Advertisement
Published: August 17th 2023
Tina Writes Day One I think it was 2019 the last time we came to Thailand. I remember saying to Rob it was the last time. I think I felt we had done it enough times now and I have always said I wouldn't travel places more than once while I had other places to see first and we had been to Thailand three times already. Over the past 4 years though my love of Thailand has gone through the roof. I watch YouTube after YouTube of Thailand vloggers everyday and my longing to come back is rather strong. Last year I forced myself to go to Mexico rather than Thailand again and as much as we enjoyed it, I couldn't shake regretting it a bit because I so desperately wanted to come to Thailand again So this year that's what we did. I can't tell you how excited I've been.
We had planned our trip around a tour that one of the YouTubers I watch had organised. It was a Thai food tour (that's what he vlogs about) but the tour was sadly cancelled, so we decided for the days we were supposed to be on that
tour we would stay in Bangkok. That's 6 nights in Bangkok which is quite a long time as most only come for two or three days before going elsewhere, plus we've been in Bangkok several times but only for a few days at a time. With the squillions of videos I've watched about Bangkok, I had seen there was so much to do that we didn't know about before, so we thought we'd do Bangkok a bit of justice. Then we will go to Koh Chang for 6 nights for that Thai island, beach and sand vibe. A new island for us.
Our flight was an early one from Edinburgh so we were up at 4am having had very little sleep. We flew with Qatar, one of the best airlines in the world, if your in business! The first flight
flew by and we arrived in Doha. The airport in Doha is pretty spectacular and feels like you are in Total Recall. Very futuristic. Its full to the brim with designer shops like Prada which always makes me feel inadequate and poor haha. The second flight was tougher. I had planned on sleeping through this one to get me
on Thai time as we would arrive in Bangkok at 8am. I slept like a baby the whole way.....yeah right. Didn't sleep at all. I was, surprisingly, feeling pretty good though when we arrived which was good because we had planned quite a day to make sure we didn't sleep. Plus our room wouldn't be ready til 2pm. As we walked through the airport, I smiled from ear to ear. Ecstatic to be here again. I inhaled with all my power through my nose to get that smell, that Thailand smell. There is nothing like it. I actually had to stop because I started to hyperventilate.
We got a taxi to our hotel and had a chat with the driver along the way who was thrilled to hear about our love for Thailand and the many places we have been over the years. We checked in and were told the room would be ready in less than an hour, so we hung around the hotel and waited for the room. It was ready in about 20 minutes and up we went to the 34
th floor. I had booked this hotel as we had never stayed at the Chaophraya river
before and this is where a lot of the big fancy hotels are because the views are lovely. Usually we stay at the Holiday Inn Express in the centre because its cheap, excellent quality and right next to the BTS and all the major shopping areas as well as being in the centre. But I wanted a wee bit more luxury since we aren't backpacking for months, we can. So I had booked 2 nights at the Chatrium Riverside hotel. Mainly because one of my favourite holiday memories was the hotel breakfast in the fancy hotel in Phuket and Koh Samui. It was soooo good. I loved getting up at 6 am and being the first person there. The choice of food was ridiculous and I loved it. So I had watched some videos of Chatrium Riverside Hotel and the breakfast looked good. I also wanted a great view of the river. So I booked a river view suite. The room was lovely, really fancy with a living room, a wee kitchen a bedroom and a nice big ensuite. But the balcony is the main attraction here. It was massive! And very very high up! I was scared. I don't
suffer from vertigo...well I never used to. Looking down as I approached the glass balcony barrier made me feel ill. But the view was just spectacular. As I turned to shout on Rob to tell him to come see, I could see something was attached to the balcony door frame in the corner. I reckoned it wasn't going to be good so I approached tentatively and yup...it was bat. Upside down sleeping. I could see its wee face. It was actually quite cute but I was a bit scared it would attack me. We just left it there and hoped it would be gone later in the day.
