My first evening in Bangkok

I ended my last post in Dubai just about to board my flight to Bangkok... with the hope of getting some sleep on the flat bed which I had paid so much for. Do you know what? I did not sleep a wink, nothing! Still I had a slight headache which was preventing me from sleeping. The flight was absolutely full. After take-off I went to the small bar at the back of the business class section, on this plane there was a cool little table, rather like a 4-way table in a train except bigger. I attempted to relax with a glass of wine and a sandwich to no avail. So I arrived in Bangkok feeling a bit rough but no matter. I quickly got through immigration and found the Emirates limousine service - the airport is absolutely enormous and thronged with people of all nationalities, mainly Asian of course, with us Europeans standing out like sore thumbs! By this time it was about 2pm.
The car took me to my hotel, the Ibis Siam (I like Ibis) which was about 35 minutes and I checked-in and found the room. My priority number one was sleep. I tipped the contents of my suitcase on the floor and climbed into bed. This is the main reason I like Ibis, the beds are consistently very comfortable. After 30 minutes, I was woken by room service with a small jar of sweets - I should have posted "Do not disturb" on the door. I wrote to the host of the meetup I had planned to go to and said that, if I did go, I would probably take a taxi. I went back to bed, slept about 2 hours and woke refreshed and ready for anything. I looked up the Metro map on my computer to see where I had to go, Metro stop Bang Son. I could see it. I went down to reception expecting them to have a map but it did not show the station. I bought a rechargeable card for the Metro and headed off. First, I went one stop to Siam and changed Metro lines and went to Mo Chit which is the end of the line. But instead of a simple interchange, I had to walk a few metres to a different train, a different payment system. I paid for a plastic token to Bang Son but I couldn't see it on the map in the train. The train went to its final stop and then I had to change to another train. It was brand new and I then saw Bang Son. So that explains why it was so hard to find. I took Exit 5 as instructed in the Meetup group and rapidly found the location, a restaurant called KC Selfie. The owner welcomed me and pointed out the group who had just ordered some food. It's Saturday morning and I'm going to have some breakfast now. Here are some photos of our walk-around! We had a super evening. To me, that is what Bangkok is about, a warm humid evening, a large happy crowd drinking beer, live music. You just can't beat that! At 11pm, I couldn't face that train journey in reverse so Susan, the host, helped me find a taxi. It was a super shiny red taxi so I said farewell to my new friends and stepped inside with aplomb!

(I just realised, I included two photos not from Bangkok. One is of an evening meal my Meetup group had the night before I left Girona. The other is a little secret of mine to make travelling a little more tranquil. It is a zone just to the right of the entrance to the security area at Barcelona Airport. so if you have a few moments to spare - maybe security isn't too busy - then I recommend taking time out here. I had a ticket for the executive lounge but I still preferred to spend time here.)

This is funny! Big Milk to Thais means big breasts!!

This is Monalisa and she bought an interesting pair of shoes! I was going to stitch the two photos together in Photoshop but it's almost impossible on a small laptop.