Back to Bangkok

Thursday, March 10.

This was a travel day. We had a 3:45 flight to Bangkok, so there was no rush.

There was, however, some question about the car. We were supposed to be picked up at 12:30. We went downstairs around noon and a car was waiting on the street.

We weren’t sure it was ours. Neither was the driver. We had already paid Kwak for the ride, so we didn’t want to take the wrong car.

Kwak showed up a few minutes later and confirmed that, yes, we were the right people and this was the right driver.

The trip to the airport from the center of the city, where we were staying, may be six or seven miles. Part of it was slow going because of traffic.

One of the large hotels on the highway was apparently hosting a bigwig convention. The access road in front of the hotel was closed to traffic.

There were policemen in the grounds and on the road. None of them seemed to be armed. They seemed fairly relaxed, so this kind of thing must be a routine security exercise.

There were some guys in black uniforms with nifty berets sitting in the back of a pickup truck. They were either musicians or were carrying machine guns in soft cases.

The route is lined with Asia. There are big, new hotels next to small guest houses, body shops in Quonset huts, food stalls open to the road with plastic tables in the dirt. Occasionally there is a wall surrounding a property, perhaps a wat or a school. There is construction everywhere.

We had time to kill because the registration desk didn’t open till two hours before flight time. We found a small restaurant, where we sampled a few dishes.

They were surprisingly good for airport food. One was rice with char siu, perhaps the best I’ve ever had. I usually avoid char siu because it is sweet, dry, and tough. This pork was moist and tender, and the sweetness was subdued, making it delicious.

I had lunch with a couple of Angkor beers.

Security gave us a hard time about one of Joanna’s umbrellas because it had a metal tip. But we told the officer that we were going to hand it to the crew for safekeeping. He got on the phone and cleared it with somebody else.

Our plane arrived and started to discharge passengers just before our flight was due to take off. But AirAsia turned it around pretty quickly. We were only 10 or 15 minutes late getting to Bangkok.

We handed the umbrellas to a stewardess, who later came by and put them in the overhead compartment above our seats.

We came in to Don Mueang and needed to get to Bangkok’s other international airport, Suvarnabhumi. The trip is almost 30 miles. It was rush hour, so I guess it took about an hour.

We are in a place called the Plai Garden in the middle of one of those commercial districts that surround airports. Indeed, as the cab took us past the airport and toward our hotel, the neighborhood was looking pretty seedy. I was getting nervous. What the hell did I get Joanna into this time?

We finally got to the place and it’s not bad. About equal to the Boonthavon in Chiang Mai. It is almost exclusively a stop for people who will fly out of Suvarnabhumi. The first thing the lady at the desk asked us is the time we would need our ride to the airport.

 The Plai Garden has an elevator, but for some reason, the elevator stops at a landing halfway between floors. Our bags are full—20 kg. Lugging them up even half a flight of stairs is a bitch, but that’s what we had to do. I grabbed one end and Joanna had the other. We made all the bags in two trips.

There’s a restaurant downstairs. So we told the desk that the body wash dispenser was empty and went to have dinner. There was baby corn still in the husk in the mixed vegetables. That added an unusual flavor. Joanna had a soup of vegetables and pork.

I ordered roast chicken and stir-fried noodles. The chicken was fantastic—savory and tender, with no tell-tale reheat taste. The noodles were the flat, gelatinous things that are sometimes too starchy, but they were perfect with this sauce, whatever it was.

We got back to the room and discovered the hotel had done nothing to fix the dispenser. So I went to the desk again. This time, the lady sent two men who wound up replacing the fixture. So far, so good.

March 11

It’s Friday morning, and we plan to take it easy all day. Joanna went out for a walk already and found a Thai massage spa. She’s there now.

We may go for a short walk later. We have to be out of here by 5 tomorrow to take a 7 a.m. flight. My only concern is that the desk will forget to give us our wakeup call.

Not many photo ops since we left Siem Reap. Today’s photo was taken last Tuesday on the top level of Wat Bayon at Angkor Thom.

Be well, all.

Harry