Wednesday
We landed in Bangkok at the Don Mueang Airport and caught a Grab to our apartment for the next few nights. Our driver offered us his business card and we pre-arranged with him to come get us early early Saturday morning for our flight to Tokyo. We weren’t super confident that we’d be able to get a Grab last-minute at 4:30am on Saturday, so we were very glad to arrange it in advance. Our driver was very polite, his car was super clean, and he assured us he would be there on time Saturday morning. Win win for everyone!
Keller had to jump right into work by the time we reached our apartment and got settled. We are staying very close to a night market, so the kids and I walked to the market to check it out. We were a bit early, so not all the stalls were open, but we were able to find food for the three of us. Kamy picked out a dress from one of the little shops (for a price of $3!) that fits her pretty well — despite being a woman’s size! There are benefits to shopping in Asia at her height apparently. 😉
You never know what you’ll find at these markets though. Apparently crocodile was on the menu at this place!
After delivering the kids back to the apartment, I took one last opportunity to have a massage in Thailand. It wasn’t my favorite of the massages I’ve enjoyed, but the price and location were great. I definitely took advantage of some extra pampering on this trip!
Thursday
We only have two days in Bangkok this time around, so we are taking it easy. We’ve already hit the highlights of what we wanted to see and do in this city the last time we were here. Today we slept in and then headed to Terminal 21. We were on the hunt for a souvenir shop that we saw on the prior trip but came up empty handed. Instead, we went to the food court on the top floor for a late lunch. This remains
one of our favorite food courts, with 30 baht pad thai, 50 baht fried chicken, and 50 baht green curry. It’s the best combination of price and quality that we have found for Bangkok food courts. I’ll take it!
After lunch we wandered around the mall a bit before heading up to Siam Paragon to see if that was where the missing shop was. Unfortunately it wasn’t, but we were glad to get up and moving anyway. Ultimately we caught a Grab back to our apartment area instead of taking the BTS and Metro. It would have been almost the same cost for the four of us to take both systems, so we used the car instead. It wasn’t faster though, since Bangkok’s notorious traffic was all jammed up.
For dinner we all walked down to the Train Night Market and poked around the stalls there. We didn’t buy much in the way of souvenirs but we did find some tasty food. We enjoyed the fried chicken and the grilled pork on skewers, plus the kids shared another flash frozen rolled ice cream.
Keller sought out some street food during his dinner break from work — we’ve definitely gotten more adventurous eating out and about here in Thailand. We still consider what kind of food we trust from a
food cart and guess how long it’s been sitting out, but especially for something that is made right in front of you, we’ve become more comfortable eating street food. Who knew?! Fortunately none of us are tired of Thai food yet. I figured we would be for now, but apparently there’s enough variety to keep everyone happy!
It’s a little harrowing to walk down our street, as there are no side walks and it’s just barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Much less considering the motorcycles, scooters, pedestrians, street carts, and everything else going on. It worked out, but man it is stressful to shepherd two kids down this craziness!
Friday
Knowing we have a very early flight on Saturday, we’re stocking up on sleep as much as we can. We slept in and headed out for lunch. This time we went to the nearby Tesco Lotus food court — we didn’t even have to take the subway since it was walkable. The food was fine, though we did manage to get some freshly fried chicken that was quite tasty when dipped in sweet chili sauce. 😉 After lunch Keller took the kids back home while I caught the metro down to the BTS stations so we could get the remaining balance off the BTS Rabbit cards. I did some shopping on the way home too, plus grabbed a Thai ice tea for myself. The orange color is a bit garish, but I do like the flavor!
Meanwhile Kamy was generously offering foot massages in her room!
I wasn’t able to find the dried butterfly pea flowers I was hunting for, so I went to the Train Night Market and another grocery store to look for them, but I came up empty handed. Oh well. I did take the kids out to the street carts for dinner. Caden and Keller picked out pad thai and Kamy had the fried chicken on rice. You can almost always find food in Thailand, that’s for sure!
We turned in early and have arranged for our Grab driver to come get us at 4:30 tomorrow morning. It’s going to be a long day, but we are looking forward to something new in Japan next week!
In the future, I can see us transiting through Bangkok, but we enjoyed both Koh Lanta and Chiang Mai much more than the big city. Too big, too many people, too much pollution, and too many malls. But we’ll definitely be back to Thailand at some point — the food is enough to drag us all the way across the globe again. 😉
Khà awp khun kha, Thailand!