Around The World 2011 Day 9: Phuket to Bangkok

We have had a wonderful stay at the J.W. Marriott in Phuket, but we are equally excited to continue this tour and get to Bangkok.  But before we can do that, we must wrap up things here.

No, I did not have any chocolate fondue at breakfast.  Still trying to be good.  (I have, in fact lost six pounds thus far this trip.)  However, the Marriott Café having a chocolate fondue fountain on our last day here very much felt like a sign that I should put back all six pound right now by sticking one piece of pineapple after another into that fountain until I pass out from all the sugar in my bloodstream.

Okay, maybe I have a problem.

Believe it or not, I have never shot this side of the breakfast buffet before.  Done.

The last, final shot of breakfast at the J.W. Marriott... since I was good about the fondue I lived it up and switched from an egg white omelet to a full-on real-egg omelet.  Born to be wild.

For the redord, this woman's hair entertained us for several days.  This couple was on our schedule, having breakfast and dinner at nearly the same time very day.  And, yes, we could always spot her from a significant distance.

The last, final shot of the reflection pool.  We made it special by having Barbie literally touch the pool.  And I hope in your head your pronounced that litt-terr-all-lee.

The last, final shot of the J.W. Marriott's Spirit House.  There is something about the peacefulness of the Thereveda Buddhists here that makes me kind of want to set up a Spirit House in our home when we return to Los Angeles...  in seven weeks.

As we checked out, I took a moment to photograph our luggage.  Eight weeks.  And, to be honest, we could have packed less had we wanted to.

Could there be a better last, final shot of the J.W. Marriott.  And how great is it that instead of boring old Exit they adorn the driveway with the more logical Out.  

I am compelled to share my favorite piece of Latin trivia, and that is that Exit would read to a native Latin speaker in ancient Rome as He Leaves.  I learned that from reading the greatest novel ever to be written in English, Infinite Jest.

Turning to enter the airport, I get my best picture yet of the Royal Couple.  I am aware of a fierce cultural bias within me.  In England I see the royals as, shall we say, unimportant.  In fact, the very concept of a monarchy repulses me, even ceremonial monarchies that remain as remnants within democracies.  For some reason I make an exception for the Royals of Thailand because, well, for much of my life people I have known from Thailand have said how not only do the people of Thailand love their King and Queen, but the beloved King and Queen have been key important democratic figures during times when the Thai government behaved undemocratically.

I got all that second hand.  Sure, I could do some research and get back to you, but that is asking a lot when I can instead choose to state unsupported facts and not care about the consequences.

Today's airport experience was, in Barbie's words, "The best ever."  We walked right up to the counter, walked up to a line-less security, and walked to a nearby gate.  Less than ten minutes.

Phuket, Thailand Airport Candid.  July 2011.

Our ride to Bangkok.

By the way, last weekend's Thai election resulted in their first ever female Prime Minister.

Thai Air Russian Baby Candid.  July 2011.

The last, final shot of the Phuket International Airport.  I had been hoping to get a shot of that sign, and I did!  Yay!  (But you will not know what I mean unless you look at it full-sized.)

The last, final shot of the island of Phuket.  How appropriate that it is of kilometer after kilometer of beach.

A very tasteless shrimp fried rice.  Hey, it is airplane food.

We return to Suvarnabhumi Airport.  It actually looks familiar.

Suvarnabhumi Airport Conveyor Candid.  July 2011.

This airport has been criticized for its very long walks.  We did not mind it much.  And the next shot shows you why we love this airport.

You have never seen that before.  Airport workers have conveniently surrounded the luggage carousel with luggage carts, spaced out in an almost artistic manner.  Heck, that is art.

We were met by Susan of Trails of Indochina, who walked us over to our ride to the hotel.

Bangkok is such a major tourist destination that this area of the airport is literally a sea of busses waiting to take people to their vacations.

