Today we got up at 5am to fly to Bangkok, it’s a 7 hour flight from Tokyo to Bangkok but we are ready to fly! From our hotel we took several trains and arrived at Haneda with time to spare, which was needed because we got in line for security only to find out you can’t use digital boarding passes and had to step out of line to get a physical tickets and then get back in the security line and start all over again. After that things went pretty smoothly and Jacob and I went to the airport lounge because I have gold status with star alliance airlines. Once we arrived in Bangkok, we breezed thru the airport, got some cash out the the ATM, and tried to get train tokens (turns out the machines don’t take 1000baht bills and we needed to talk to a person). But we eventually got on a train to our hotel. When we arrived it was 90degs and close to 100 percent humidity and we had a 12min walk to our hotel with our 35lb backpacks 🥵.
After we got checked-in and we took our first of many showers that day. We took a quick nap before our Tuk Tuk 🛺 food tour of Bangkok. Our guide Patrick picked us up at our hotel around 7:30pm and we were quickly glad we skipped lunch.
The first stop on the tour had four dishes :
- Papaya Salad (Somtam)
- Barbecue Pork Neck (Kho Mu Yaang)
- Spicy Minced Duck Salad (Laab Ped)
- Spicy Soup (Tom Zab)
All so incredibly tasty but some of it was definitely too spicy for me, my mouth and stomach were on fire 🔥 🥵.
One thing we learned very quickly is that Bangkok is somewhat of an assault on your sense of smell, as you walk down the street you can go from smell pleasant and delicious smells to wanting to be ill from the repulsive smells emanating from the garbage or other refuse.
Next we had to hustle to the next stop as the shop was closing but we arrived just in time to have Spicy Herb Noodles (Khao Soi). These were really good and were mildly spicy.
Next we went to China town to wander around and try various street foods. Jacob was immediately drawn to a pancake with a squid pressed into it, no surprise there.. We also got some coconut pancake treats, and one of the best pineapples I’ve ever tasted, it was a cute baby pineapple that has a soft sweet center. We also passed by a cart selling insects and fried scorpion, even Jacob decided to pass on fried scorpion.
Concerned we wouldn’t have room for tasting more food on the tour we slowed our eating pace down and headed for the next shop. Jacob and I both agree this was the highlight of the food tour. Crispy Noodles with runny egg (Kua-Kai Noodle)… soooooo good 🤤. This restaurant is on the Michelin Guide list, Ann Guay Tiew Khua Gai. We even got to go out back into the “kitchen” (aka the alley out back) to see how the noodles were made. Let’s just say health inspectors in the U.S. would shutdown most the restaurants in Bangkok.
We then took a break from food for a bit and took a tour of the city at night. We stopped at several of the popular sites like the Giant Swing, Wat Pho, and Wat Bowon Niwet. Then made our way to a bar called the Eagle’s Nest that overlooked the river and had a good view of Wat Arun at night.
After Enjoying the views and a couple drinks, we motored off to the flower market where a lot of preparations were going on for the festival that happens on Tuesday, the Loy Krathong Festival, where people launch flowers into the river to pay respect to the water goddess and Buddha. At the flower market we learned how to fold the pedals of the Thai lotus flower to reveal the center and give it to the local shrine of the flower market. We had a sweet coconut snack and Jacob got one last snack before we headed back to our hotel in the Tuk Tuk.
