From Hoi An to Bangkok

by Thorn

It came time to depart Hoi An and head to Bangkok. We would be flying there from Da Nang via Ho Chi Minh City. It was more eventful than we’d expected.

A few days prior the resort manager approached me to offer his thanks to our group for being such great guests, and kindly offered us a free airport transfer for our departure. Maybe he felt it was the least he could do after spending so much money at his resort’s bar day after day. As our flight left at 9:45am and check-in began at 8:45am, he suggested leaving at 7:45am. I made it 7:30am – never hurts to have an extra 15 minutes up your sleeve at an airport, especially with a group.

After an early breakfast, we finished packing the last of our gear, all wrote on a card that Matt and Michael would give to Tin later in the day, and took some group photos out the front of the resort. We piled in to our van and got underway as the resort staff waved us off.

We made good time to the airport and waited to check-in. When we got to the front we were told we were in the wrong line. Fortunately no-one was in the other queue yet so we went straight to the front. Unfortunately when we got there we were told our flight had left an hour ago, and we’d been advised of the time change by email two days prior.

We hadn’t thought to check the flight’s status, and throughout our nine months of travel a few years ago, none of our flights ever got changed. We quickly purchased tickets through another airline but then had to scramble through check-in and security, having to jump straight to the front of both queues, just to make the flight on time. If we’d left 15 minutes later, we may not have all made it on the flight.

After arriving in Ho Chi Minh City we had some time to kill before our next flight. Quite a bit of time, as it turns out, as nearly all the flights out of that airport had been delayed due to some kind of system error. Our two hour layover turned in to four hours, and we later heard some people had been delayed even longer than that.

I found this article regarding the delays in the paper the next day.

After another quick flight, we finally touched down in Bangkok. We found our driver (who filled us in on how bad the delays had been getting throughout the day) and got underway. For most people in our group, it was the first time they’d been in Bangkok, and it’s always an impressive city to drive through at night with its myriad of huge advertising billboards and well-lit buildings.

We arrived at Lebua at State Tower and started the check-in process. While we waited we enjoyed the lobby’s piano player, who was belting out a medley of random songs. I wish I’d got some footage of this guy, he was really getting in to it! We all tried to figure out each song as it came up. Certainly helped pass the time quickly.

Once we were checked in, we went to take a look at our suite. Kupp greeted us as we walked through the door, as he’d arrived a few hours before us. The place was massive. A huge lounge and kitchen area was flanked on either side by three bedrooms, with two on one side, and one on the other, that one alone being as big as the suite we’d stayed in the last time Amanda and I were there.

The living room! Kitchen to the left, and those doors lead to two of the bedrooms.

After kicking Kupp out of that room and taking it for ourselves (sorry mate! I promise that when it’s your birthday you can have whichever room you want!) we went downstairs to catch up with the others. It just so happens that they had managed to score the Hangover Suite. It is ostensibly the same as every other suite, but it has photos from the movie up on the walls, and other decor that references the film. For those not in the know, several scenes from The Hangover 2 were filmed at Lebua, and they’ve capitalised on this in their marketing. Nikki and Leigh surprised Amanda with an expensive bottle of champagne to kick off the celebrations!

After spending some time catching up, we all decided to spend our first night up on Lebua’s roof at the Sky Bar. Just as we remembered, the views were as incredible as the price of the drinks ($15 AUD for a glass of beer). Still, it was a great way to kick off the Bangkok Birthday Bash!

29Apr2013

Here Comes The Planet 18 – Bangkok 04

by Thorn

We stay at the most lavish five-star hotel in Bangkok: Lebua at State Tower. This is the “Hangover” hotel, as part of “The Hangover 2” was shot here, particularly at the Sirocco Restaurant on the top, the 64th floor, where we also dined for Amanda’s birthday.

We didn’t shoot much footage here as we were too busy eating and drinking. 😀

You jelly? 😉

11Apr2013

Ocean World, Madame Tussauds and Baiyoke Sky Tower.

by Miss Penny Black

Yesterday was a good day to be inside out of the 39 degree, muggy heat so Luke and I pre-bought our M. Tussauds and Ocean World tickets the night before online (saving nearly 50%, if you’re thinking of going 😉 ). The catch was we had to enter both places before midday so we got out early, ready to do a bit of camera equipment scouting at the mall before the attractions opened.

