Day 3 Bangkok - Birthdays, food & alcohol

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An early start to the day to open presents before going out. Tom then decided to announce he had lost his wallet so half an hour of searching later and resigning ourselves to the wallet being gone forever we left for the day, having missed breakfast as we had no time left. Only in the lift does Tom realise his wallet was in his pocket all along!!!!!!!

Anyway it turns out to be lucky that breakfast was missed, as we started the day with a cookery lesson. First of all at a food market where we learnt about ingredients for Thai cooking and saw the locals shopping which was fascinating. We then moved on to the lesson, which in itself was great, but was also interesting as it was in a residential block so we got to see where locals lived. The lesson itself was amazing, and we got to eat so much good food. Started off with a shrimp and coconut soup which was gorgeous. Then moved on to Shrimp pad thai, then sticky rice balls with chicken or shrimp salad, then green thai curry and coconut and banana custard type desert. All were gorgeous, and despite being full after the second course we managed to continue cooking and eating each course! Our chef was the most amazing camp Thai guy which added to the experience and we also met some other great people – especially Robin from Malaysia!

After the cooking lesson we headed to the shopping malls for an explore. We spent a lot of time marvelling at the craziness of the food section in Siam Paragon. So tempting but we were good and only had a diet coke, although we’re still pining after the chocolate lava cakes, ferrero rocher icecream and candyfloss balls amongst other treats. We then had an explore of some shops, got excited by a Barbie shop (well Sarah did anyway!), felt sick/sad when discovering a shark fin shop and then headed back to the hotel with the plan of getting ready early to go to a cool rooftop bar. However soon after getting in it started hammering down. We were also told by the hotel that we can no longer had the late checkout we were told we could have, so had to rearrange literary plans for tomorrow (shock horror!). Luckily the weather cleared so we decided to chance the rooftop bar, and managed to get a four poster day bed for an hour (they were really apologetic that they were full otherwise, but this suited us fine as we had other plans for later). We opted for a posh version of the Thai cocktail buckets – a mojito in a crystal bucket, it was lush! It was amazing lying on this bed on the 23^rd floor about a busy Thai road just chilling out – plus the cocktail was strong so went straight to our heads!!!

We then moved on to Bed Supperclub, a really modern club where you eat dinner in bed. It was an unusual experience to say the least. At first it was quite intimating – the prices were extortionate - £7 for a bottle of evian!!!!! You had to take your shoes off to get on the bed, but then you were not allowed to go to the toilet without your shoes on! I tried and the manager was called!!! It was all quite odd too with men dressed as angels or devils and women as ‘sexy’ nuns!! It was a surprise 4 course meal which was good, plus Tom ate scallops and crab!!! He didn’t realise at first and then felt ill, but has promised he will give seafood more of a chance from now on! weirdy I Sarah also got a free massage at the table (bed) too. At the end of the meal Tom arranged for a cake with a candle, everyone to sing happy birthday and Sarah’s name up on the big screen – as anyone who knows her can imagine she was half embarrassed and half pleased at the fuss!! The restaurant then also gave 2 glasses of champagne which was a great end to the meal.



We then moved on to a bar, which seemed innocent enough, but before we knew it Sarah was propositioned by an African guy for a threesome with his girlfriend so long as Sarah bought the drinks!!! We politely declined and he wished us a good holiday – weirdly good manners for such a situation! After a few changes we decided to call it a night. We tried to be some drinks in the 7/11 by our hotel but they were unable to serve us, before we knew it our doorman was rushing to our aide with a dodgy deal on Singha, so here we are on the last night of our first stint in Bangkok, enjoying our Singha in bed writing this blog.

Tomorrow we are going to try for an early start for a weekend market and then a walking food tour of china town. We then get the train down to the Southern Gulf islands. We are hoping for a Harry Potter type experience on the train, but fear we may be being idealistic!! So we may not be able to post tomorrow, if not our next post will be from (hopefully) an Island paradise!

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