Our Honeymoon in Thailand, Part 1 - Bangkok
One of the most fun parts of planning our wedding was talking endlessly about our honeymoon. But when it came to picking where we would go, we were completely stumped. My mother had given us a very generous wedding present - a honeymoon budget to spend as we pleased. Now that we had a great budget, suddenly the whole world seemed to open up for us, but we just couldn't come to a decision. Everything we researched felt like it didn't match up to our expectations of what our honeymoon should feel like. We looked into the Greek Islands, Sandals Resorts, Hawaii, Aruba - we even contemplated returning to Vancouver as a sort of a tip-of-the-cap to where we first met - but none of it felt right.
Throughout our relationship, we've never really been fussy about travel arrangements. Up to this point, we would happily stay in hostels, ride the train to France instead of flying and, at one point, even drove from London to Italy because we didn't want to wait around for our delayed flight (that's a tale for a future blog post). But for this, we wanted it all. We wanted to go somewhere out of our cultural comfort zone, we wanted to be wined and dined, we wanted a private pool, we wanted experiences we would never forget. You can see why we couldn't find anything. How could any trip live up to that? The research actually became stressful.
We decided to look into expertise outside our own google search and headed to a travel agent that was located across from our apartment - Eton Travel. They were fantastic! They listened to us patiently and, when we were done rambling through our expectations for the trip, talked us through a couple of suggestions. The one that made our faces light up was the mention of Thailand, and it didn't go unnoticed by the agent. We told her our budget and she said she would put together a bespoke trip for us and would be in contact. She came back to us not long after with an unbelievable trip itinerary. She would start us off in Bangkok, where we would stay for 3 days, then head on to an Elephant Sanctuary for 3 nights, then on to a resort on a Thai island with a private pool for 10 days. It had everything - city, experience and relaxation. Plus, our agent was able to hook us up with some deals, so it was all under budget. Perfect.
The next day we got a huge feast of Thai food in anticipation and began learning some Thai words (sawadee ka, sawadee krap), cultural etiquette, and some everyday things like not using chopsticks but instead, using a fork and a spoon to eat Thai food.
Our agent had arranged for us to be picked up by a private car once we arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport. After a 14 hour flight, it was an absolute necessity. I would highly recommend arranging a private driver for pick up and drop off at the airport (we also did this the second time we visited Bangkok 8 months later). Bangkok is one of the most congested cities in Asia and our driver was able to expertly zip in and out of traffic. He vastly reduced our commute time and we were so grateful. With the exchange rate, it's not a very expensive service and it's so worth it when you're wrecked tired from the long flight.
After an interesting and eye-opening drive from the airport (I've never seen so much traffic), we arrived at our hotel: the gorgeous Mode Sathorn. It's a little bit more expensive than other accommodations in Bangkok, but we were treating ourselves. It had an amazing rooftop swimming pool with a bar, a second rooftop bar, a gym, a spa, an included breakfast buffet, great views and it was near the metro line and river taxis. It's a little bit out from the centre, but we didn't mind as we were happy to travel and explore the city.
One of my favourite things to see at Wat Arun was the gate building with the two enormous temple guardians standing watch. There are other guardians at another temple across from Wat Arun, and apparently, the guardians from each temple were at war with one another and always fighting. Eventually, they were punished for causing destruction with their tiff and were turned to stone.
This place did the most amazing masaman curry I've ever had. They also did a really great basil chicken, which is actually quite spicy. It's a very popular dish in Thailand, I saw it on the menu almost everywhere.
We were asked our spice level so they could make the salad to our taste. Jim and I had learned our lesson from the papaya salad at Laab Ubon and stifled our ego to go with a medium spice level. It turned out not too bad and we explained about the other restaurant. The guide told us that considering the name, the owner of the place must be from a region of Thailand where the spice palette is much higher. It made a lot of sense to us now why it absolutely blew us away.
This was one of the strangest things we tried. It was called a Bird's Nest and we were told to guess what it was. It was really nice and tasted kinda citrusy. None of us could guess what it was (and out of desperation, even asked if it was actually a bird's nest). Turned out it was fried lemongrass. Delicious!
We were then taken to a few more temples and shown more parts of the city and ended up at a restaurant where the curry is a palace recipe. A cook from the Grand Palace left their job and opened a restaurant. They've been serving the curry there ever since. Honestly, not the best green curry I've ever had (I had mine with rice because I couldn't have the roti).
