More Sightseeing? After 3 days in the very vivid city of Bangkok, we were not really up to go for much more – so we only set one major goal – have some drinks at one of the sky bars in Bangkok. We headed for the Banyan Tree Tower Hotel since we got a recommendation that it would be really nice up there. But the difficult task was to find the Hotel at first. The Lonely Planet on Bangkok really isn’t perfect yet… So we got out at the recommended Sky Train station and walked into the wrong direction at first.. And again we were molested by several Thais who wanted to convince us to go for their “massage establishments”.. Better don’t ever stop walking through one of the streets of Bangkok and look for the right direction.. At least none of the usual Tuk-Tuk drivers hung around in Bangkok’s business district.
After some 45 minutes walk we finally managed to reach our targeted hotel. Unluckily we had not been aware that it would be real 5* hotel, and that our shorts and sandals would not be wanted to be seen there. But I thought you just go to try and no one even dared to say anything about our inappropriate outfit. The view from the Skybar was really impressive and the cocktails were reasonable priced (230 Baht/each).
After enjoying the view we headed back to our Siam square area for a final fitting at our tailor. Only one of my shirts had its buttons a little tight (but that could be fixed easily) and the rest of our suits was fine So we were really relaxed, when we went for some final shopping at the MBK. Around 5pm we headed to the airport, and immediately got annoyed by Airasia, when we arrived there – it took them another 45 minutes to open their check-in counters – although already a huge queue of Chinese Malay people with tons of luggage had formed. Later the plane arrived with a delay (as usual) and when we were finally ready to take off, we had to roll back to the gate cause some system needed checking -> 1hour delay upon our arrival in KL. At least we got one of the “private taxi drivers” who didn’t charge us a midnight surcharge.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 11:13 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The election party was at the Goethe Institution in Bangkok was quite nice. But somehow the unclear outcome of the election put a shadow on the very social event. Our hosts of the German embassy and the Goethe Institution were really eager to entertain all the guests. Beer and decent German food guaranteed the physical well-being, and I had some nice chats with a few of the participants. Although the hot discussion between Sebastian and my brother was also nice to follow. We left the party (as some of the last guests) shortly before one o’clock.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 09:09 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Until now it has been another sightseeing day at it's best. We started for a boat tour of Bangkok at 9:30 in the morning, headed for the Weekend market in the north of the city at noon, and spend most of the afternoon touring Bangkok's Chinatown. Afterward we went for some shopping at the New Central Plaza, and now we went home to our guest house for a short rest until we will spend the evening at the Goethe institution. We've been invited to an election party there, and hopefully there will be a reason to celebrate..

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 15:22 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

So, this is the second part of my Bangkok live coverage! Although I honestly got to say that yesterday's story could be more or less told from every tourist to Bangkok. Well - the whole day - but not in the morning. We were a little delayed in our touristic duties (to see all the temples) by the problem that Sebastian accidentally had forgotten his small shoulder bag at the Hard Rock cafe. So we had to head for this destination and try to retrieve it. Arriving there we were told that the bag was indeed found, but that it would take the manager to get it from the office. So we had to wait until 11am.. luckily the Jim Thomson house is just nearby our place - so we had something touristic to spend our waiting time. The house of the American architect - who was in silk business - and vanished at the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia - is interesting to see, because you can learn something of the traditional Thai culture, but unless you are a worshiper of Jim Thomson it is no "must see" in my opinion.

After being able to get the bag back, we finally headed for the touristic main spots of the city. Via Sky train it was no problem to reach the main boat pier within a few minutes. We then decided on a Big boat which would offer the chance to use their services the whole day (which indeed would be a nice chance to explore a lot of things in the city - IF you can take advantage of their services from 9am-3pm..).  Anyway, we reached Grand palace and didn't gave the locals the chance to convince us, that the palace would be closed. The temples and buildings at the grand palace are really impressive. (But more details on those sights probablz another time.).

After this sightseeing strolled through the streets, and ended up eating some late lunch / early dinner at a nice backyard beer-garden. Going back to the area of our hotel was a little problem, since the traffic was bad, but we made it in time to our fitting appointment at the tailor. For evening schedule we were really tired and therefore ended the evening having a beer at our guest house lobby.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 03:46 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Since we have this neat little internet-cafe down in our hotel lobby I can give you the newest details in my holiday in Bangkok live and even before I'm having breakfast. My brother and Sebastian are still getting ready for our sightseeing day today - and i hurried up a little bit, to feed my blog with new information.

We are staying at the Wendy house in Bangkok. Near the Sky Train station "National Stadium" it is probably not the cheapest guest house to stay in Bangkok, but one at a very central location. We are surrounded by the three major shopping malls of the city and the Siam square - were all the students are going out at night is very near. So this was the major activity we did yesterday - check out the surroundings - do a little shopping, and go out for some party at night.

As I probaly told earlier Sebastian had to catch up with us, since he arrived one day later, so our day yesterday was torn apart by his arrival in the early afternoon. Therefore we came back to our guest house and waited here for him, before we started for some shopping at the MBK Mall. We also decided on getting some suits done for us.. but more about this another time.

Still beeing at the tailor we managed to have Carsten, a Siemens employee here in Bangkok who's contact was passed to me by Anne-Barbara (many thanks for that!). He gave us a bunch of uf useful details for the city and we had some beer at the local Hard Rock cafe. But this is another story, which requires more time to tell

Anyway today we will head along the most common sightseeing routes through the city and have a look at this touristical view of Bangkok.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 03:29 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)