We dragged ourselves out and away from the calling of the giant bed and headed to the Chatuchak market. Its a weekend market and it was Sunday so it had to be today or we wouldn't get another chance. Our hotel has its own wee boat that takes you up the river to the Saphan Taksin, the nearest BTS station but of course, the boat was out of order. Typical. They had minivans take you instead though. Once there we made our way to the market on the BTS which cost
us about 70p each. The BTS (sky train) is amazing. It goes to so many places. They also have an MRT (subway), river taxis and canal taxis as well as a very large bus system. Our public transport is a joke compared to this. We arrived and headed to the market. This market is the biggest market in the world. So its a big tourist attraction. We had a bit of a walk to get to it from the station. Less than 10 minutes walk. No problem eh? When its 35 degrees and feels like 40 degrees, it is a problem! By the time we arrived, I wanted to leave. It was brutal, absolutely brutal. We walked around the many corridors of market stalls, selling a vast variety of goods, mostly tourist stuff but some of it was nice. In normal weather, id love this but in this heat I just wasn't interested at all. We don't even want to buy anything and if we did, we don't have room in our luggage so we can't anyway. Why was I here, I don't know. It was also rammed. It was so busy, trying to get down the roasting hot corridors
was nightmare-ish We got to the food stall bit. This is a bit of us. Food galore. Everything you could imagine at a Thai food market. Where we hungry in the slightest? nope. You know they say that women are programmed to forget the pain of childbirth so they will do it again. That's what we are like with hot weather. We forget every time. We cannae take the heat Jim. I had been smiling from ear to ear since we got off the plane but it was wiped from my face now and replaced with a face like a slapped angry arse, a wet, slapped arse at that. The sweat was pouring off me. We quickly decided we wanted to leave. Fairly nearby was one of the food places that the vlogger I watch, Gary Butler (The Roaming Cook) had recommended so we headed there. We jumped back on the BTS and back down a couple of stops. We found it and sat down in front of a fan and had some top notch Khao Soi, one chicken, one beef for about £1.60 each. Magic.
We got back on the BTS and got off at Siam. This is
where the big malls are. We wanted to get some dessert and headed into Siam Paragon to find 'After you'. Its a chain dessert shop we like. We found it after fighting through the crowds to find a massive queue for a table. That was me....done. Back on the BTS to the hotel for some well deserved aircon. It was only about 3 pm. We had to stay awake until 8pm earliest. By this point we had been awake for about 28 hours. Rob failed. Big time, I kept shouting '
oi, wake up'.
'i'm not sleeping' he'd say each time. What is that about, denying you're sleeping. I can see you with my eyes! I gave in at 7pm and off to sleep I went despite the insanely loud aircon that made rob think he was still on the plane each time he roused. For a 5 star hotel I was pretty pissed that the aircon was this loud. I moaned about it a lot until the next day I decided to actually take a look at the controls and find it was on high fan mode. Absolute idiot. Turned the fan part off and it was as quiet as
a bat, a dead bat.....yes, the bat was still there and that's because it was actually dead! I think it had been squashed by the balcony door when someone had opened it all the way maybe. Poor wee thing.
Day Two I was dreaming about work and in the dream the parking permits were beeping. I kept shutting it off but they kept beeping (parking permits don't beep). I then woke up to realise Robs alarm he had set to get us up for the airport the day before was going off at 4.30am. I can't put in to words the anger I felt about this. That was me, awake. Great! It did mean I could be at breakfast for it opening though. So we headed down about 6.30am. It was rammed. Is this Bangkok now? I mean, I know its a busy city but it was never like this any time we have been before and I know the tourist numbers still haven't fully recovered post covid. I think there's a holiday in China or something. The breakfast choice was vast, but it wasn't as good as I was expecting. It was such a let down because
it was the main reason I chose this hotel. Ah well.
Today we had planned to go to the Grand Palace. Now, we have gone to the Grand Palace before, last time we were here. Well, we got to the entrance, where I was told I had to cover my shoulders or knees and I must buy an overpriced sarong to cover my offensive areas. I refused to pay whatever they were asking and we left to find somewhere outside selling for a normal price. We couldn't find anywhere and tempers were frayed, we had a massive argument and left. Rob has not let me forget this. Every time a Wat or temple is mentioned he reminds me not to get into a Grand Palace situation and be prepared clothing wise. So, I prepared this time. I will just repeat that.
I prepared this time. I wore full length trousers, a top with covered shoulders and took my sarong with me in case they wanted me to cover my offensive face (I wouldn't blame them). Rob, decided to wear shorts, long shorts that just covered his knees despite looking it up to see if men's skin bits were offensive
too. They were. But we have my sarong. We have been to many Wat's etc and often are handed a sarong to cover our wee legs(for free). So of course we arrive and Rob gets stopped. I missed it but apparently the guard screamed at him for daring to enter with the last ¾ of his trousers missing. So, Rob goes into the changing area were all the other offenders are buying overpriced elephant trousers and he wraps the sarong around himself. As he tried to enter again, the same guard screams even louder and angrier at the audacity that he would do this because.....SARONG IS FOR WOMAN! He had to buy the elephant trousers. So many feelings, so much anger, so much irony. We made our way around the palace which was stunning of course but it was....rammed! We could barely move. I think the final straw came when we went to look at the throne room. The doors and windows were closed but in front of it was a picture of the throne room. A PICTURE. You are not allowed to look with your eyes! Are you mad! Here's a picture though. This will probably get me banned
from Thailand but we hate the palace, WE HATE IT!
