First trip to Bangkok, flight/day 1

[caissa]

I've been lurking on these boards for a while and picked up a lot of useful information so I thought I'd share some reflections on my first trip to Bangkok last week (24-31 July).

 

Booked my flight and hotel via Expedia, who seem pretty efficient. Flight was about 15 hours including a 1hr tranfer at Muscat - the plane was about an hour late leaving Heathrow but they held the connection at Muscat given there were a lot of people going on to BKK, so no problem. The first half of the flight was full, but the second leg to BKK was more pleasant as I had an empty seat next to me and got a couple of hours sleep.

 

Hit by the heat (and smell) as soon as the plane touched down around 8.30am at BKK, though London has also been very hot recently so I was already partly acclimatised to it.

 

Took a metered taxi to my hotel from the booth outside the arrivals building for c.B200 + 60 for tollway - bad traffic as you would expect at 9am in the morning, but got there without any problems (the taxi driving style seemed safer than places like Cairo and Istanbul actually) and checked in.

 

I was staying at the President Park in a Deluxe Studio - nice room with a big double bed, flat screen TV with free (non-adult) in-house movies, bath and walk-in shower, and a small kitchen where I made breakfast and also evening meals some days. There's a good supermarket just around the corner from the hotel to buy food/drink etc - open until midnight.

 

The hotel is a bit out of the way down on Sukhumvit Soi 24 but it is in a nice quiet area, some decent restaurants/cafes are very close, and the hotel provides a free tuk-tuk to the Skytrain at 30/60 min intervals from 8am to 8pm. Or you can get a motorbike ride to the Skytrain for B20 (a bit scary first time, but I got used to them). The hotel had no problems with overnight guests and did not charge extra even though I only booked for myself.

 

Took a shower, had a brief nap, then took the free tuk-tuk to the Skytrain - paid B300 for a 15 trip card, of which I ended up using 13 in six days so not bad value.

 

Spent the afternoon doing the usual touristy things (river boat ride, Grand Palace, Wat Po) but I won't bore you with that - the Rough Guide to Bangkok proved indispensible here and I'd recommend it to any first timer.

 

In the evening I didn't feel brave enough to venture out to the main P4P areas like Soi Cowboy yet, so instead I walked 10 mins up Soi 22 to the group of beer bars across the road from the Queen's Park hotel.

 

I'd read somewhere on the net (Baron Bonk's site?)that the Queens Park Plaza bars were a good place to get reasonably priced beer, chat to girls and play pool - all of which was true! Very friendly place, some ex-pats who I chatted to, plus some very smily girls who were not bad at pool either and good fun to play with (each game costs B20, but it is winner stays on, with the challenger paying, so if you are a reasonable player then it costs relatively little to play regularly through the evening).

 

One girl called Nook particularly caught my eye at the Moonshine pub and I bought her a couple

of drinks and chatted away to her for some time in between pool games. She said she was 20, had been in BKK for 4 months (from Isaan like most girls there) in various bars, but was wanting to resume her studies soon since this job was not good for her future.

 

She seemed very flirtatious (sitting on my lap, stroking my leg/inner thigh, giving a neck massage, striking various sexy poses while playing pool with me) but when I asked her later in the evening if she would like to come out with me she just smiled sweetly and said 'not really'. I thought it might be because it was late (the bar was just closing at 1am) but since I asked her again a couple of nights later and got the same response maybe it was just me she didn't like or perhaps she was just there to attract customers and sell drinks? She didn't take any offence at my asking, however, and I visited the bar several times more during the week, usually for happy hour on the way back from sightseeing trips, and she was always very sweet and attentive to me (she and the other girls seemed to treat me as her customer, so she would always come over to me whenever I went in there).

 

Anyone know the rules of the game at these pool bars? I admit I was a bit confused by all her flirting and then getting turned down, albeit it ever so nicely - not quite what I had expected on my first night in Bangkok, particularly having spent a couple of hours getting to know her and apparently building up a rapport.

 

Anyway, more to follow in the next post - don't worry it gets (quite a lot) racier!