Meeting Stephen in Bangkok

Meeting Stephen in Bangkok!

Arriving in Bangkok

I was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, and my flight arrived at the international airport at around 10am.

I was feeling pretty unwell on the plane, I assumed it was just the air conditioning but it soon turned into the most annoying cold known to man. Who gets a cold in 30 degree heat?!

Anyway, getting through passport control and collecting my bags took ages and as I wasn’t feeling great I decided to take a taxi.

Getting to the hotel

It was really easy, you leave arrivals go down to ground floor, follow signs for public taxis and then press the button at the taxi stand machine. It tells you which bay to wait for your taxi simple as that.

The taxi runs on the metre, but there are various toll roads from the airport to Bangkok city centre and there is also a mandatory 50 baht tax for getting a cab from the airport. So in total the taxi cost 400 baht.

Stephen had arrived a few hours earlier than me but I hadn’t had internet so I hadn’t been able to speak to him so just make my way to the hotel.

When I arrived and knocked on the door he was fast asleep, feeling the jet lag. But he eventually answered the door and gave me a big hug and kiss. It had been 7 week, so it was really good to see each other!

Accommodation

We had booked to stay at the paragon one residence based on the good reviews online and the price. The room was fine, but the bed was honestly rock hard. I can usually sleep on any bed but it literally felt like I was laying on a table. Would not recommend on that basis.

Street food

We made our way to Khao San road to go for a wonder and grab some food. Our tactic for selecting which stool to eat at was basically pick the busiest one.

It worked out well the food was great and really cheap.

 

Thip Samai

Before coming out stephen had been reading up on places to eat and had come across Thip Samai.

We made our way there for dinner on the first evening, when we arrived the queue was easily 50 people deep to even get in the restaurant.

We thought about going somewhere else, but figured there must be a reason so many people were waiting!

The queue didn’t actually take that long to move, we made it to the front within 20/25 minutes.

It was actually really interesting to watch the chiefs at the front of the restaurant cooking all the food.

It was literally like a production line, each person had a singular job and would pass the plate onto the next person once there part was compete.

The restaurant goes way further back than it initially appears from the outside and we were seated at the back.

The menu isn’t very big, it essentially just has variations of pad thai. But I guess that’s how they built their reputation.

The food was really good and the fresh orange juice was yummy!

Siam paragon to escape the rain

Unfortunately for us the weather was really bad, it pretty much rained all day on our only full day in Bangkok.

We had grabbed some breakfast from a local cafe (it was disgusting never get a cheese baguette it’s burger cheese 2 slices if your lucky) and were contemplating what to do for the day.

We had all these great plans to walk to the Grand Royal Palace, temple of the emerald Buddha etc but in the rain this didn’t sound appealing. Especially seen as I was now really unwell with a cold. We waited an hour hoping it would pass but it didn’t.

So instead we got a uber to Siam Paragon, a large shopping centre in Bangkok.

This shopping centre had a lot of top end designer-stores and we wondered through admiring all the stuff we couldn’t buy.

But what we had really come for was the food area. There was a gourmet food market within the shopping centre that had lots of different stools selling, meat, fruit juices, cakes and everything in between.

We spent a good few hours here just moving from stool to stool trying everything they had to offer, some of the favourites below.

Ranees

Stephen found an Italian restaurant called ranees online so we dashed there in the rain.
It was a really cute setting with a bike theme going on. I had carbonara and Stephen had lasagne with garlic bread. The food was really really good!

Khao San Road

After dinner we went to Khao San Road, it wasn’t nearly as crazy as I had been expecting.

Yes there were people selling bugs to eat, tailored suits and other tat. Bars and restaurants with go go girls but it didn’t feel as crazy or sleazy as I expected it to.

It is a great place to people watch, we grabbed some drinks and sat in one of the many bars watching the world go by.

Abbie’s view

It was a real shame that it rained so much during our time in Bangkok as I feel like tainted my view of the city. It stopped us doing various touristy bits that we had wanted to check out.

The street food is yummy and really good value, I would also reccomend going to Thip Samai for Pad Thai, it’s worth the wait.

Siam Paragon food market is a must, there are so many delicious foods to try.

Khao San Road isn’t nearly as sleazy and crazy as I had imagined but I think 2 nights in Bangkok is enough.