Sukhumvit Redux

October 27-28

We have a neighborhood in Chiang Mai now, between the Tha Phae Gate and the English bars on Ratchapakkhinai. It feels like we’re getting one in Bangkok, too, along Sukhumvit Road.

A year and a half ago, on Joanna’s first visit to Bangkok and my second, we stayed at a hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 6. Hot water was a problem there (it kept trailing off) so we didn’t want to go there again. But we liked the environs.

This trip we stayed first at Centric Place, a hotel in a small side street that no one could find. It was maybe a mile from here, but in a very different part of town. 

It was OK, but it was a hike getting anywhere interesting and if we had to hire a ride back, forget it. The drivers had no clue.

Now we are in a hotel that has been open only a few months, the Connex Asoke. I’m paying a bit more, but still less than the best rate I can get in Fairfield, N.J.

What’s more, it has everything we want: air conditioning, of course, but also space, isolation from street noise, and above all, water pressure. 

We’ve been out for strolls to some familiar places, including Soi 8, which has our watering holes from the last trip. Chuvit Garden, the lovely park dedicated to the Lord Jesus Christ and owned by Bangkok’s principal brothel owner, is a short walk down Sukhumvit Road from here.

Now that we know the neighborhood a little better, getting here next time may lose some of its comic side.

It’s funny. We did the trip from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok only a year and a half ago, but I had forgotten most of the details. I should have read my blog as a necessary review.

You go through a security check at the terminal door of the Chiang Mai airport. This is the only place I remember doing that.

We got to the airport too early to check in. Apparently the carrier, Nok Air, has its computer programmed to allow check-ins a maximum of two hours before departure.

So we went to a coffee shop for drinks and pastry, which would serve us as lunch.

We went back to the desk at 12:30, then stopped for more coffee near the gate, before we went through a second security check and waited for boarding to start.

So we got into Don Mueang Airport at Bangkok just fine.

That’s when everything, including me, started to get a little screwy.

We came out of baggage claim and ran into a woman asking if we wanted a taxi.

Yes, we did. We followed her, and for some stupid reason, I expected her to point the way to the taxi stand. 

No, way. She led us to a desk marked “airport services” (in English only). 

You never accept rides from people hawking them at airports, or just about anywhere else. But like a rube, I went along.

We said we wanted to go to Sukhumvit Soi 16. 

They quoted 700 baht. It actually took a couple of seconds to hit me. That’s $21 American. There’s no local cab ride in all Thailand that costs that much, even before gasoline prices started to fall.

We went outside and followed signs. They led me to a waiting room where I received a small ticket with number 264 on it. No. 230 was at one of the desks at the time.

I had a vague sense of deja vu. I probably blocked this out of memory. It was a lot clumsier and slower than even the cab stand at Newark.

Even so, it took maybe five minutes, ten tops, to be called. They brought in a driver, who led me outside, where Joanna was waiting with the bags.

I handed him the paper with the address of the hotel.

We got to Soi 16 all right, and then he was lost. We went down the alley too fast to read numbers or signs. 

We told him to slow down. We told him to stop and ask another cabbie for directions. We told him to phone the hotel. He went down the block and then up and around. 

He missed the place two or three times before he pulled into a driveway off Sukhumvit and talked to the security guard there. 

He turned around and seemed to be heading back into traffic. 

We said, no, we’re getting out. We’ll get another cab.

As I’m stepping out of the door, two young women come to the car. They are wearing printed aprons that say “Connex Asoke.”

I shook the first one’s hand. I am so glad to see you.

I had thought the guy was pulling that old cab trick of driving us around to run the meter up. 

To his credit, though, the hotel is hard to see and is in an unexpected place. It really isn’t on Soi 16, or at least doesn’t appear to be. It is at an intersection of another road, Ratchadaphisek, and Sukhumvit. 

Soi 16 begins a little farther down Ratchadaphisek on the far side of the road. Maybe it picks up again like some of the crazy intersections in New York, like the corner of Waverly Place, Waverly Place, and Waverly Place in Greenwich Village, where the street goes in three directions, or just below Herald Square, where Sixth Avenue is labeled Broadway and Broadway is identified as Ave. of the Americas.

The ladies walked us to the hotel, where we checked in and waited for Larry, who showed up around 4.

We walked to a craft beer bar appropriately called Craft. It was closed. 

This was, after all, the second day of the funeral rites for King Bhumibol. Although there was no official prohibition, the government had suggested that alcohol sales be discontinued on the 27th as well as the 26th. 