Next stop was Wat Arun which is directly across the river. We got on the river ferry and hopped of again a couple of minutes later. Not before the people that work at the river ferry tried to sell us the tourist ticket to get on the same boat as the normal half price ferry. I've been really disappointed so far with the constant attempts to scam tourists and here official workers are doing it on a public transport system. Its the one thing I can't stand about Thailand and it gives it such a bad reputation. Anyway, we arrive at Wat Arun which is such a beautiful structure. It was of course very busy and full of young girls dressed in very fancy Thai traditional dress. You can hire this from places outside the Wat. I think its a new thing as I don't remember seeing this before. Its all very Insta now. Had I been 3 stone lighter, I think I might have done it myself but I can't bear the '
oh you need extra extra extra large' they feel so comfortable saying to you. We had
a quick wander around before moving onto try and find another of Gary Butlers recommendations which was kinda close by but we had to resort to a rip off tuktuk as the pavement just suddenly ended. When we got there, there was no sign of the food place. We were probably too late in the day as many are packed up and gone before the afternoon. We wondered around the tiny streets, where we were met with many smiles and hellos. We were barely a mile out of touristville but I guess they don't see many tourists roaming these streets. We stopped at one and decided to eat there. No idea what they sold or how to tell them what we wanted. The lady got on the phone to someone she knew that spoke English and she explained they sold Tom Yum. Excellent, one of my faves. We asked for two and a couple of drinks and I said confidently '
mei phed' which means 'not spicy'. She was tickled that I knew this and giggled with a big smile. The soup was delicious and the lady tried to speak with us but we just nodded and smiled. Again, I confidently
said 'aroy mak' which means very tasty and she was so happy. It was just great. £1.50 paid and off we went. We decided to try and walk to another of Gary Butlers recommendations. His favourite Pad Kra Pao place. We got a bit lost and it started pouring but we found it eventually. Wow, it was amazing! We love Pad Kra Pao. We make a version of it at home and I eat it regularly in Ting Thai at home but I have never had one in Thailand. We both got pork mince which is arguably the way it should be but you can have it with whatever. It was so delicious. Luckily this place had a spice level to choose from and I got level 2. I think there was about 5 levels. We then decided to get the shrimp one between us. The pork was really good but the shrimp was pretty special. I can't remember exactly how much they were but it was around £2 for one. Just insanely cheap. I also went into a pharmacist to see if I could buy Tretanoin over the counter (the king of skin care only available by prescription back
home). I had got some in Mexico last year for £25 a tube. I had regretted not buying a bunch of them so hoped to get it here. And get I did. FOR £1.50 A TUBE!!! Pure heaven.
We took the BTS back to the hotel and chilled out for a while before taking a walk to Asiatique. This is a big tourist attraction that luckily was 10 minutes walk from the hotel. It's like a carnival, festival, shopping, food market thing. It has a big wheel kinda like London eye and a carousel. And it had a really cool looking ghost train. We decided to do the ghost train over the big wheel. It was £6 each but it was a hanging carriage on a rail rather than a rail car. Off we went into the pitch black and the girls in front were screaming blue murder. I was scared now! The first 'spook' appeared and it was total crap. This repeated through the whole ride. Terrible mechanised dummies popping out of the dark. There was nothing scary about it and it was such a good ride, they could have made it amazing. The only point I screamed
was when the man at the end in the dark touched me. It was the worst best looking ride ever. Anyway, we wondered around and got some deep fried crab and nutella roti and headed back to the hotel after a long day. The dead bat still hanging in the corner.
