We flew out Friday lunchtime after enjoying a
wonderful 24hr sojourn at our little oasis in Siem Reap. After almost two weeks of go-go-go and
somewhat strenuous experiences, these next couple of days were to be our
reward. As with Siem Reap and Saigon,
I’d booked us into the #1 ranked hotel in the city – it was a bit of a splurge
but I figured what the hell, we’d earned it!!
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| Welcome to paradise |
After a bit of a mix-up with the time of the flight (very
unlike me!) we were on our way. The
flight was super short, just over an hour, so we got into Bangkok around
1pm. I’d been in contact with the hotel
to arrange an airport pick-up and had also arranged for the VIP Speed Pass
through customs (yey for Douche Pass!!).
There was also another super-douchey option of being picked up by buggy
from the jetbridge and being driven to the luggage carousel – but II figured
that we could probably manage to walk it ourselves. So instead, as soon as we got off the flight,
we were met by this young woman wearing a jacket which said IMMIGRATION on the
back and she escorted us directly through the airport, straight past all the
lines where Regular People were lining up for immigration and instead to an
immigration desk (supposedly just for Thai nationals) where there was no line
and that we went straight through with zero wait!! You wonder who gets paid what in this neat
little system but – hey – for just $40, it was a bargain!! After immigration, our lady picked us up
again and escorted us outside to the pick-up gate where our luxury BMW from The
Siam was waiting to whisk us into the city.
The whole process took no longer than 20mins, from start to finish. YEY for Douche Pass – definitely the way to
navigate Bangkok airport!!!!
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| Now that's what I call a mini-bar!! |
So, that pretty much set the tone of our time in
Bangkok. Amazing service with every
detail taken care of. The drive into the
city took about 40mins so we sat back and relaxed and enjoyed the ride. We finally arrived at The Siam (check out its
website here: ) and – WOW. As we pulled up to the hotel, through the
gates, there was an entourage of people to meet us. There was, of course, the guys to take our bags
but we were also met by this lovely chap called Nick, the general manager of
the hotel, plus another chap who was to be our butler during our stay and to
take care of any needs we had. OH
YEAH!!! Butler service, baby!!! Stepping inside the hotel was breathtaking –
it really is one of the most exquisite places I’ve ever stayed in – its just
beautiful. My descriptions won’t do it
justice but hopefully you can get a sense from some of the pictures. As per customary by now, we were given cold
towels to freshen up with plus a yummy mango drink while we were checked in,
and then our butler showed us to our room.
HOLY COW. Our room
was even more incredible. As we were
shown round this gorgeous suite, filled with beautiful furniture and antiques,
ManpanionTM and I kept looking at each other
to say “WHA???”. And I was
starting to panic, trying to remember just how much this room had cost us when
I’d made the booking!!! I could see
exactly the same thought going through his head too – how the hell are we managing
to stay here???
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| Gorgeous bathroom with the most divine smelling-stuff ever |
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| Heffalumps! |
Our butler showed us
all the amenities of the room before he left and I dived onto my Expedia
profile to check the cost. And, yes, it
was pricey but we’ve actually paid more for a fairly average room in NYC
before, so it was most definitely worth the splurge. Each of the 39 suites and villas is decorated
individually with a different theme – ours had the theme of elephants, so there
were clippings from old newspapers and curios to do with elephants in our room. ManpanionTM was in absolute heaven and, as we
explored the hotel further, we kept coming across these amazing rooms and
spaces that were just a delight to spend time in and to admire the antiques and
curios that were simply everywhere! We
both particularly loved the Vinyl room which was full of musical instruments,
comfy leather chairs and a ton of old records and a creaky old record
player. We ended up there with a
nightcap, both nights in a row, enjoying the crackly sound of Miles Davis and
various old classics. Just perfect.
