Bangkok - Days 173-179
As Andy mentioned in the previous post, our first (technically second) night in Bangkok was a blur of rooftop pool trespassing, last chance street food, and pricey yet delicious drinks at a speakeasy. What Andy failed to mention was that I won the tastiest drink contest. I’m sure he just forgot. After making it until midnight to ring in Sally’s birthday, we sadly say our goodbyes to Andy. It’s been such a pleasure to have him travel with us. Hopefully there will be many more adventures for us in the future!
Ben and I were very much looking forward to this week in Bangkok. We rented out an AirBNB (with a pool) in a stellar location for an entire week and plan on using it to recharge before the next round of visitors come. We started with a large and tasty brunch at Toby’s. I got a baked eggs dish (similar to a shakshouka) and Ben, of course, got the bacon plate - eggs and 4 different types of bacon. Pure joy.
The remaining group members - Sally, Laur, Ilya, and Lauren (once again, the leftovers) - had a late night flight so we all rendezvoused at our apartment in the afternoon then took off on a walk. Ilya took us to a mall. Sounds weird but it was a really cool mall with a full rooftop garden and a spiral food court. Sally even got a birthday cupcake! Next stop was across the street at this awesome public park. I wish Milwaukee had public parks like this - huge and well kept area in the middle of the city with a jogging track, workout area, and best of all: volleyball and sepak takraw courts. Sepak takraw is crazy. It’s kick volleyball played with a little wicker ball. Google it. Crazy. We watched [in amazement] for awhile then saw some guys come in with a volleyball. Naturally, we wanted to play so Ilya, Ben and I challenged them to a match. Laur joined soon after we started and then eventually Sally jumped in (once she donned her make-shift a sweatshirt-skirt). We lost the first but won the second! Super fun but super sweaty.
Went to the W market for dinner, which had some tasty food but certainly wasn’t a “local” market by any means. For example, I got butter chicken and Ben got a grilled cheese. Not sure if anyone actually got Thai food? No matter, was a great last chance to reminisce about the last 3 weeks together and say our goodbyes. We’re sure going to miss these guys. At least we’ll still have Taylor.
It was absolutely amazing to have 13 of our friends come visit us during our travels. I feel so fortunate to have a great group of friends that would travel halfway around the world together. We had an awesome time and made plenty of unforgettable memories. But we packed a lot into those few weeks and it was fairly exhausting. After everyone left, we lazed around the next few days in Bangkok for some much-needed R&R, interspersed with coffee shops and street food.
On our six-month anniversary, we actually made some plans to have a fun Bangkok-y day together. Didn’t quite work out as planned. We went to a bagel breakfast shop (successful and delicious) then tried to find a fun coffee shop Ben had read about but couldn’t find it. Then went to get a couples massage but the power at the spa went out so we couldn’t get them. Then we were going to watch the sunset at the Marriott rooftop bar but it was overcast and starting to rain. Then we were going to go to a nice dinner, but my head cold that had been brewing over the last few days finally got the best of me. So I stayed home and slept while my lovely husband went out in the rain to get me pho. Not an ideal way to spend our day, but good enough for me :)
Taylor’s girlfriend Hayley was our next visitor and we had one last day in Bangkok to show her around. After a tasty brunch at Roast, we took the BTS and water taxis to the old city to do the classic tourist circuit. Unfortunately, our lazy bums didn’t make it in time to see the Grand Palace before it closed, but we were able to visit Wat Pho and the famous reclining Buddha. Then slowly walked through the streets of the old city, stopping at various goods and flower markets along the way. We made our way to Chinatown (which was hectic and awesome) and ate some duck soup under cover at a food stall to get out of the down pouring rain. Next stop: Koh Lanta! Hopefully it isn’t this rainy down south...