Thailand - Bangkok

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David here...

We got up at 07:30 for breakfast, which was actually pretty good at The Gallery. Decent coffee, different choices each day, the cheesy mash, pork in mushroom sauce and chicken in black pepper sauce being my favourites. No idea why they kept the lids of the food open and the air conditioning blasting at it to make it cold. Anyway, we packed up our things and headed down to check out at 08:30 so we would be ready for our pick up 10 minutes later. No sooner had we checked out than our minivan arrived. There were no seats together available but we could sit one in front of the other. Suzanne quickly realised that she would be better off in the front seat instead of next to the 2 Japanese girls who had learned circular breathing so they could continually talk. So she moved there and I moved to the vacated seat where there was slightly more leg room. The Japanese chatter had little effect on me. Maybe my years of listening to Heavy Metal has meant I cannot hear the high pitched ranges anymore. The minivan was full but we were actually surprisingly comfortable. An Italian lady who was too cold tried to mess around with the aircon however I was in control of that and as everyone else was roasting I made sure it stayed on for the other 8 people who wanted it and not her and her precious 'Fabio' who finally gave in and put another layer on to keep warm.

Anyway, apart from that, it was a surprisingly comfortable 5 hour journey back to Bangkok. We got dropped off near Victory Monument and walked to our final stay in Bangkok, The NAP Hotel, which stood for Need A Pillow, or in my case another pillow. The room was clean, fresh, modern and minimalist, we felt right at home. We got to the hotel around 16:00 where we relaxed, freshened up and got ready to head out for the evening.

We ended up at Hungry Nerd restaurant which does pork and beef steaks, that kind of thing and had good reviews online. It is also located next to Hollywood Street (or CoCo Walk to give it it's proper title) so was a good location for us. The welcome was friendly, if a little over enthusiastic and felt false. We were given a nano second to decide drinks and then another nano for food and that was that. We had chicken wings to start, Suzanne had a pork chop and I asked for pork ribs with cheese however they got it wrong and I ended up with pork loin and cheese no great loss and it was much cheaper. While waiting for the food we noticed that all the staff were wearing glasses. Some their own and some false, big, thick, black rimmed ones for those who didn't wear them. So that was the nerd gimmick, pretty lame really. The food was alright, but the atmosphere felt false and forced, not unpleasant exactly but not great.

After the meal we discussed going to The Rock Pub again. We knew that the band that night, Johny Revolt played more angry grunge stuff and as the beer was so expensive we decided against it. It annoyed us that Rock bars in Thailand seem the opposite of the rest of the world and are there to draw in those older 'blokes' who want to pretend that they're Angus Young while on holiday, they seem to take advantage of what we see as our lifestyle by charging stupid prices for drinks. We found the same on Koh Chang as there is a bar there called The Rock Bar, which has the Iron Maiden font in their logo, but watching the vidoes from the place just had the same old blokes dancing to AC/DC, so we didn't bother. It also annoyed that we had found out about another Metal bar called Immortal Bar nearby that was only open Fridays and Saturdays. We were there Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. :-(

Anyway, after deciding not to go to the theme park pub, we ended up at Skate Cafe and ordered 2 lots of 4 Changs before heading back to the hotel...with 2 more Changs before settling down for the night.

We woke and relaxed in the morning while investigating the days planned activity. We wanted to go to the Contemporary Art Gallery but had read that it was difficult to get to but worth it. Trusting Google directions we headed out of our hotel and caught the no.29 bus from outside Quest Coffee near to Phaya Thai BTS station. We could also get the 187 but the 29 was first. We had the name of the stop on the tablet and the conductor recognised it. The fare came to less than 20 baht in total and we got dropped off pretty much outside, watching where we were on Google maps as we went. I won't say too much about the gallery, just that we loved it. One of the best modern art galleries we've been to and well worth the effort to get there. One piece in particular, an installation that we would normally hate, where you walked from a pitch black dome, through a dark tunnel with stars and black holes into a large white dome, was particularly disturbing, interesting and perturbing. We went through 3 times. We caught a bus back to Mo Chit BTS and used the Skytrain to avoid the rush hour traffic to get to our hotel.

That night we headed back to the Ari area and had a decent burger at Paper Butter and the Burger (stupid name, good, if expensive, food though) and then looked for a bar. Finding nothing, we ended up back at Skate Cafe for 4 final Changs before heading back to the hotel to pack and go to sleep. The next morning we had yogurt for breakfast with coffee before leaving the hotel at 11:45 to get lunch. Our flight was not until 22.45 so we had basically a full day to fill. We started with lunch at Inter Restaurant (cheap, nice but small portions) before heading to the Siam Paragon Cineplex where we got 2 tickets to see Rogue 1 for under £9. We were helped by an attendant at the ticket machine as we nearly ended up with a showing where the tickets were 4,000 baht each (about £90 per ticket). Now we are intrigued as to what you get for your money at such an expensive showing. Needless to say we were happy with our tickets at £4.50 each and enjoyed the film immensely.

We then bought coffee at Starbucks (buy 2 get 1 free - it was a LOT of coffee) before having dinner at a decent Mexican in the food court. It was then time to say goodbye to Bangkok for the last time. We picked up our bags from the hotel and made our way to the station to catch the airport train. We were very sad to be leaving Thailand and Bangkok. It had become familiar and easy for us with decent rooms and some great experiences. The Philippines were next, another new country that we both felt a little apprehensive about. We both thought that this would be our last visit to Thailand when we first arrived 3 months ago, now, we are looking at how we could come back, after all, we have to try Immortal bar now!

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