Day Three It was check out day so we slept in a bit and headed to breakfast around 9am, with checkout at 12pm. I had downloaded the Grab app which is Thailand's Uber. This is how you get taxis without being ripped off here. A taxi will point blank reuse to use the meter if you are a tourist. Ordering through Grab means they have to use it. Our new hotel was only about 4 miles away. Why where we changing hotels, well, I had seen a hotel online directly across from Wat Arun and the view was so spectacular. So we opted to stay in a similar one for the other 4 nights. The hotel is tiny. It only has two rooms as its main business is a cafe, restaurant and roof top bar. The room looked ok but it was no where near as nice
as Chatrium. However it was actually more expensive than Chatrium. Its a 3 star hotel room worth no more than £50 a night but it has a £100 view. Watch my wee video, you'll see. I mean it is just awesome. We have our own wee balcony you can sit on and just stare at Wat Arun right in front of you. Well the river is in between but it is so close. At night when its lit up, it is dream like. But for £150 a night I did expect the room to be half decent. Its not great. Its a bit grubby, the aircon is incredibly loud (no the fan isn't on), the windows aren't very good so you can hear every sound from every boat that passes and that pretty noisy, They even have the cheek to charge for their crappy minibar of cans of coke. The breakfast is so poor and its not even served in the hotel. We have to walk 100 yards to a different hotel. Ill tell you, if I could do it again, id have stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Siam for £50 a night and got a taxi to the
restaurant here and spent £100 on that for the view instead. Lesson learned but a great experience none the less. Im very sensitive to sound guys, If you are a regular reader of these blogs, you will know soundproofing is my thing. Oh and moaning obvs.
We couldn't check in to our room at 12pm so we went for a wander. I think we planned our days in Bangkok out before we decided on the hotels because, here we are in our new hotel which is on the doorstep of the Grand Palace and Wat Arun. Couple of idiots. And we didn't even realise what we had done until we got here. All that fannying about to get here the other day and we just needed to switch out those days. Rob could have walked back to the hotel and put on a pair of bloody trousers instead! So we went for a walk and decided to go to Khao San Rd. I don't why. Well, I do, there's a facial place there that I love, so we both got facials. Oh it was superb, £15 each for an hour. It would cost you £70 at home
and that would be cheap and wouldn't include the neck, shoulder and foot massage. We then went next door and got a full foot massage. Half hour for just over £3. Pure bliss.
We then caught a Grab back to the hotel. It would be a good 20 minute walk and the heat had done us in. We checked in and marvelled at our expensive view. We had booked a tour for tonight. The last time we were here, we ate at the famous Pad Thai place Thipsamai. While in the queue waiting for a table, a big luxury coach pulled up, filled with people sitting at tables, dinner tables. It was a food bus tour that drives you around the city picking up the best foods for each course. I was flabbergasted and we tried to book it for the next night but it was full and I was so disappointed. Well I made sure to book it this time. Four years ago it was very new, now its pretty normal though. We thought we would get the river ferry down to the pick up point as there seemed to be a ferry stop right next to our
hotel. When we got there, the queue was half way down the street. We waited for about 15 minutes and when we got to the front we realised it was the daft wee boat that just goes over to Wat Arun. The woman told me we can go across and wait for the proper ferry there but we didn't have long to get to the bus so we decided to get a Grab. What a mistake. The traffic was insane. We waited another 20 minutes for the Grab to get to us and then spent over 20 minutes in the cab to travel 2 miles. I frantically tried to contact the tour people. I could only find an email. I emailed and crossed my fingers, The tour was at 5.30pm, we arrived at 5.38pm. Thankfully, things never run on time and they hadn't left. Phew.
The tour started with a lovely drink of some kind followed quickly by an appetiser, then a pork belly Chinese roll noodle soup, beef masamam, shrimp pad thai and mango sticky rice all from Michelin starred places. Oh my God. The food was absolutely amazing. Believe it or not this was the first time
we had mango sticky rice. I always suspected I wouldn't like it. It was exceptional. Sweet, salty, crunchy, ripe chewy and saucy all in one. A taste sensation. The tour was absolutely amazing. I highly recommend it. Rob was over the moon with it and was sorely disappointed when it ended.
After the tour we took the boat across the river to Icon Siam. A new shopping mall that's very very popular. I've seen it a thousand times on YouTube and I knew it was full or Pradas and the likes but the food court looked pretty special. This place is done beautifully, pure luxury. Every food you can imagine from super fancy teddy bear shaped chocolate cakes to whole crocodile on a spit! We got a Bingsu which looked good but tasted of not much. Then Rob dragged me around the G-shock shop and made me look at Ripley's Casio which he then wouldn't let me buy. We got a Grab back to the hotel and sat on our balcony in awe of Wat Arun lit up like gold before us.
Rob will be blogging next. Last time I told him to stop making terrible in jokes
and give some actual travel stories so he took all humour out of his blog like a big baby and bored the tits off everybody. Lets see how he does this time 😊
Lots more pics if you scroll down and a wee video of our room (remember to like, comment and subscribe hahahaha)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.044s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
LouLou
non-member comment
Who thought it would be hot 🥵
Wish we were there 🦇