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| The Vinyl Room, complete with leopard.... |
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| The Waaaaaaall |
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| Lunch in the hotel's restaurant |
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| Tubas, euphoniums and a ManpanionTM |
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Luxurious spa.... unfortunately only had time to
have a look round (and inadvertently drink another
couple's welcome drink -oops!) |
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| The Movie Room |
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Floor to ceiling display cases stuffed with antiques
and curios from around the world |
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The beautiful light filled atrium in the heart of
the hotel |
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Such cute touches - this was next to the entrance
to the garage |
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| Exterior of the hotel - stunning lit up at night |
After exploring for a bit, we went and had lunch in the
hotel restaurant – again, with beautiful décor.
By this stage, I was suffering from a full blown cold, so had a sore
throat, super stuffy nose and head. So I
went for a Thai curry-type dish as I thought that might help clear things up a
bit. Ay carumba. HOT!!!!
OWWWWWWWWW!!!! There was this
little chilli-type garnish the server brought along with the curry – like a
fool I happily drizzled it all over the curry – and then my head exploded!! It was so hot, I finally cracked and had to
ask for some milk to take the heat out!!
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| Not the best way to store vinyl!!! |
After lunch, we went back to our room and indulged in a
mid-afternoon nap. That evening, the
hotel was having a special event to celebrate the River Festival, called Loy
Krathong. We’d booked two spots on the
recommendation of Nick, so our first night at the hotel was perfectly taken
care of! The hotel had laid on a little
faux food-market type arrangement, so you could wander past all this little
cooking stations and order up whatever you wanted. There were also some performers playing
traditional music plus we each were able to go and choose a floral tribute,
complete with candles and incense, that later on you would take down to the
river, light it and then float it away on the river, to thank the River God for
your fortune of the previous year, and to ask for good luck and fortune for the
year to come. It was a lovely, chilled
out way to spend the evening – lots of good food, wine and, of course, the best
company. By about 9pm, we were both beat
and full, so we got one last glass of wine to go and headed up to the music
room to spin some tunes for a while before finally heading off to bed.
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Floral decorations for the River Festival.
And a pond full of very noisy frogs |
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Candyfloss? Or Finger Troll?
You decide. |
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| Various cooking stations at the River Festival dinner |
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| ManpanionTM spinning some late nite tunes..... |
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| Ummm...... |
The next day was to be our only full day in Bangkok, so we
were up fairly early to make the most of it.
After breakfast, we took the first shuttle boat from the hotel dock at
10am (yep – they had their own boat to take you from the hotel to downtown
Bangkok via the Chaopraya river!) to one of the main temples, Wat Pho. It was a fun way to start our day – and the
temple was absolutely stunning. I’d been
here before, 9 yrs ago, but it had lost none of its grandeur and
magnificence.
We spent about half an
hour wandering around, taking lots of pics, before heading off to the main
Palace, another short ferry hop across the river. Here we first stopped in at the temple of the
giant sleeping Buddha – again, very impressive.
Then we made our way (via the long way round!) to the Royal Palace. It was coming up for midday and, on our way
there, a couple of locals had asked us where we were going – to be polite, we
told them – and both told us the palace was going to be closed. Now, we’d been warned about this by the hotel
that is a common scam for tourists – that people would approach you and tell
you the palace is closed but they could show you another temple instead. So, on hearing this, we politely but firmly
(in my best British accent), walked on by, making our way to the Palace feeling
really quite smug that we hadn’t been duped by these damned scammers.
When we got there, there were absolutely
HOARDS of people at the entrance – we knew it was going to be busy because of
the crematorium for the late Thai King that had just been opened to the public
for people to visit and pay their respects – but this was crazy!! As we got closer, we actually realized that
people were only going in one direction – that is, everyone was leaving the
Palace as – yes, you guessed it – the Palace was closing for the rest of the
day!! GRRRR!!! Apparently, they were changing the Buddha’s
robes from summer wear to winter wear (no kidding) and so it was off-limits to
the public. It was a bit disappointing
not to be able to get in but- by that stage – we’d already seen quite a few
temples and pointy shiny buildings, so instead we decided to go get lunch
instead and console ourselves with some kick-ass G&Ts. We went to this place that the hotel had
recommended, down a little back alley, then up on the second floor overlooking
the river. It was pretty good and it
felt great to get out of the heat and humidity for a while. Bangkok is hot!