Turns out only government businesses open before 10am, or at least that was the information given to us by a random guy on the street. As we milled around outside MBK at 9am we were approached by an extremely friendly middle aged fellow who told us to go to another market down the road that was much cheaper. We didn’t really have time but had a chat to him anyway. He told us all about the water festival coming up, a parade that was on the next day and seemed very keen to share everything he knew about Bangkok. It was a nice chat but we headed off down the road to find a drink and were then stopped by another guy who asked what we were doing and directed us to a different place to shop. Shortly afterwards, as we were looking at some of the roadside food stalls, killing time, a lady came up for a chat about our holiday and to tell us about what she was doing.. it was starting to get weird. Like we’d inadvertently put on our ‘talk to us, we’re tourists!’ t shirts that morning.

Eventually we got into the mall that had the wax exhibition and spent almost an hour wandering around.

I give Tiger a few pointers.

It was fairly cheap to get into and quite interesting. Not a patch on Ocean World though, which I’d definitely rate above Melbourne Aquarium, which I think is quite good, but Bangkok has OTTERS. They did a short feeding show where the otters jumped around and climbed things then when we came back they’d curled up together for a sleep. D’aw! I didn’t get any photos though, you’ll have to wait for Luke’s next video.

Terrifying!

We also watched the shark feeding show, which seemed to consist mainly of two divers standing on the heads of the sharks and poking them with sticks… which sounds worse than it was, it looked very gentle, but it seemed that they were keeping the (larger than person-sized) sharks away from their heads and forcing them to the floor of the aquarium where a couple of the enormous beasts just wiggled around like puppies and tried to get into the fish basket.

My favourite thing in the aquarium was the octopus. It was quite huge – it’s head/body would’ve been as big as a basketball and its tentacles were beautiful plus it was moving around a lot.

So beautiful!

After the fun of wandering around in a cool, dark building we walked the couple of blocks back to the hotel in the searing heat and caught a cab over to Lebua. The driver wouldn’t put the meter on but we only noticed after we’d gone a few blocks. If I hadn’t had a splitting headache I might’ve made him let us out but, with all our bags, it seemed such a hassle. As it was the charge wasn’t extortionate but still, I was fuming. Refusing to put the meter on is a pretty typical scam.

Arriving at our hotel washed away all my irritation and frustration. Lebua at State Tower is *gorgeous*. Another one of those hotels that cause you to eventually forget that you need to open doors for yourself and close them behind you because there’s always someone there to do it for you.

We checked in and decided to upgrade to the Tower Club, which meant that instead of a 20-something floor room we had a three room suite on the 54th floor, free high tea every afternoon with unlimited drinks (of any kind), free mini bar and a view that Batman would envy. You only turn 37 once, right? I could not afford this level of luxury (at least, not without selling my house) in Australia, but here it costs about as much per night as the Best Western in Ballarat, so why the heck not?

We were escorted up to our room (ears popping several times) and just… wow. You’re looking down on just about everything, including other skyscrapers.

We had a couple of hours before heading out so we quickly ran out to buy me a pair of covered shoes (a ‘smart casual’ dress code applies in all the restaurants here) so we could make it to high tea. We were starving as we’d only had breakfast and fortunately the first pair of shoes I found fit perfectly and were under $20. We dashed back to the hotel, waited impatiently for the elevator and made it to high tea in time to scoff down a cocktail, a plate of minute sandwiches, some pastries and chocolates before heading out to meet up with Ean and his godfather, Niren, again.

These savoury pastries were so crisp they shattered everywhere and made a huge mess. We kept giggling like little kids.

After a tuk tuk that stopped working at every set of lights and a mad dash along a busy road, we made it to the hotel on time, only to sit and wait for 50 minutes as Niren was still out shopping. Turned out he’d had to go to several places for a couple of caps that I’d expressed an interest in the night before (gifts for family), but once he got back and we sorted everything out and headed to Baiyoke Sky Tower, the tallest building in Bangkok. We all marveled at the view and took a lot of photos as the sun went down.

A lovely day and so nice to spend the evening talking with Ean and Niren. We hope to see them again one day. If any of you are thinking of going to Siem Reap do get Ean’s details from us, he was just great.