First Impressions of Bangkok

I arrived to Bangkok in the early hours of Tuesday morning, 13th October 2015. Having left Athens a day earlier, and after two flights I was there to welcome a new day and a new adventure. I flew to Bangkok on Qatar Airways, in case you missed my Working on the Go post, you can read it here. Keep reading to find about my first impressions of Bangkok.

View from Hotel Muse

The reason for my trip to Bangkok was to attend TBEX Asia which was going to take place in Asia for the first time. My first time attending TBEX was exactly a year ago in Athens and the moment the next destination was announced, I promised myself I was going to be there. I have many stories to tell and experiences to share, hundreds of photos and videos waiting to be published. So let’s start with Day One.
I arrived at the Suvarnabhumi Airport at around 07:30 in the morning, the airport is quite big and the passport control line was quite long, I had to wait for about 40 minutes but luckily you can get free Wi-Fi so I managed to keep myself occupied. Our hotel check-in was not until 2pm so I went to meet my fellow travel blogger friend Tiffany Perry of Wanderblush whom I met last year in Athens and we decided to travel together in Thailand.
Tiffany was staying at Hotel Muse in the city centre, she had arrived a few days earlier. I got a taxi from the airport, so the taxi driver started negotiating the price and we agreed at 700 Baht. What you must know, and what I found out later is that you must tell them to put on the Taxi Meter, this is the way the taxi works here. You are charged 50 Baht extra in case they take the highway and usually they must ask you first, to get your approval. So an airport ride to the city will not cost more than 400-500 Baht, the traffic here is horrendous that’s why it is easier to travel with the MRT or BTS Skytrain, more on that to follow in my next posts.

Interiors of Hotel Muse

Lobby, Hotel Muse

Fresh Flower display at Hotel Muse

Once I dropped off my luggage Tiff and I went to have breakfast/lunch and much needed coffee. We then treated ourselves to a one hour foot massage at this spa salon that we found near by. You can literally find a spa salon on every corner and usually an hour of Thai massage or foot massage costs about 300-400 Baht which is less than 10€.

We then moved to our Abloom Exclusive Serviced apartment which we found for a very good rate. Unfortunately when you don’t know the city well, you can’t really understand the distances so we used the Skytrain and MRT in order to get to the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center during the days of TBEX. Our Apartment was spacious enough, with a separate siting area, bedroom and bathroom.

Amethystos rosé wine

Since Tiff and I met at Domaine Lazaridi winery, I brought some Greek wine to celebrate our meeting in Bangkok. After we had some chilled rosé we decided to go out and explore the city.

You can find a Starbucks nearly on every corner

Also you can find street food everywhere and it is quite cheap. At first I was a bit worried about eating street food as it is not so common for us in Greece, but I did try it in the following days of my stay in Bangkok. Most Thai people buy their food from the street stalls.

Fresh Mango

Bangkok is a city with many malls, and a lot of them have food courts on the top floors. Thai people do a lot of their socialising in malls, and although many of them can’t afford to shop in these places, they do like to enjoy their meals here.
On my first night in Bangkok, we stepped into the Gaysorn Shopping Centre which houses some of the top international brands. Here you will also find A Mandarin Oriental Shop that sells freshly baked products.

We decided to treat ourselves to a nice glass of rosé Moët & Chandon at the Le Champagne bar which is located at the Gaysorn Shopping Centre.

We then had dinner in another mall and headed back to the hotel. Stay tuned for more Thai adventures.