After Phuket, Casey and I went to Bangkok for a week. We were only there Monday to Friday, and I had to work, so we didn’t get as much chance to explore the city as we would have liked.
Bangkok is huge, and somewhat difficult to get around in, so about the only two attractions we hit up were an awesome bike tour arranged by a friend we met there and walk through Paragon, one of the premier malls in the city.
Bike Excursion
Casey and I met a friendly guy named Sam who had been living in Bangkok for a few years. We asked him for recommendations of activities and he said that he liked to escape the sometimes oppressive noise and bustle of the city and go biking. He had the coming Thursday off, so he volunteered to show us around then.
What a great day it was! We began by taking a cab to the river not far from where we were staying. Sam, of course, spoke to the cab driver in Thai, which was very impressive. Bangkok is a coastal city and characterized by the substantial Chao Phraya River running through it. One particular twist and doubling back of the river sections off an isolated, mostly undeveloped section of the city, which is what we biked through after taking a short “ferry” (read: dinghy) across the river.
Paragon Mall
The other excursion we took was to Bangkok’s central Paragon Mall, which is located at the Siam stop on the BTS air train (the station at the intersection of the North-South and East-West lines). This station and mall were the sites of the two Bangkok bombings in Feb. 2015 (injuring three people), although you’d never know it from the bustle of people and beautiful buildings today. There was another larger bombing in August that killed 20 and injured 125 but we didn’t go there so I don’t know how it is now. This mall had the most amazing, delicious, extensive food court of any mall Casey or I had ever seen! That was about all we did here: walk around and sample food.
And that’s all for now! Next up: Chiang Mai in the north.