Living it up in luxury for a special Birthday celebration

---

After a fantastic three weeks in the Philippines, we flew back to Bangkok where we had splashed out and pre-booked a fancy hotel for a couple of nights as a treat for Scott's upcoming 30th Birthday, complete with big soft bed, real pillows, hot water and a tv - it was called Dream hotel and it really was a Dream! We always look forward to visiting Bangkok anyway but it was so nice to have a bit of luxury for the first time in ages and we really made the most of it, even though to get there from the airport we stuck to our traveller roots and took the train and metro instead of a taxi! The hotel was in the Sukhumvit area of the city and we chose to stay here instead of our usual cheap Khao San haunts as we wanted to experience a different part of some of Bangkok and try out some of the best nightlife the city has to offer, which is exactly what we did...as we didn't do a lot else most of the photo's in this blog are of us, so apologies in advance for anyone who gets a bit bored of looking at our faces!

We arrived in the evening and after we had a few drinks in our plush room, we spent a while getting ready in our best outfits and Vic used the straightners (and even a hairdryer!) on her hair for the first time since October, we looked as good as new and headed off into the night. We were only a 5 minute walk from Soi 11, a popular street where a lot of the bars and clubs are located, so we chose to go there to a club called Levels. It looked amazing, like a London or Las Vegas club, very opulent and glam and as we approached the door we felt a bit strange as we hadn't been anywhere like this on our trip, even though at home or on a holiday this would be normal for us, but we needn't have worried - this is Bangkok after all and as expected the crowd was a mix of people, from those dressed casually from work to girls who must have spent days getting ready! We got straight in for free and Vic got some free drinks vouchers which helped as the price of a standard drink was about what we would spend on dinner for both of us if we were treating ourselves, and as we sat on the terrace overlooking the city sipping cocktails, we are not ashamed to admit we felt right at home! We had a brilliant night dancing and people watching and rolled back to our gorgeous hotel in the early hours and got straight into our lovely king sized bed, looking forward to the free breakfast buffet in a few hours time...

Breakfast is something of an indulgent treat for us travllers, so it was with great pleasure that we woke the next morning (feeling slightly worse for wear) and as we went downstairs were met by the (free) biggest buffet spread we have seen since our days in Vegas. Our stomachs didn't know what hit them as we truly had a feast and loaded our plates several times over, with everything from eggs made to order with beans, bacon, toast and hash browns, to pastries and pancakes, to the the healthier fruit and yoghurt options. We sat for nearly an hour thoroughly enjoying every single mouthful of food and yes, we felt totally sick and full after but it was AMAZING! We even made fresh pesto chicken salad baguettes and wrapped them in napkins for lunch from the cold cut station, being the cheap backpackers that we are. After rolling ourselves out of the breakfast buffet we spent a few hours at the hotels' roof top pool, trying to rid oursleves of our hangovers in preperation for another night on a Bangkok dance floor. When we finally started to feel better, I managed to pluck up the energy to use the hotel's gym before we both headed to look around the new Terminal 21 shopping centre, which was easily the best mall we have been to in Bangkok.

Later that evening after getting ready, we decided that we fancied an Italian and had some great pasta at a restaurant not too far from the hotel which was delicious. We the headed over to WXYZ bar which is a fancy bar in a hotel on Soi 11 which was running a 'drinks/cocktail marathon' from 9pm - Midnight for 500bht. Now this may seem expensive (and granted we would never spend this amount on alcohol if it wasn't for such a special occasion) but for a little over £10 each we literally had the choice of the bar and it wasn't the usual watered down mai tai/sex on the beach drinks, it was their premium spirits and cocktails made by great mixologists which usually sell for 300bht plus each. Some of the fancier concoctions came topped with liquid nitrogen to make them smoke and the passion fruit and rasperry mojito's were some of the best we had ever tasted. There may have been a few cringe moments where we quoted lines from the Hangover 2 film, but who could blame us! After consuming a little under our weight in liquid and making friends with a nice couple from Switzerland we headed back up to Levels for the remainder of the night, which ended when the club closed some time between 3.30-4 am. On the way back, we made a quick diversion to Uncle Ronny D's for a late night snack before crashing out in our bed after another great night in this crazy city.

The next morning followed an almost identical pattern to that of the day before with us both gorging ourselves in the breakfast buffet and chilling at the roof top pool before checking out. In the afternoon we headed to the MBK shopping centre to say a quick hi and bye to Hannah and Leigh who were also in Bangkok and who we hadn't seen since leaving Vietnam before Christmas and had a quick Katsu Curry from a Japanese chain store which we loved in Japan. We then hot footed it across town (or rather we struggled to find a taxi who was willing to take us for the metered price - or anywhere close, and when we did finally find someone willing, we proceeded to sit in traffic for the best part of 90 minutes) to collect our bus tickets from our friendly travel agent at Well Done travel near Soi Rambrutti. This lady is brilliant, we have built up a relationship with her over the last few years of travelling through Thailand and now we just phone her in advance to book our travel down to the islands and pay her when we get back to that area of Bangkok, so convenient for us. We had just about enough time to fit in another snack (pizza) and Vic's had a pedicure before being picked up and taken to the meeting point for our overnight bus down to Ko Tao via Chumpon.



S&V's Travel Info & Tips:

General Info: Approx 45 Baht to £1.

Transportation: From Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok we first took a train then the MTR metro to get to our hotel on Sukhumvit, which worked out at just 50 Baht each instead of 300 Baht plus in a taxi.

Food: As you can tell a lot of our time here revolved around food! The food court in the Terminal 21 shopping mall looked great but we didn't get to try anything. Delicious pasta at Mama's Pizzeria round the back of Sukhumvit, and lost of street food along the small Soi's nearby.

Accomodation: We splashed out on the Dream Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 15 and it was fabulous for a treat!


Other observations:

x) We loved the vibe of this area of Bangkok, and whilst it is more modern/upmarket than the Khao San area it still offered some good value places to eat and stay. It was also handy being so close to the Sky Train and MTR.

---

Comments

[Cynthia]

Great Times in Bankok!
A girlfriend recently told me about a trip she took to Bankok alone, enroute back to the states and she stayed for 10 days...said the hotels were fantastic...you guys look like you had a ball and your story is inspiring me to want to go. Must put this on my list of places to visit. Thanks for sharing!