Magic Bangkok - Bangkok, Thailand

Written Oct.14th 2016

We like Nepal, that's true!

But, after those stressful visa days, after the relocation, everyone needs holidays. My husband needs to relax after so much lack of sleep; the baby needs to stop studying after such intense school days; and I need to stop supporting them. So we went to Bangkok!

In Italy the common idea is that Thailand is a destination for adults. The most typical stereotypes about Thailand: busy, crowded, street food, amazing massages, weird sex tourism, lady boys, full moon beach parties, buckets full cocktails, kickboxing, temples, westerners being locked up in prison for drug possession, scooters, golden Buddha statues, amazingly friendly and smiling people and the film “The Beach”  with Leonardo DiCaprio. I can confirm that concerns the city, except of the weird tourism; we have not seen anything suspect, maybe a western paunchy-middle-age-man accompanied by an oriental pretty lady, but it cannot be an indicator. Some of the hotel waiters were quite ambiguous: they could be both handsome men and pretty girls, the hairdressers were a little bit weird, but is not unusual even in Italy, so nothing strange or noteworthy.

The idea is to came back again, to visit some islands, so we can confirm o disconfirm the others cliché about the beaches and the sea side life.

Thai people are very nice and kind, they teach you how to behave: in the archeological sites there are signs that teach good manners. 

The hotel was amazing, not the best in town but one of the best where we have been to. Fifteen floors of order, cleanliness, silence...And it was surrounded by higher palaces, hotels mostly but even offices and flats. Friendly people, excellent food, nice massage area, lovely outdoor pool, everything was a sort of dream.

First day: shopping! Must did, so many malls! The biggest shopping center, even the most luxurious, holds the aquarium.

The aquarium is interesting, we have seen bigger and may be more original, but our daughter was amazed by the water tunnel, the amounts of sharks, and the dimension of a giant spider crab. She was so excited! We spent at least two hours inside...and the rest of the day around the shopping center!
I've never seen something so big, huge, enormous...

 But we couldn't find a simple pair of sleepers that the kid needed. Well, it was full of shoe shop, but too expensive. 

We only bought some t shirts in the Chinese "HeM", medium quality stuff, very good prices. That's all.

A relaxing evening in the hotel pool, looking around for massages, a nice place for dinner, try to go to bed early to rest before a sightseeing day.

Thai people are Buddhist, they love their king and queen, you can guess it by the amount of Buddha statues (literally everywhere) and king's and queen's pictures (again: everywhere).

 Near our hotel there was a nice small open air temple with musicians and dancers.

They pray with flowers, incense and candle... They were praying for the health of the sovereigns, both octogenarians and hospitalized. This information was even in the newspaper. Our guide, a friendly lady in love with Elena showed us the Grand Palace, the amazing temple with the emerald Buddha inside. Everywhere was colorful, mostly shining gold and red, but crowded and very hot. Too hot! Sweating is a must in Bangkok!

Our daughter's hair and colors (and beauty), are always an attraction for Asiatic people, obviously she did not like being the center, to be the subjects of many pictures... The guide did not understand why the girl was so grumpy.

But she felt fortunate she could take some pictures with her smiling.

We visited also the summer residence, lovely indeed, but the kid was interested only in animals outside: enormous fish, some turtles and a lazy caiman. She was running and jumping all around; all tourists were looking at her helping me to find her every time I couldn't see where she was.

Nice experience. It looks she is disappointed because she did not see the interior of the apartments; probably she remembered our trip to Vienna, where we visited so many interiors!

After the palace, other temples, very old 

and ruined but full of charm.

 Too much culture, we needed another shopping immersion... we went to another big mall, little bit of the lower level to the other, less luxuries, more crowded and even more interesting.

We did find the fake cheap sleepers for the child, many easy going massage centers, a very cheap hairdresser, many interesting restaurants...

We decided to spend all evening there. 

We had to wait half an hour for the massage, so we went 

around without a destination and we crashed into a weird man: protruding ears, orange haired, effeminate attitude... a hairdresser!

Perfect. We had our hair cut; my husband had a pretty girl, I a strange blonde Asian. Very silently, quick and professional, in ten minute we were done, and happy. He tried the massage but he did not enjoy very much, mine the previous day, in another center, was better, I believe.

 Original Thai massage, strong an effective.

Our last amazing dinner, original Thai, easy to eat: on the menu (with images) there were symbols for spicy food, vegetarian; food contains nuts, really "idiot proof".

Once at home we decided to understand why you cannot eat a

Thai fruit called DURIAN in the hotel room. No smoking signal was accompanied by a "forbidden fruit" signal,

strange indeed. But the durian, even called "the king of fruit" for its amazing taste and the nutritional properties, has a horrible smell that that seems unbearable and impossible to remove from indoors, that's why!

But our experience, overall, was very pleasant and positive, we must come back again, even to taste finally the legendary fruit.