magnificent view of the city. And there was a live band too! About an hour after we headed back down. It was so cool because there's a view of the whole city.

Anyhow, after coming back downstairs... we were hungry again, so we were off to eat yet again. We went to a joint called Somboon Seafood Restaurant. The food was excellent. Crab, grilled squid, tom yum goong (which Anth and Jimmy T hate by the way), deep fried prawns, a fish dish, etc. It came to a paltry 12 dollars Canadian each. We were all stuffed and very satisfied. Somboon wasn’t anything to write home about in terms of ambience (it resembled a Hon’s back home), but the food definitely spoke for itself.

We headed back to the hotel after, and I blogged. Lisa was exhausted for we woke up pretty early today. Time for bed, nite nite, it’s 2AM.

October 25, 2006 Ko Samui Day 4, Bangkok Day 1

I think I had the best night of sleep that I’ve had so far. We slept at about 11PM yesterday (it must have been the relaxing massage that made me sleepy), and I woke up at 10AM.

We went downstairs to have breakfast, then went to pick up our clean laundry! It was pretty nice having a clean load of laundry for less than $4.50 Canadian. Lisa and I walked back to our room, proceeded to pack up our luggage and then checkout. Checkout was at noon, and they’re serious about this stuff, because our cards to get into our room stopped working at 12PM sharp. Anyhow, Terry and Tammy managed to get late checkout (4PM) and our flight wasn’t till 6:30PM, so we dropped off our suitcases in their room and headed to the pool!

Lisa and I headed to the secondary pool (which is still really big) and hung out with Ron, Tania, Terry, Tammy, Christina, and Jimmy T while Becky, Darren, Henry, and Anthony went for a massage. We hung out poolside till about 3:30 and then went to shower. The weather here has been somewhat odd…. There tends to be one torrential downfall of rain for about 15 minutes per day, then it stops and then the sun returns. This happened while we were in the pool, and it was funny because 2 minutes previous I was dancing in the pool and was joking about how it was a ‘rain dance’. Low and behold, the drops start to fall, and then all of a sudden it’s raining cats and dogs. Anyhow, Terry, Ron and myself decided to perform a ‘sun dance’ and about 10 minutes later the Sun returned.

We checked out at 4PM and gathered in the lobby area of the resort. Here are some photos of Dar, Anth and Henry while we were waiting:

Here are some more photos of our resort:

We left the resort on a a pick up truck with bench seating on the flat bed. All 12 of us were squished into this truck, and Anthony and Henry had to stand on the rear bumper and hang onto the roof rack while we took our 10 minute ride to the Samui airport. Our entire luggage was on the roof of this poor pickup truck as well. Anyhow, we all made it there in once piece thank goodness.

We hung out at the cool outdoor airport and ate at the restaurant (which by the way served very good food). Bangkok airlines are actually quite impressive. I’m impressed by their service, and by their food. They even served a meal on our 45 minute flight from Samui to Bangkok!

Off to the big city of Bangkok!


October 25, 2006 Bangkok

We got into the airport and picked up our luggage. The airport here is new so it’s fairly nice. I have found that hospitality in Thailand has been fairly mediocre at best. The men seem to be more polite and nicer than the women… in Bangkok and in Ko Samui. We’ll see what happens for the rest of the trip, but that has been my initial impression. We took 4 cabs back to the hotel, and entered into the lobby of our hotel. First impression??? It’s an excellent hotel.

We definitely haven’t been traveling cheap in terms of accommodation (getting deals at least), but the hotels have just gotten better and better as the trip has went on. We were then escorted upstairs to the 27th floor for a private check-in. There’s a lounge with free wireless internet access, and magazines etc. We waited around while the guys pulled out their laptops and we checked-in.

We eventually dispersed and went to our rooms. Our room is really nice! Here's some photos:

At about 11PM, most of us (except for Becky who was feeling a little under the weather), met at the lobby and headed out for a meal. We headed West on Silom Road towards Convent Road. On Convent road, there are a bunch of street side stalls that Frommers (travel book) recommended. We ate noodles, fried chicken, tofu, pork skewers… We ate all that for about 150 baht.

We headed back to the hotel and got ready for bed. We're getting up at 7AM tomorrow for breakfast then heading to The Grand Palace... so time for bed! nite!