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After the second flight of the trip we landed at Bangkok airport (BKK). The first thing I noticed is that it was not at brutally hot and humid as when I changed here on a flight to Australia in 2010. This was a huge relief to me.
Once off the plane we headed to immigration as we got closer we soon realised that there was not an “orderly” queue and just a funnel where people were joining from every direction. This did eventually calm down to what seemed like 2 queues one straight and one which zigzagged, like getting into Glastonbury. Susan and I joined the one that zigzagged the others in our group joined the straight one. There seemed no logic between these two lines. As we got closer to the immigration desks it then led out from a line to a mass funnel again. So we just joined yet another line. It really was good that we had applied for our entry cards before as those who hadn’t had to go to whole different queue first before joining the first funnel.
Overall it took about an hour of queuing but in the end this didn’t really matter as when we got to the baggage carousel our bags had still not arrived.
So we had pre-booked with the hotel a transfer from the airport. As there were 9 of us they sent 2 minibuses so we wouldn't be cramped and have bags on our laps. En route to the hotel we saw many billboards, each one claiming to be the best/greatest in their industry/sector:
The beginning of the transfer was slick as we were on the expressway that went above the city roads, once we came down off the expressway we were into the more congested roads and this was about 15:30 so not even true rush hour.
On the route I spotted a squirrel, this was not really the first animal I would see on my trip. The second animal I saw was a monkey, much more in keeping with what I would expect. I have decided to keep a log of animals i see in South East Asia.
Our hotel (Silom Serene) is in an area quite central. When we checked in we were told that we'd been upgraded, which was nice. The room is pretty big, we have a balcony over-looking the street and 3 beds.
We met in the the hotel bar for some 2-for-1 drinks, the only drinks on offer for 2-for-1 were Asian lagers, Chang & Asahi. While we were in the bar Mike Johnson arrived which was a huge surprise to many, he'd been working in Hong Kong and made a diversion on his way home. Mike's journey from the airport took much longer as he did truly hit rush hour.
We then set off looking for some where to eat. Tony led us up a street that had a bar on the right that Shower Show I have no clue what this is but imagine that they are dancing in showers…
The further we walked up the street the more touts were tempting us into their bars, as we were a large group (12) we just said no until we got to a place that looked big enough to seat us all. The place we found The Balcony had a few rows of seats outside facing into the street, we got a table inside to get some food. I had a Thai Red Curry with beef, mostly so I could get an indication of how different it was here, I really enjoyed and it did really make me miss Ploy's cooking at Tippy's in East Ham.
The bar opposite had live drag shows at 21:00, 22:00 and 23:00. Just before 22:00 the street filled with Drag Queens, which we could see through the window, some of our group choose this time to go have a cigarette 🤔.
I walked Susan back to the hotel before heading back out to find the rest of the group. On the way back I found yet another animal, a Rat! I got back to the drag strip and couldn't find the others, I got their location so I could find them, upon finding them we were close to the hotel and said there is a Cocktail bar next door to our hotel.
On walking in to the Drunken Room I could instantly smell good quality Alcohol. The barman, Jack, arranged a table big enough for us. While we were deciding Jack brought us all a welcome drink, a chocolate vodka, I choose a Groove Manhattan. Jack kept brining us shots in between rounds and at the end brought us all a Japanese whiskey, which was superb. For my second cocktail I had a Jack's Margarita. The service was fantastic and if you find yourself in Bangkok I highly recommend this place.