Arrvial in Bangkok and First Impressions

We arrived in Bangkok this morning around 06:20 local time (00:20 Brussels, 17:20 Tuesday Nashville time).   The flight went smoothly and without incident.  I'll review the flight in a separate post, but here I'd like to go into detail about the first day of the trip.  

Clearing customs went by without incident and were able to get from off the plane to the arrivals hall within 40 mins.   Once out, we had to decide whether or not to be lazy and take a taxi to the hotel or venture out onto  public transport.  Seeing as we got a bit more than four hours of sleep on the flight, we felt courageous enough to go with the second option and headed down to the train platform. 

The train here is a light rail system with an elevated track that goes into the city.  The cars were very modern and the signs in the station and train were in English.  This wasn't too surprising as Thailand is a major tourist destination and Bangkok seems very cosmopolitan. 

Once in the city, we had to make two changes onto different sky trains.  Again, no problems and we reached the last pivot point of our journey about 45 mins after we left from the airport.   

We are currently staying at Anantara Riverside Resort Bangkok (http://bangkok-riverside.anantara.com/) which is a 15 minute boat ride from the train station we disembarked from.   The boat picked us up and swiftly got us to the hotel.  

Before going into the details about the hotel, I'd like to briefly explain why we're staying at such a swanky place.  Up until 10 days ago, we didn't have our first hotel booked.  We were hesitating between directly heading out to the beach or even taking an apartment via booking.com/airBnB.  However, we both came to the conclusion that as we're not in a rush and that we've worked hard to earn this career break, we'll treat ourselves a bit for the first couple of days to celebrate and ride out the jet-lag.  Nathalie was also able to get us a discount thanks to her negotiation skills, so we couldn't turn down the deal they gave us.  

The hotel itself is impressive.  The decor of both the facilities and the rooms are well done and high-end.  The staff is very attentive and the amenities plentiful.  In the room, they provided us with a complementary smart phone with a local number and 3G connection that we can take with us throughout our stay.  I've never seen that before, but it's a nice touch.  There are ten different bars and restaurants along with a spa in the complex.  The pool is large and clean.  Overall, it's very relaxing and very professional.

Our room

 A view from the Pool

However, there are certain aspects about staying here that sit a little uneasy with us.  For one, it caters primarily towards Western and affluent tourists from around the world; most of whom seem to come here looking for a very sheltered experience in Thailand.  After briefly experiencing the public transport system on the way in, I really didn't feel that intimidated by the city.  I probably need to see more, but if you've spent 10+ hours getting here, it's worth venturing out a bit outside the comfort of the resort.  

Second, the prices for meals and beverages are the same as you'd find in London or Paris.  I'm guessing that many of the guests are here on corporate accounts and just expense the costs to their company or they have the money and aren't concerned about the incredibly high mark up (there's a hamburger from one of the restaurants going for 18 EUR/21 USD) versus what you'd find in local cuisine.  I'm not opposed to businesses marking up their products to meet what their clientele is willing to pay; I'm just surprised they could get it that high.  

For us, it reminds us a bit of the resorts and hotels we stayed at during our honeymoon in Sri Lanka.  We were fine with it in the scope of that trip, but we know that we don't want to have seven months of this type of pampering.  Also, we're pretty certain we won't be able to sustain it for more than two months before blowing our budget for this trip.  So there's that.  

In any case, we're going to enjoy it while it lasts, so until Saturday morning, we're going to take full advantage of the pool and the comfy room.   As from the weekend, we'll find something more in line with our budget and get out and experience the 'real' Bangkok, whatever that is.  

The waiter had a hard time with the 'R' in 'rocks,' so I had a 'whiskey on the lock.'  I guess it's fitting.