bangkok, thailand - part 1

I remember booking our plane tickets and thinking "this is going to be a rough 24hr day of traveling", but at the end it wasn't that bad. I decided to book our roundtrip flight to Asia with Japan Airlines because it was the most direct flight I could find that didn't cost an arm and a leg. Maybe just an arm ;) And boy, was I happy with my decision. I have to say, foreign airlines are so much better than American ones. Even though we were in coach, we had a good amount of leg room, the plane looked brand new, the seats were comfortable and the flight attendants were very nice.

Our first flight was from Boston to Tokyo. 13 hours. Yep. A very long flight. But they gave us 3 meals, 2 snacks, all the alcohol we wanted, and about 10 movies. We also brought our tablet with the last season of Breaking Bad, my kindle and Matt's iPod. I slept a little, but I mostly watched movies and read. Our second flight was from Tokyo to Bangkok. 7 hour flight. This one, I mostly slept. I was so tired by that point. When we arrived in Bangkok it was midnight there and we were ready to get to our hotel.

The next morning we woke up and were ready to explore the city. We were so excited. After months of planning we were finally in Asia! We also only had 2 full days to explore Bangkok which after all of my research was enough time to hit all of the popular spots.

The first day we went to Ko Ratanakosin and Thonburi area where the most famous temples are. First, we visited the Wat Phra Kaew and Grand Palace. These two sites were insane. The details. The size. The architecture. They were mind blowing.

After that, we visited Wat Pho. This is the temple where we saw the reclining Buddha. That Buddha is enormous. I am still amazed by how big it was. For some reason, I was expecting it to be smaller. Boy was I surprised.

By the time we were done with Wat Pho, sunset was approaching and I had read that a must do is to see Wat Arun in the sunset. We tried a couple of places but they were either packed or the view was not that great. So right before giving up, we decided to walk down a small alley and at the end there was a hotel called Sala Arun. And guess what? It had a roof deck bar. Jackpot!

That night we went back to the hotel with big plans to go out to dinner, but as soon as we got to our room I was dead tired. Stupid jet lag. We got room service and called it a night.


BANGKOK TRIP DETAILS
Duration of stay: 2 days, 3 nights
Hotel: Four Points by Sheraton in Sukhumvit
How did we get to places: We used the subway, the river ferry and only late at night we used cabs
Restaurants we ate at: Coconut Palm
Bars we checked out: Sala Arun
Guidebooks used: Lonely Planet Pocket Bangkok, Lonely Planet Thailand, and lots of TripAdvisor