I’ve just had a short holiday in Bangkok; just four nights, which gave me three full days. This was in the context of a longer holiday which included a 10-night cruise from Dubai on P&O’s Oceana. The few days in Bangkok were before the cruise, and you can read about the cruise here, in my Cruise Blog.
As usual on my trips to Asia I flew with Emirates from Manchester, which gives me the opportunity to break up the journey with a transfer at Dubai. This does extend the overall time from about 13 hours to 17 or 18, but I think that being able to stretch my legs for up to three hours at Dubai airport does me good – I’m really not sure how well I’d do with a non-stop flight of 13 hours or so. So I was on a flight from Manchester at 1:30pm on Monday 4 February, arrived at Dubai at just after midnight local time on the 5th, boarded an onward flight to Bangkok at about 3am and arrived in Bangkok at around 1:30 pm, local time. As ever, the flights were long and boring, but thanks to the comforts of Emirates’ A380 aircraft were not too not too uncomfortable; and being able to have a break between the two flights was definitely a good idea.
I stayed at the U Sukhumvit hotel in Bangkok. This is a four star hotel in the Sukhumvit area of downtown Bangkok. I found it good in some respects but not so good in others. The good points were that it was competitively-priced, the staff were friendly and helpful and there was an excellent roof-top pool, bar & restaurant area where I took most dinners. The room was a good size, was clean, and pretty much everything worked. The bathroom especially was very good, and there was plenty of storage. However other aspects of the room were rather uncomfortable. I could never quite get it cool enough, and generally felt a little warmer than I really wanted to. Secondly, there was no chair or table, just a high work surface under one of the windows, and to sit at this there was a high stool. I just wanted a simple chair that I could sit in and plant my feet on the floor!
The hotel’s location was a bit mixed as well. It was up one of the lanes off Sukhumvit Road, and it was a 10-minute walk from the main road to the hotel. Getting down to the main road was OK, in that the hotel had a free tuk-tuk service on demand to take you there, and once arrived at the road there was a modern mall with shops of many kinds, a station on the SkyTrain elevated railway, and a number of bars and restaurants. The problem came with getting back to the hotel. It was necessary to walk from the main road, and at the end of the day that 10 minutes’ walk seemed very long and hot – especially after enjoying the truly impressive level of a/c on the SkyTrain. But at least being half-a-mile up the lane meant that the hotel was quiet – Sukhumvit Road itself was insanely busy, well into the early hours.
So I got to the hotel in the late afternoon on arrival day. After showering and changing, I explored the area, which basically meant going down to the main road, wandering around the mall, checking out the SkyTrain station, and then wandering back to the hotel. I’d had a small meal before I did any exploring, and later had an even smaller meal during the evening. But I wasn’t late to bed that day, after spending so many previous hours travelling.
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