Day 1 -- We wake up early again in Beijing and decide to see the Lama Temple before cabbing it to the airport. Beautiful grounds, temples, and the world's largest Buddha built from a single Sandalwood tree. We stumble into 15-20 monks chanting in one of the main temples, am I in Eat, Pray, Love? This is so cool. There are fruit and flower and candle offerings all along the altar and the monks sit on low cushions chanting and occasionally ringing instruments and blowing horns. After the temple we head back to the hotel and take a taxi to the airport. We arrive quickly and the Beijing airport is very organized. After our bust in the night market we are ready to eat, why not The Lucky Shamrock that has burgers, beer, and 90's American music playing. Megan's burger seems to be a slippery patty some what reminesent of sausage, but the lettuce, bun, and tomato are great! We race to our gate at 1:30 for boarding and then hang around for a hour before boarding buses to the plane. Unlike the US people pretty much just wait quietly and no announcements are made. The flight is uneventful and 5 hrs seems so quick after Friday's 14 hr journey. Ben sleeps and Megan chats with our seat partner and forms a list of things not to miss in Bangkok.
Night 1 -- We land: customs, immigration, and gathering our bags is easy. We spot a representative from Banyan Tree and wait just a second for our BMW to arrive. Our driver, Narin pulls up in a full white tuxedo and cap and takes our bags. He provides us with water, scented cool compresses and a lovely instrumental recording of some top Disney hits! We are informed that tonight is the last night of Songkren, the New Years festival in Thailand. People gather in the streets and throw water on each other. Hmm well it is probably 85 degrees here at night so it makes sense. We get to Banyan Tree and everything is perfect. Our room is on the 57th floor and wine and flowers are waiting in our suite. We shower to go out and explore and Ben works some magic to take out and exchange money into Bahts. Thank goodness for smartphones and internet banking coupled with account transfers and no questions asked withdrawals from banks. We follow the directions we received to check out Songkren. We get a few blocks from a main gathering and hear music. As we walk past some young guys in front of a restaurant a bucket of cold water is pour down bens back and Megan is sprayed with a hose from head to foot. Wow, we thought we would at least observe for a little while but we were welcomed with smiles, "hellos", and "thank yous". The Main Street was filled with soaking wet young people with water guns, hoses, and buckets of what we called "silt" (talc water and maybe yellow for good luck) that looked like a tan paste that was all over the people and the street. We quickly got a beer at the 7/11 and reassessed. There was a massive wet dance party in the streets with techno blaring out of pickups. We were the only westerners so we got major street creed when people walked by to smear the talc paste on our face. We later read this was for good luck. We joined in the festivities for an hour or two and right about midnight, to Megan's amazement, people begin to disperse and we see giant water trucks and city workers ready to spray down the street. We head back to the hotel, starving, and our first meal in Bangkok is room service. Second try at the burger and Ben gets an awesome spicy green curry. Lights out!
Day 2 -- We have conquered our jet lag and now have proper AC -- we sleep till 9:30. Ben's first words are, "I need more of that curry". It's sunny and hot so we head to the pool. We come back around noon and shower before our bike tour that leaves from River City Shopping Center. First cab is easy and we grab some Thai food on the water. Our guide from Co van Kessel, Water, takes us on a slow but interesting winding 3 hour tour of Bangkok through Chinatown, the flower market, two or three temples, and over the river and back on boats. The number of tiny tiny streets in Bangkok are amazing. Children in the street yell out hello and hold up their hands for high fives. We do our best to navigate the bikes through 4-6 foot wide streets with cats, mopeds, store fronts, and people walking. After the tour we taxi to MBK, Mall of Bangkok, we hear about an amazing food market but are underwhelmed.
Night 2 -- We look around and eventually take the BTS or air train back towards the hotel. After some serious consideration/indecision/
apprehension we decide to use the 200 Baht we have left to get some street food for dinner. We find a noodle cart and sit down at tiny tables on the side walk. We get pork and crab noodles. Awesome choice. The noodles are sweet, tangy, and delicious(especially for being 1.5 USD). We are exhausted and sweaty from our 8 hours in the heat and humidity. Our plan is to shower and head up to see the rooftop bar and restaurant. We don't make it past shower, good night Bangkok.
Day 3 -- We decide on massages for today. Our cab driver drops us on an unknown street and we are hungry and start to wander. We get offered roast pork street side at 9:30am. Megan repeats her personal mantra, "What is cold should be cold, hot should be hot, and breakfast food at breakfast time". Ben is devastated. We stumble into a coffee shop that has a picture of the NYC subway, score (or lame if you ask Ben). Coffee, eggs, and a croissant later one of the servers is able to direct us to the spa. 90 min massage for less than $30 -- for now this deal is great -- as we continue to travel we will find much cheaper. The place is palatial, very clean, and perhaps made of a teak forest. We leave feeling sleepy and relaxed, but a little violated by the handsy masseurs. Megan needing a break from the heat decides on a pool and yoga day while Ben is off to explore the Grand Palace, Lumpini park, and street markets. Pants are a must at the grand palace, however the winter weight jeans at the high of a Bangkok summer are and awful choice. Rather than jeans a discerning shorted tourist is able to rent proper attire for 30 cents. The palace grounds are worth the discomfort. The architecture is royal Siam at its finest with all the ornate details seen on the walls of Thai restaurants across the globe. Ben ventures home for a shower and a change of clothes. He then heads to Lumpini park Which is ground zero for the protests sweeping Thailand this past devious winter. Woefully ignorant of the grievances and the only westerner insight, Ben decides not to take the free food on offer at the park. Instead he heads back for red coconut curry noodles with 'fixins' ( basil, beans sprouts, green beans, bok choi, mushrooms, and other greens occupying the central portion of communal tables). A good day is had by all and we reconvene for an Indian dinner and our "big night" out in Bangkok.
Night 3 -- Ben brings a bottle of white wine home from the shops, gold star for hubs, Tsing Tao was getting old. Then we head up to the 61st floor for a city view and a pre dinner cocktail (Megan's first martini blanco). The we have a 360 view of Bangkok's disperse but impressive skyline composed of hotels, banks and other commercial towers. For dinner we go to the top Bangkok pick for Indian and get all of our favorite treats: aloo chat, chicken tikka, and raita along with the rogan josh which is a staff favorite. We order too much as always and Megan begins her mission of finding a worthy recipient of the leftovers. Our taxi driver was more than happy to take them off our hands. We decide to see the Bangkok night life. The first street has a number of outside bars with seating that all faces into the street. We take a shot of tequila with the bar tender to celebrate our honeymoon. Then it's off to the red light district. We are guided to a ping pong show that includes a Chang beer for 100 baht. The girls inside are wearing bikinis and look supremely uninterested in this job. They take turns doing "tricks" like blowing a horn, shooting a Ping pong balls at the crowd, or shooting out balloons with darts. We feel bad for them and take our first opportunity to jet out. Ben is approached by 3 large Thai women that block us in and demand more money, like 30x more, Megan runs out into the street and Ben holds his ground and emerges a minute later having settled up at the original beer price. We move on to two other places where the girls seems to stand around and wait to be selected, some girls even wear numbers, the whole thing is sort of depressing. Time to call it a night.
Day 4 -- We sleep in forever. We awake in our 57th floor cocoon close to noon and have an hour to shower and pack up. We head to a Thai lunch at Naj, a place that was recommended by an eager passerby on the street. It doesn't disappoint, massaman curry, yellow chicken curry. We fit in a quick 30 min foot rub and are off to BKK -- Chiang Mai is next on the agenda!
