Bankok Day 1

Our Rooms at the Sukhothai 

Crab Larb Cones

Nu Showing me the Scene

A most auspicious beginning to Bangkok.

We flew from Hong Kong to Bangkok in another A380. This was a Thai Airways A380. Once again we were on the upper deck. No surprises on this trip, all passengers health held out and we made it to Bangkok with out incident. It is 91 and muggy here, even late at night. It is nice to be in tropical weather again.

Note to self about A380, don’t sit in the last row of Business, you hear the toilets flush! Also Singapore Airlines has seats that flip over to beds, Thai has traditional seats that lie flat. I like Singapore’s Air seats better. Luckily we are flying Singapore Air home at the end of our trip.

We had our another extremely pleasant surprise when we deplaned in Bangkok. As I walked off the plane I noticed a young man in a suit holding up a sign with our names printed on it. I had no idea why he wanted to see us. He motioned for us to follow him. The Bangkok Airport, for those of you who have never been there, is very, very long - teaming with travelers. It is very crowded. He motion for an electric golf cart to approach us and told us to get in. He drove like a mad man thru the crowds siren wailing on the cart, the full length of the concourse until we got to passport control. He took us to Diplomatic Entry where there was a tiny line of about 3 people, bypassing the hundreds of people waiting in line. He waited for us to quickly clear customs. He then took us to the baggage conveyor where our 3 pieces of luggage were the first three off of the plane! He gathered up our luggage and helped us exit the building where we were met by a representative from the Sukhothai Hotel where we were staying.

I finally asked why all of this special service? He replied that they knew our flight had been diverted and they wanted to assist us. I have NEW great respect for Star Alliance and especially Singapore Air.

He took our luggage to a waiting Mercedes to take us to the hotel. They call it a limousine, but it wasn’t a stretch one, but boy was it nice. We sat in the backseat and I noticed there were all kinds of seat controls, up, down, recline, etc. I have never been a car where the back seats had adjustments. The driver ,as we sped off said, “By the way the car is equipped with wifi”. I whipped out my iPhone and damn it really did have fast wifi. I loved it!

The Sukhothai, is a grand hotel, it is very beautiful, filled with art and reflecting pools. It reminded me of the Imperial in Delhi. At the front desk they explained we had been upgraded and took us to our suite. The rooms are beautiful. We had a full night planned. We had arrived at the Hotel at 5pm.

The restaurant at the hotel is highly rated, and we made reservations there. We also made reservations for a 90-minute massage to start at 6pm. So a quick showers and off to get our massages. It was bliss! We then returned to our room and changed for dinner. The food was excellent. A plate of little appetizers (including Thai version of Jewish Gribness made with crispy fish skin) and a fabulous shrimp crackers with a hot (temp wise) peanut sauce. We ordered Larb that came with a spicy crab in little ice-cream cone like shells, Lobster sauted in a Wok with Black Pepper. We also had Shrimp Pad Thai that came with the biggest shrimps ever and Thai black rice. We had a bottle of Alsatian Wine and Coconut Ice Cream for dessert. It was a great dinner!

The rest of the evening was not quite so upscale. I had always heard about the sex shows in Bangkok, but had never been to one. Our friend Shu, has a friend who lives in Bangkok and I had contacted him, asking if he wanted to take me out on the town. I was exhausted after the extremely difficult task of getting to Bangkok (5 Airports – Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok) travelling with out stop. I don’t even know how many hours we had been up. Even though I was tired, I figured I could make it to the shows. Nu met me in the lobby and we took a taxi ride to where the all of the prostitutes and shows are. It is several blocks, teaming with outside bars, people drinking or milling about or hawking tee shirts, etc. It was warm around 90 degrees. It was very crowded, sort of like New Orleans Bourbon Street. There are hawkers in front of clubs. We went to one show 600 baht to enter, and we each had a beer. There were a few customers watching the women on stage. They barely danced, and definitely were not sexy or good looking. They did their acts (I won’t go into detail). After about 15 minutes I was ready to leave, but Nu resisted, until I finished my beer. I didn’t want to finish it, because I was very tired. He finally relented and we left. I definitely had the feeling this had to do with “Face”. We couldn’t walk out so soon, it would be impolite, even in a dive.

We walked around a little more, including a walk down a street where every club, bar and massage studio was gay. The areas weren’t intermixed, Gay Sex Area was separated by a street from the Straight Sex Area. We taxied back to the hotel. I am glad that Nu escorted me through the area. I am sure if I had been alone I would not have felt as safe and comfortable. One more life adventure I can now check off as having done. I got home and Cathy was soundly sleeping in bed. I took a sleeping pill and quickly drifted off to sleep.