The next day we got a huge feast of Thai food in anticipation and began learning some Thai words (sawadee ka, sawadee krap), cultural etiquette, and some everyday things like not using chopsticks but instead, using a fork and a spoon to eat Thai food.
After an interesting and eye-opening drive from the airport (I've never seen so much traffic), we arrived at our hotel: the gorgeous Mode Sathorn. It's a little bit more expensive than other accommodations in Bangkok, but we were treating ourselves. It had an amazing rooftop swimming pool with a bar, a second rooftop bar, a gym, a spa, an included breakfast buffet, great views and it was near the metro line and river taxis. It's a little bit out from the centre, but we didn't mind as we were happy to travel and explore the city.
The view from our room was stunning! We had this view from our bedroom and from the bathtub in the bathroom, (though we still have no idea if the windows were one-way view or not).
We were starving from travel and the smell of the street food made our mouths water so we decided to find a place for our first meal in Thailand. We ended up finding this wonderful place called Laab Ubon. To this day, it's still one of most beloved eating experiences. The place looked like it had been clambered together from bits of an old shed. It had a corrugated roof, old rusty tables and plastic chairs, oil drums cut in half to use as grills - we loved it! What's more is the place seemed to be full of locals, and we all know that's a really good sign for a place when travelling abroad. There was a reason it was so popular, the food was exceptional.
Once we dropped off our bags, we were eager to get out and see Bangkok. We freshened up a little bit and headed out into the warm evening air for a stroll. We were near a very busy junction so we got to see the infamous hoards of mopeds, Vespas, motorbikes and dirtbikes that travel through the streets of Bangkok daily.
We took a little trek down a side street just off our hotel. It caught our attention because of all the hustle and bustle going on. There were stalls steaming with cooking food, mopeds zipping in and out of any and every usable gap in the narrow street, whole families sitting in their living rooms with the doors opened onto the street. It was wonderful!We were starving from travel and the smell of the street food made our mouths water so we decided to find a place for our first meal in Thailand. We ended up finding this wonderful place called Laab Ubon. To this day, it's still one of most beloved eating experiences. The place looked like it had been clambered together from bits of an old shed. It had a corrugated roof, old rusty tables and plastic chairs, oil drums cut in half to use as grills - we loved it! What's more is the place seemed to be full of locals, and we all know that's a really good sign for a place when travelling abroad. There was a reason it was so popular, the food was exceptional.
One of our favourite dishes was the shrimp fried rice. We went safe with our first order because we were both so tired from the flight and just wanted it easy, but it was like nothing we've ever tasted before! We are so glad we went 'safe' that first night. We also ended up trying a few more dishes there. The papaya salad (the dish with the bean sprouts and noodles on the red sauce) was crazy spicy! Jim and I looooove spicy food and we're used to very hot things, but this salad blew our mouths off. We couldn't get over how hot it was. I mean it didn't stop us from finishing it, but we were both in tears with runny noses afterwards.
With our bellies full and our taste buds extremely satisfied, we headed back to the hotel for a well-deserved rest.
The next morning we woke up to a delicious Thai breakfast and headed to the pool for a little bit as I really wanted to take a dip. The photos make Bangkok look like it was quite cold and grey, but it was crazy hot (we love that kind of heat so we didn't mind), so a quick dip before heading out to explore felt a good idea.
The pool was stunning! It was an infinity pool which looked out over the city. There were also loads of gorgeous rest spots to just sit back and chill (I ended up taking my travel sketchbook out one morning and doing a quick ink and watercolour sketch of the roof).
The place also had these great submerged lounges where you could take drinks from the bar. We absolutely took advantage of that privilege over our stay there.
After a very refreshing dip, we headed out for the day. The hotel wasn't too far from the river taxi and we were very eager to see what it was like.
The river taxi stop was right underneath their Skytrain stop so it was a very busy street, especially for the commuters. A lot of retail and street food vendors were parked outside this stop. Jim and I love street food, especially - as we found out - the food in Bangkok, so we were delighted that there was so much on our route into the city.
As you can imagine, the Chao Phraya river is used a lot in Bangkok. Commuters and tourists use it equally and there are loads of different river taxis, ferries, hotel shuttles, cruises, tours, everything! We didn't use a lot of other transportation in the city like Tuk Tuks or the Skytrain much because we ended up loving travelling by the river. It was crazy cheap to do so - converting the Baht to pennies, it came to about 12p to use the river taxi and it had a lot of stops along the way. Plus, you pretty much have to leap on and off the boat during its very brief docking period, which we loved doing.
