Bangkok day 3
Sepak takraw & Dinner with Friends

After a lie in and late breakfast I went out to explore Bangkok, while Susan went to the gym. I first got the Sky Train to Saphan Tansik and the walked across the river.

Sepak Takraw

At the other side of the river there was a park underneath the road flyover with a number of courts for playing different sports. I spotted basket ball, football, an outdoor weight lifting area and outdoor gym.

Then I saw three courts where they were playing volleyball, so I stopped to watch. After a few moments I realised that this was not volleyball as the ball was much smaller, made of hard plastic and they were using their heads and feet. It turned out that this was Sepak takraw. I was fascinated by this and watched for a good 30 minutes.

I then wandered around the rest of the park and found a dance court and then a court where 2 guys were kicking a sepak takraw ball through a net 10 metres up in the air. I was blown away by their skill in this.

Temples and shopping centre

Moving on I walked along a very busy road towards the IconSiam shopping centre. On the way I stopped to get an ice cream (it's very hot in this country) and across the road from the 7 eleven was a stunning temple Suwan Temple so I climbed the footbridge across the road to eat my ice cream and take some photos of the temple.

When I got to the Icon Siam shopping centre, the ground floor was all food stalls of all the different regions of Thailand, this was brilliant to walk around. The rest of the floors was exactly the same as every other shopping centre I have visited, including full of very tasteless Xmas decorations. There was even a michelin starred restaurant called Blue by Alain Ducasse.

Craft beer in Thailand

I searched for craft beer bars in Bangkok I found one just across the river so jumped on the ferry to get to the otherside. The ferry was ฿6, which you paid when getting off, the man in front of me tried to pay with ฿1000 note which held up the queue. While crossing I checked the opening times of the craft beer bar and it didn't open until 17:00, I was meeting friends for dinner at 18:00 so searched for another craft beer bar closer to the hotel. I found Changwon (Chicken & Beers) which was 10 minutes from the hotel.

The Walk to Chicken & Beers took about 30 minutes and I arrived at 17:00. On the way I passed a building that looks as if it is pixelated is very high and has a glass floored viewing platform at the top.

Chicken & beers has 10 drinks on tap, five of which were from thailand. One of which was Singha Beer a lager, one was Indie Summer Moose cider, one was Red truck a Red Ale from Chiang Mai I don't really like red ales. Then there was M32 IPA by Mardicraft brewing and Hazy Pale Ale by Markie from Chiang Mai. I tried both of these then the barman said if you buy 3 beers you get a free glass, I now own a Markie Brewery glass. I left the bar at 17:40 in order to get back in time for dinner.

Dinner with old friends

I have two friends living in Bangkok who I used to work with at Mayfield College. I haven't seen Lynne & Bob since the school closed in 1999. They came to our hotel to pick us up in their brand new BYD hybrid car, Bob could speak to his car to open the sun roof but, with his Scottish accent, he could not ask it to close the sunroof and had to do it manually.

They drove us across town to their local Thai restaurant (Thonkrueng) round the corner from their house. They choose all of the courses that we ate as Susan and I didn't really have a clue what was on the menu other than Massaman, Thai Red and Green Curries and Pad Thai.

The food was amazing and so was the company, it was so lovely to catch up with friends I hadn't seen for 26 years.