Craft seemed to have taken the suggestion.

We backtracked and stopped instead at an English-style pub named for Queen Victoria. The taps were nowhere near as interesting as Craft’s, but the pub did have the pale ale called Old Speckled Hen.

We went for dinner at the Bella Napoli, the Italian restaurant on Soi 31, where we went year and a half ago, during our last stay in the Sukhumvit area. That’s when we met Larry’s friend who had just returned from Nepal.

This time, Joanna had spaghetti with white clam sauce. I had pizza di bufala. Mozzarella made from buffalo milk is delicious, so I go for that every time I can. 

Larry’s pizza had a hint of sausage, if I remember right, and was also excellent.

Then we called it a night.

Next morning Joanna and I went for an early walk that took us to some familiar places. We stopped at Chuvit Garden and later passed Soi 8. 

The Skytrain runs over Sukhumvit, and below the track level is a pedestrian walkway about two stories above the ground. 

Joanna noticed an access stair with an escalator that would take us to the walkway. 

It’s easier and safer to cross the road that way than to try the lights and crosswalks. Drivers here don’t always stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, even when lights are red.

Anyway, that’s how we got to the far side of the main road, where the odd-numbered sois are. We passed the Pink Pussy souvenir store, and Joanna remembered that Doilanka, a shop that serves wonderful Thai coffee, was in one of the alleys around here.

We started to look for it down each lane we passed.

After a while, I was sure we had passed it. Joanna, though, believed it was in Soi 1. 

She was right, of course.

Pom, the owner, wasn’t there, so we left a note for him in the guest book on the counter.

Joanna doesn’t drink coffee, so she tried something new, steamed milk flavored with coconut water. It was a little rich and sweet for her taste, she said.

I have been often drinking iced coffee in the heat, so I had an iced Americano. 

We shared a scone made with cottage cheese, and that was breakfast.

By the time we walked the mile or so back to the hotel, we were soaked with sweat.

We stayed out of the heat at the hotel. Half a scone doesn’t last all that long, and we knew that dinner wouldn’t start till 6 at the earliest.

The cafe in the lobby serves breakfast and lunch, so we went there for some rice porridge. That’s where Joanna got the photo of the day.

We sat there till 4, when Larry joined us again. 

Craft was open this time. The bar’s website says its Soi 23 location has 46 taps. 

That sounds about right. The beer list consists of a photo album. When one beer runs out of stock and a new variety replaces it, a guy comes around and subs the new beer’s label for the one that just ended.

They are mostly, or perhaps all, imports, because craft brewing is illegal in Thailand.

We sampled a few. I settled on Tall Poppy India Red Ale, from New Zealand. Red IPAs are some of the best brews in the world. This one, not so much. 

It was interesting, but strange. It tasted of almost burnt grain and bitter cocoa. I don’t know if that was from the hops, or if they had indeed brewed it with unsweetened chocolate. 

Brew Dog Punk was a mild IPA from Scotland. Scotch ales tend to run sweet, but this one was properly dry, as an IPA should be.

Joanna’s favorite, and mine, from the bunch was Fresh Squeezed IPA from Deschutes in Portland, Ore. This had the hoppy pine scent and flavor, as well as a touch of hop citrus.

Joanna was craving green vegetables, and as expected, Larry knew the right place.

We took a short cab ride to get there. I can’t remember the name or address of the place. 

It serves a fusion of Thai and Cantonese.

And that’s what we had. 

There was Cantonese fried chicken, stir-fried greens, and stir-fried mixed vegetables.

Larry ordered several hot dishes. I remember mushrooms in various shapes, pork, beef (I think), and a few other things. Many of these dishes were fortified with hot red and hotter green chiles.

With all that heat, we really needed the white rice and the Heineken. Well, at least I did.

After dinner, Joanna was feeling sleepy, so Larry and I saw her to the hotel and walked up Sukhumvit a short way to a mall called Korea Town.

The Beer Galleria had a selection of bottled imports. I had one called Arrgh. I chose it mainly because it had a pirate cartoon on the label. 

I remembered the sign in the Neptune brew bar in Livingston, Mont.: “To err is human; to arr is pirate.” 

As an inspirational message, it can make you want to teach cuss-words to a parrot.

Flying Dog Easy, a pleasant session IPA, put the cap on Saturday night.

I went back to the hotel and slept.

Sleep well, gang, and sweet dreams of pirates and hops and cabbies who can find their way around.

Harry