In the photo above, you can see a couple of different boats in use. The very colourful ones were referred to as the 'Fast Boats', you pay a bit extra and they're sort of like private taxis compared to the river taxi being the version of the bus. The only reason we never took these was due to convenience. The river taxi did us brilliantly and our stops were always where we wanted to go.
It was a beautiful way to take in the city. You see a lot from the river, including some of the temples. We were headed to this particular one, Wat Arun.
Most of the river taxi stops are either in markets or have markets around them. This was one we randomly came across while taking a side street after one of our spectacular leaps from the river taxi. I ended up getting a few momentos from this particular market.
There's an incredible amount of temples to see in Bangkok. Thailand has around 41,000 temples (over 35,000 still in use!), so you probably won't get to see all of them. We were only in the city for a few days and had to choose what to see carefully, so we decided to visit Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn). It was only a few stops away from our hotel and it really intrigued us (we also stopped in briefly at the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho but it was so packed with tourists that we decided take a cursory glance without entering properly and then leave).
Wat Arun was spectacular! It was this gorgeous white structure with tiles, mosaics, shells and bits of broken ceramics and porcelain decorating its facade with animal and warrior statues lining certain tiers. The white structure reflects the sun at certain times of day, hence its name - Temple of Dawn.
The place was bigger than I anticipated. The structure itself was huge to walk around and then there were lots of extra alleyways full of statues and worshipping areas. Thankfully, we went early in the morning (we like to avoid crowds, especially in tourist spots) so there weren't too many people around, but when we were leaving in the afternoon, it started to get really crowded really quickly.
The Chinese gardens surrounding the temple were beautiful.
We watched people interact with these bells for a bit. We had no idea what they are for, so we didn't attempt to interact ourselves for fear of offending anyone or inappropriately touching something sacred. I've tried to google it to educate myself but I can't find anything about them.
The statues lining the walls took my breath away. I couldn't believe how striking they were. I stood looking at these for a very long time.
You can enter the temples and view the shrines. Out of respect, you must have your shoulders and knees covered (including men), leave your shoes at the entrance, not step on the wooden step in the doorway, take off hats and sunglasses, and move out of the way for people there who may only have a small amount of time to worship. And you absolutely, definitely must not touch anything on the shrine, people leave food and drinks as an offering and it is incredibly bad to move these or take them away.
There is a bit of query about taking photos of Buddha statues. We learned that it is ok to do so (not the same in all countries, like Japan), as long as you follow some etiquette rules like not turning your back to the statue to take a selfie, pointing at the statues with your fingers or feet, or raising yourself higher than the statue. It's also respectful to take a few steps back before turning away from the shrine.
Can you believe the details in the photo above? These were some gold inlays from one of the gate dividers between the buildings. Thai architecture is one of the most awe-striking things I've ever seen. Looking at the buildings from a distance is already a beautiful thing to do, but getting up close to them gives them a whole new depth of beauty and craftmanship I've never seen anywhere else.
Some tourists can suffer from a thing called Wat Burnout, which is where you try to take in too much of the temples too quickly. They are an intense experience. It's hot, there are big crowds, a huge amount of space to cover and you're always on the lookout for any cultural faux pas you might make and inadvertently offend people. So after Wat Arun, we exhaustedly headed back to the hotel to take some downtime and cool off for a bit with some swimming and poolside drinks before heading out again later.
We headed out on the river taxi again to explore Chinatown and take in some more street food.
We started with some fried gyoza from some of the stalls outside of the Chinatown market. These were insane! We've been craving them soooo much since being back. They didn't taste like regular gyoza, I've no idea what the difference was, but these were so much better (and that's from someone who is a huge fan of gyoza of all types).
We wandered around taking in all the amazing sights and smells. Unfortunately, we ended up going a bit late in the day so a lot of the retail stalls were closed, but the food stalls were in full swing so thankfully, there was a huge amount of delicious cooking going on.
We, of course, had to stop at some of the food stalls for some grub. We got a brothy noodle soup with fish balls and it was amazing! We wished we weren't so full from the gyoza earlier. We even considered bringing back some more of that gyoza to the hotel, but we were way too stuffed to even consider it after this noodle soup. We adored sitting at the stalls eating. We would honestly eat this way every day if we could.
We caught the river taxi back to the hotel. It was even more beautiful to take at night.
That night (probably inspired by all the awesome food we were having). Jim had an amazing idea to do a street food tour, so we booked ourselves in for the next afternoon.
