Our new room was a good change. We slept well (for the 2 hours we did sleep), packed up, ate an early breakfast, headed to the airport. This flight was much nicer than our flight from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City. It wasn't crowded or smelly. I fell asleep quickly while Eric kept himself busy with the computer.
We didn't have a hotel room yet, so upon arrival, I spent time calling around to see what was available. Because of the full moon festival occurring that night, it appeared that a lot of places were booked. We ended up back at the Royal President, but in their only remaining room - a suite for 2600 baht ($80). The suite was HUGE. It was bigger than our
apartment in San Francisco, and best of all, it had a washer/dryer for our use! It was perfect! We immediately started a load of laundry and then headed out to meet Eric's aunt and uncle who were also in town from San Francisco. We hopped on the BTS and headed across the river to the Peninsula Hotel. This hotel was definitely out of our league. So chi chi and nice, we were not dressed appropriately. We met up with Eric's aunt and uncle and went up to their suite for a light snack before heading out. Their room overlooked the river - a perfect view of the full moon festival that would occur that evening when they float things down the river and light fireworks.
We decided to join them for a bit of shopping. To get back to the other side of the river, we hopped on the Peninsula's water taxi. A nice smooth ride to the other side. Eric's aunt and uncle then took us to this shop they like to go to that sells, um, replica accessories in Silom Village. An interesting experience similar to one I had in Shenzen in China.
Afterwards, we went to this amazing seafood restaurant called Sampoon Seafood. I had been aching to try curry crab and now I got it! In addition to the curry crab, we had peppercorn crab, morning glory with garlic, tom yum soup with shr
imp, and a stewed fish. It was all very delicious. The Tom Yum soup was probably the best I've ever had. We ended the night with a late night jaunt to the Siam Paragon to finally buy our toiletries. At this point, we were running on fumes. We never made it to the full moon festival. I think we passed out before it even began. As a side note, we were too tired to plan a trip to the Thai islands, so instead, we opted to stay in Bangkok at the Royal President for one more night.
Day 43 - "A Brow-Raising Michael Jackson Type of Day" - Bangkok, Thailand
We forgot how good the breakfast is here at the Royal President. We pigged out on congee, spaghetti bolognaise (heh!), french toast, pancake, bacon, sausage, eggs, stir fry, fresh bread and fresh fruit. I think that held us over until dinner.
We then buckled down to really plan our next stop to the Thai islands. We had been debating on whether to go because the weather report showed thunderstorms all week from Bangkok to Koi Samui to Phuket. Since Phuket had only a 30% chance of rain rather than the 60-80% chance in Koi Samui area, we decided to go there begrudgingly. Unfortunately, because it was less than 24 hours before our scheduled departure time, we couldn't book online. We tried to call AirAsia but they said that we had to go to their ticketing office. The best she could tell us was that it was near the BTS on the second floor of "Lotus". That's all we had to go on.
My initial internet search showed that AirAsia was partnered up with the Novotel Lotus Hotel, which was near the Emporium, where we were planning to go anyway, so we headed out. However, when we got to the Novotel, they had no idea what we were talking about. Clearly the wrong place. So, we did more internet searching and realized it was the Tesco Lotus that we needed to go to. That was located at the "On Nut" station (or the "One Nut" station as we jokingly liked to refer to it).
Tesco Lotus apparently is a shopping center for locals. Everything is in Thai. I guess they don't expect tourists here. We went around and around before we finally found the kiosk stand for Air Asia. We got our flight booked for Phuket for tomorrow!
We headed back to the Emporium. Our plan for the night was to eat dinner, watch the MJ movie and get massages. We had dinner at Ootoya, a Japanese noodle place similar to Medicine or Delica in San Francisco. I had the curry udon and Eric had this platter that consisted of tuna sashimi on rice and hot soba noodles. It was all very good. I ended with sweet corn with butter, salt and sugar and Eric had his typical chocolate ice cream (but this time, it was pasteurized! - though I'm not sure I understand the benefits of that).
Before we hit the movie, I wanted to check out the famous Anastasia brow spa - the sister shop to the one in Beverly Hills. As I've always hated my eyebrows, I figured I'd try it out since it was famous and half the price of the one in the US. She did an excellent job doing my brows (of the limited brows that I have). Sadly, after looking at myself in the mirror, I realized I'm super pimply. Time for a facial!
She finished my brows in a half hour and we headed to the Michael Jackson movie.This was perhaps the most luxurious theater I've been to. You pick your seats ahead of time. The doors are all plush and nice.The film quality and sound systems were superb. What was most interesting is that before the film starts, they have a short film showing the Thai King, and everyone stands up to show respect in silence. How patriotic! The movie was a fun watch, tho the Thai crowd was a bit sedate. I may have been the only one singing out loud in the theater. Yes, I was the obnoxious one.
By then it was 9:45pm, and we went off to search for a massage place. The one we wanted to go to closed at 10pm, so we ended up going back to Body Tune. I got a one hour Thai massage for $8 and Eric got an oil Swedish massage for $15. It was a good date night, and we hopped into a cab to head back to our "apartment".
We spent the rest of the evening trying to plan our Phuket trip. I wasn't having any luck finding a hotel/spa to my liking so Eric took over. He also wasn't having any luck and was getting frustrated with the lukewarm reviews on the various resorts, and how the food was either no good or expensive and how the cabs are uber expensive.
In the end, we made the executive decision to just eat the cost of our plane tickets and stay in Bangkok because Phuket didn't sound like a place we'd enjoy, particularly if it was going to be rainy while we were there. We decided instead to check into the Dusit Thani resort in Bangkok and just relax there for the next few days.
Having finally made a decision, we slept peacefully.
For pictures of days 42 and 43, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=bigtandeze&target=ALBUM&id=5400121893619139745&authkey=Gv1sRgCK_e1ZDrvN2onAE&feat=email
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