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| Oscar P. Lion making friends with the locals |
So, after lunch, the other item on our itinerary for the day
was shopping and to visit one of the crazy huge malls that Bangkok is famous
for, and that you can get anything at!
ManpanionTM was after a watch as well as some souvenirs for the kids –
and I remembered getting some great stuff (fake Cartier watch!) at this
particular mall too, so we hailed a pedicab and off we went!!
The pedicab ride was a lot of fun and it took us about
20mins to get there (for only $6 – bargain!).
Unfortunately the shopping mall was a bit of a let-down – it wasn’t as
fun and bazaar-like as I remembered (or maybe I was just in a different bit as
it was HUGE) and we couldn’t find the fake watches anywhere! So, after about half an hour of wandering
through aisles and stalls basically stuffed with crap and the same stuff we’d
already seen in Siem Reap, we decided to call it a day and see if we could make
it back to the dock in time to catch the 3.10pm boat back to the hotel.
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| People-watching and chillin' while waiting for our boat |
We didn’t.
It took a while to get our tickets for the short train ride from the mall to the dock so we
didn’t get there til 3.20pm. And the
dock was so crazy busy, it would have been completely impractical for any boat
to stay there longer that the minute or two it took to dock, offload and then
onload passengers! But – not to worry –
we simply headed to a nearby hotel instead where we sat and had a drink and
people watched, before it was time to catch the 4.40pm boat. This one we didn’t miss, so got back to the
hotel around 5.15pm.
Our entertainment for this evening was a private sunset
cruise along the river – just ManpanionTM and me. Very romantical. We’d tried to book a fancy-pants version
through the hotel (an amazing old rice boat that was supposedly incredible and
beautiful) but, alas, someone else had beaten us to it. So instead the hotel had arranged for us to
go out in one of their boats and lay on champagne and canapes while we cruised
along the river.
It was simply magical. Cruising along the river, drinking chilled rose champagne with the ManpanionTM I love, while going past these beautiful temples and palaces lit up and shining into the night, was an amazing memory I will always treasure. Those two hours were truly the highlight of our visit.
We got back to the hotel just after 8pm and, not wanting the
night to end quite yet, headed up to the bar, just above where we had breakfast
and lunch. Over another drink or two, we
sat and played a couple of hands of gin rummy and, amazingly, I won!!! After ManpanionTM decided his ego couldn’t
handle getting its ass kicked anymore, we once more repaired back to the Vinyl
room and finished the evening with some more cool tunes and a cheeky Mike
diNapoli rendition on the very out of tune piano!
And finally it was time to go to bed – so we headed back to
our room where – surprise -the staff had run us a huge bubble bath and
sprinkled the floor with rose petals in the shape of a love heart!! Plus they had also left me flowers with a
little note to say “get well soon”!!!
Just amazing service – we are definitely coming back here!!
And then – it was the next morning, so all there was left to
do was have breakfast, pay the bill (eek!) and get back into the limo to head
back to the airport and say farewell to both The Siam, Bangkok and our SE Asian
adventure. One last luxury was an unexpected upgrade from
economy into business for our 4hr leg from Bangkok to Taipei – made for a very
smooth and easy journey home (except for some horrible turbulence on the flight
from Taipei to Chicago -eek!!). It
wasn’t the most relaxing vacation I’ve ever had (and the cycling was much
harder work than it was 9 years ago!) but it was certainly an experience and
one that I am very glad that ManpanionTM and I shared together.
Only question now is – where next??