The meetup spot for the street food tour turned out to be at our usual river taxi stop, so we didn't have to travel far to meet them. We decided to explore the area around our hotel a bit and came across this massage parlour, Coco Massage. How could we not? We both got a leg & foot massage, a head & shoulder massage, and I decided to treat myself to a mani-pedi too. The whole experience for both of us cost around £30 and they did an amazing job. My nails looked great (although my mani-pedi was eventually ruined by all the bug repellant we had to use in the rainforest. Oh well, still worth it!) and we walked out of there absolutely floating.
We met the group for the tour and began wandering around the streets with our guide. She took us to some amazing places all over Bangkok - places we would never have found on our own. I also have a dairy allergy, so our guide was able to help me out with some of the dishes I should avoid.
We were taken to some sit down places as well as stands and stalls. We loved doing this because we ended up learning a lot about how people who live in Bangkok eat and some of the different dishes that we probably wouldn't have thought to order. The one above is a duck dish that we would never have considered because we didn't know what it was. We also managed to try some duck tongue.
This place did the most amazing masaman curry I've ever had. They also did a really great basil chicken, which is actually quite spicy. It's a very popular dish in Thailand, I saw it on the menu almost everywhere.
EDIT: Funny story about the photo above - when we came back to Bangkok 8 months later, the person asleep in the chair was in the exact same position! See the Instagram post below.
We were taken down one of the roads behind our hotel, in an area known as Modern Bangkok. Most tourists tend to gravitate towards Old Bangkok which is where the Grand Palace and a lot of temples are, so our guide took us to where a lot of the authentic stalls were. She purchased some fruit for us with chilli salt, and some roti bread (I couldn't have this but Jim said it was lovely). We were told that because Bangkok is one of the most congested cities in Asia, people can spend a huge amount of their day travelling to and from work, mostly in cars. Due to this, the street food is catered towards people being able to eat it on the go, in the car or on transport, so things like sticky pork and rice, which can be easily eaten with your hand, became really popular. To save time in the morning, some don't cook breakfast, they eat leftovers from the day before. So having lots of fresh fruit around the city is really great for those who can't cook at home and don't have time to prepare nutrient-dense food.
We went to some places that were considered 'high end' as well, like this bakery, Panlee. It's considered quite a posh place to go in Bangkok. We got some Thai tea (mine without milk) and some green buns (again, I couldn't have these) which are very popular at this bakery.
She then took us to the river, showing us some buildings along the way. While waiting for the boat, we visited a stall that did Thai fried plantains, sweet potatoes and taro. We were in heaven eating these. I couldn't get enough of the plantains.
Because I couldn't have the buns in the bakery, our guide bought me some sun-dried mango roll-ups. These were gorgeous! And made right there at the stall.
We were taken to the other side of the river and down a very missable laneway. If you weren't looking for it, you would have just walked by it. The guide showed the group this amazing little restaurant tucked away down the incredibly narrow laneway. We never in a million years would have found it on our own.
We were asked our spice level so they could make the salad to our taste. Jim and I had learned our lesson from the papaya salad at Laab Ubon and stifled our ego to go with a medium spice level. It turned out not too bad and we explained about the other restaurant. The guide told us that considering the name, the owner of the place must be from a region of Thailand where the spice palette is much higher. It made a lot of sense to us now why it absolutely blew us away.
This was one of the strangest things we tried. It was called a Bird's Nest and we were told to guess what it was. It was really nice and tasted kinda citrusy. None of us could guess what it was (and out of desperation, even asked if it was actually a bird's nest). Turned out it was fried lemongrass. Delicious!
We were then taken to a few more temples and shown more parts of the city and ended up at a restaurant where the curry is a palace recipe. A cook from the Grand Palace left their job and opened a restaurant. They've been serving the curry there ever since. Honestly, not the best green curry I've ever had (I had mine with rice because I couldn't have the roti).
We said goodbye to the group and invited everyone to Laab Ubon for dinner later to try it out. We went back to the hotel and cooled down in the pool before heading out to meet the group. We went to the restaurant not expecting anyone to show up, but the tour guide and one of the couples from Sweden came. We had a great meal, learned lots about the great people we were dining with and went back to our hotel for drinks on its rooftop bar.
We had drinks well into the night but eventually had to end as we were getting up at 5am the next morning to fly to the next stage of our honeymoon, an elephant sanctuary!
We utterly adored Bangkok. We loved the food, the people, the city - and we were sorry to leave it, but super excited for the next adventure.
Aoife x
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