Trails of Indochina is the tour company which invited Barbie on a fam trip which lead to the entire Southeast Asian portion of Around The World. (fam is short for familiarize, which we did on our own in Phuket but for the rest of our time in Thailand it will be Trails of Indochina taking us to hotels and tourist destinations for site inspections.)

I never did get a shot of a Welcome to Bangkok sign at the airport, but Sharp has made up for that.  For the record, the other side of the highway had massive Sony and Samsung billboards.  Also for the record, as I type this on a hotel room bed there is a Sharp TV in front of me.  Coinkydink?

This is one of my standard highways are the same all around the world shots.  I mean, this could be Los Angeles.

Okay, this could not be Los Angeles.

Bangkok has a an impressive but spread out skyline.  There are skyscrapers in every direction, but at any one time you are only looking at a few of them.  The building to the left happens to be the Baiyoke Tower II, the tallest building in Bangkok.  Susan told us that part of it is a hotel, but it is only three stars and we will not be bothering to visit it.

Cities.  I like them.  I like remote beaches, too.  You can like more than one thing.

We arrived at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok and we relatively overwhelmed with the friendliness of the staff as they greeted us.

Our room's view.  Across the way is the Hilton Millenium Hotel, which we are going to get to see.

Our butler, who I suspect covers most of this floor, brought us sweet lemongrass tea.  It was delicious.

We went out for a walk, and saw over a hundred school kids in uniform grabbing snacks after school.   Soon enough we ducked back into the Mandarin Oriental for a snack there.  We ended up at Verandah, the café on the bank of the Chao Phraya River.

The view from Verandah.  Now... let us get this straight.  The reason this river is brown is due to a high silt content during rain season.  In fact, a little research revealed to me that areas of this river that are not brown with silt are typically green with algae due to pollutants causing the algae to overgrow.  This river is not sewage.  It has no unpleasant smell.  It is simply brown with silt, as are most of the rivers in Thailand.

Our room is THERE.

Vietnamese springe rolls and Humus with Pita Bread.

Barbie's crab and avocado salad.

My pumpkin and coconut milk soup.  It was excellent, but ordering hot soup when it is 90℉/32℃ is not the smartest move.

Bangkok is a city of cranes.  The amount of construction here is impressive.

We plan to ride on this boat.  It is actually the official Mandarin Oriental boat.  Our hotel has its own boats that shuttle you to set destinations or even to special requests.  How cool is that?  Our own boats!

We rode the boat to River City, which we found out was a local mall.

Considering that Bangkok is one of the top tourist destinations on Earth, I suspect that I may be getting quite a few pictures of a picture being taken during the next few days.

What do you know?  A mall in Bangkok looks just like a mall.

That is what we call in California Mucha Buddha.

We strolled outside the mall for a bit, and I had to take this pic of local Thais on their mobiles.

The sun in Bangkok, over the Chao Phraya River.  I find it interesting how much I enjoy lens flare.  I recall learning about how lens flare was avoided like the plague for decades of cinematography, and then in the early 70's someone used it intentionally and it took off.  Now there are digitally animated movies with fake lens flare effect put into their digital renderings so that our brains will think that there was a camera there.

The people running the boat said, "Take picture of the church."  I thought, "A Catholic church in a Buddhist country?  If they only knew what I think of that."

Another shot of the sun.  It is not actually going down.  It looks that way because of the exposure setting.  We returned to the Mandarin Oriental and headed to our room.

But first, a look at the pool.

Our view during the day.

Our view at night.

If you only knew the effort I put into matching those two pics for you.  If you only knew...

I was ready to go to bed without dinner, but then Barbie ordered some room service and bless her for that because it was delicious.

On the lower left, Bamee Ped Yaang, fine egg noodles, barbecued duck morsels, Chinese celery, spring onions, fried garlic, green lettuce and preserved vegetables in a savoury duck broth.  At the top, Pad Thai.  You should know what that is.

Tomorrow is a big sightseeing day.  Get your rest.