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| Bizarre Hello Kitty theme on EVA Air!! |
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| Which even extended to the food and Hello Kitty shaped cheese!! |
HOLY COW. Our room
was even more incredible. As we were
shown round this gorgeous suite, filled with beautiful furniture and antiques,
ManpanionTM and I kept looking at each other
to say “WHA???”. And I was
starting to panic, trying to remember just how much this room had cost us when
I’d made the booking!!! I could see
exactly the same thought going through his head too – how the hell are we managing
to stay here??? 
The next day was to be our only full day in Bangkok, so we
were up fairly early to make the most of it.
After breakfast, we took the first shuttle boat from the hotel dock at
10am (yep – they had their own boat to take you from the hotel to downtown
Bangkok via the Chaopraya river!) to one of the main temples, Wat Pho. It was a fun way to start our day – and the
temple was absolutely stunning. I’d been
here before, 9 yrs ago, but it had lost none of its grandeur and
magnificence. 
We spent about half an
hour wandering around, taking lots of pics, before heading off to the main
Palace, another short ferry hop across the river. Here we first stopped in at the temple of the
giant sleeping Buddha – again, very impressive.
Then we made our way (via the long way round!) to the Royal Palace. It was coming up for midday and, on our way
there, a couple of locals had asked us where we were going – to be polite, we
told them – and both told us the palace was going to be closed. Now, we’d been warned about this by the hotel
that is a common scam for tourists – that people would approach you and tell
you the palace is closed but they could show you another temple instead. So, on hearing this, we politely but firmly
(in my best British accent), walked on by, making our way to the Palace feeling
really quite smug that we hadn’t been duped by these damned scammers.
When we got there, there were absolutely
HOARDS of people at the entrance – we knew it was going to be busy because of
the crematorium for the late Thai King that had just been opened to the public
for people to visit and pay their respects – but this was crazy!! As we got closer, we actually realized that
people were only going in one direction – that is, everyone was leaving the
Palace as – yes, you guessed it – the Palace was closing for the rest of the
day!! GRRRR!!! Apparently, they were changing the Buddha’s
robes from summer wear to winter wear (no kidding) and so it was off-limits to
the public. It was a bit disappointing
not to be able to get in but- by that stage – we’d already seen quite a few
temples and pointy shiny buildings, so instead we decided to go get lunch
instead and console ourselves with some kick-ass G&Ts. We went to this place that the hotel had
recommended, down a little back alley, then up on the second floor overlooking
the river. It was pretty good and it
felt great to get out of the heat and humidity for a while. Bangkok is hot!
The pedicab ride was a lot of fun and it took us about
20mins to get there (for only $6 – bargain!).
Unfortunately the shopping mall was a bit of a let-down – it wasn’t as
fun and bazaar-like as I remembered (or maybe I was just in a different bit as
it was HUGE) and we couldn’t find the fake watches anywhere! So, after about half an hour of wandering
through aisles and stalls basically stuffed with crap and the same stuff we’d
already seen in Siem Reap, we decided to call it a day and see if we could make
it back to the dock in time to catch the 3.10pm boat back to the hotel.
Our entertainment for this evening was a private sunset
cruise along the river – just ManpanionTM and me. Very romantical. We’d tried to book a fancy-pants version
through the hotel (an amazing old rice boat that was supposedly incredible and
beautiful) but, alas, someone else had beaten us to it. So instead the hotel had arranged for us to
go out in one of their boats and lay on champagne and canapes while we cruised
along the river. 
We got back to the hotel just after 8pm and, not wanting the
night to end quite yet, headed up to the bar, just above where we had breakfast
and lunch. Over another drink or two, we
sat and played a couple of hands of gin rummy and, amazingly, I won!!! After ManpanionTM decided his ego couldn’t
handle getting its ass kicked anymore, we once more repaired back to the Vinyl
room and finished the evening with some more cool tunes and a cheeky Mike
diNapoli rendition on the very out of tune piano! 
1 comment:
it all looks wonderful and am so happy you were able to share it all with such a great chap , love you both xxxxxxxxx
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