One Night in Bangkok Squared

AC and I spent one night in Bangkok -- twice -- with a week in Koh Samui slid nicely in between.

Our first night in Bangkok consisted of eating dinner and crashing from travel fatigue. Dinner, however, was at a quaint little place known as Condoms and Cabbages. While it sounded completely unappetizing at first read, we soon learned it was a restaurant dedicated to the promotion of birth control and safe sex in Thailand. The decor was, well, condoms and birth-control pills (the prophylactic-laden Christmas tree was my personal fave) and the food was surprisingly good.

The next day we took a short plane ride over to a small island called Koh Samui. We did ... nothing. Our days consisted of sleeping in, catching the breakfast buffet 10 minutes before it closed, hanging out by the pool/beach, afternoon nap, catching dinner and drinks, the bed. Repeat. One of the interesting things was the general alcohol consumption -- low. In some ways we were expecting it to be like Cabo San Lucas -- party party party!! In Koh Samui, the waiter would bring you a drink and then you wouldn't see him again for several hours. After flagging him down, he'd look at you over his sunglasses and say, 'you want another drink?' like it was the first time he'd ever heard of someone having more than one beer in a 24 hour period. To add insult to injury, they were holding elections for the first several days of our trip. Thai law forbids the sale of alcohol during this period, so between the legal challenges and peer pressure, we stayed surprisingly sober.

Our trip was completed with yet another night in Bangkok. We made the most of it by taking a quick trip over to The Grand Palace which was probably the most mind-blowing place I'd ever seen. Every square inch of space was covered by something that shined or glittered in the very hot sunshine. I can't even describe it with words, so you'll just have to check out the pictures to see it for yourself.

At the Palace, I'm embarrassed to say that we got taken for a scam. A very nice lady hooked us up with a tuk-tuk ride that would take us to some additional sites for next-to-no money. After the first ride, we just happened to "bump" into a nice man who mentioned some jewelry stores and tailors we should check out if we get the chance. Little did we know, we would soon get the chance as our nice tuk-tuk driver then held us hostage and took us to the exact those places that nice man had casually mentioned. I must admit it was a slick set up. When we finally balked and refused to see any more stores, he punished us by leaving us in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly all the cabs that were desperately trying to pick us up just hours before somehow disappeared (I think we were marked somehow). Thankfully we had a map from the hotel and managed to find our way back (and get to ride a water taxi in the meantime -- fun!).

Our final dinner was this totally cute crepe place that was next door to Condoms and Cabbages. Overall the people were friendly, the food was outstanding (to be fair, we did each get a small case of food poisoning but nothing too serious) and everything was cheap!

Thailand goes down as probably my favorite place and a location I fully plan on returning to! As always, here are the pictures!