Friday, 9 December 2016 to Thursday, 15 December 2016
We got up leisurely at 06:30 Friday morning and by 09:00 we were fully packed and loaded into the taxi – the start of our trip to Bangkok – and were dropped off at the airport 20 minutes later. By 10:30 we were ready to leave but the plane was not, it was only at 11:00 that we got underway. By 12:00 we picked up our luggage from the carousel at the Don Muang airport and headed out into the arrivals hall where we were greeted with calls of “Taxi taxi!!”

But we knew better so we ignored them, turned left and walked to the far end of the terminal to the official airport taxi area. Once there you get a piece of paper with a number on which will display on the overhead electronic board and direct you to your designated ticket counter. The lady was not in a friendly mood, maybe she was just being efficient, which she was, and it was not long before our taxi driver led us to his car. And the cost?  You’re guaranteed a metered trip which is all good, there is a 50 baht taxi surcharge, no problem with that, and if you choose to take the toll road, which we did, add another 120 baht. All in all we were deposited at out hotel in the Sathorn district for an all inclusive amount of 350 baht, rather reasonable.

The Mybed hotel we checked into had received an upgrade within the last year or so and was modern, clean and comfortable. It is a compact hotel with the rooms also rather compact but very comfortable indeed.

We relaxed under an overzealous air-con but of course we did not mind. The wifi worked first time everytime with speeds that were most acceptable. Any speed that enables one to stream Netflix I guess is good enough in my book. And speaking about Netflix, I could not get the AppleTV to connect which is an issue I have experienced before. If you connect to the internet where you are required to complete a username and password via a browser, it is not possible via AppleTV. Pretty useless I’d say thus my AppleTV was rendered useless in this particular instance. Please fix this, Apple! We did however manage to stream Netflix via the laptop to the TV, connected by an HDMI cable.

It was early evening when we took a stroll down Soi Suan Phlu where there are a multitude of street food vendors. We finally chose a little local restaurant with four tables and eight chairs on the sidewalk. We had a lovely supper of chicken and chips and some veggies, a rather farang looking menu. There was no beer on the menu and the proprietor suggested we go the 7/11 next door. Adri returned with an ice cold big Chang, I wanted a small one, oh well…

After a day of travelling we were rather tired and got to bed at a respectable hour, readying our bodies for the onslaught of Bangkok.

Now the hotel does provide a breakfast and true to their website, it was a “simple” breakfast, and very much so. Breakfast consisted of toast, butter, jam and some salty crunchy bread sticks which were not bad on the first day, but by the second it started to taste a bit tacky. The coffee was not bad so made up of the otherwise lack of stuff and substance. All in all, breakfast was not a totally bad experience, but definitely unique. The hotel as a whole though was really great with very helpful staff who all spoke good English.

It was late morning when we took a walk to the MR Kukrit House which is a heritage museum dedicated to the former Prime Minister of Thailand Mr. Kukrit Pramoj (1911–1995). It consists of five teak houses, the earliest of which is more than 100 years old, with some lovely gardens surrounding it, a true little paradise amongst the surrounding high-rise buildings. We intended to spend some time in the park like grounds, relaxing and reading under the trees, but there was a low key but very smart wedding that was busy starting up. There were no more than 30 people that had already arrived with a few more venturing in from time to time. There was a lovely “three-quarter quartet” jazzy type of band playing some sweet sounds. We walked amongst the houses and parts of the gardens that were not otherwise occupied by the wedding, listening to the gentle music.

One block further up we came upon the MahaNakhon Building which officially became the tallest building in Thailand on 4 May 2016. Although it is supposedly open for business there is still a lot of final construction taking place. The building has a rather unique pixelated facade which can be seen from many parts of Bangkok. Apartments in the building are priced at between 1.1 and 17 million US dollars. I will not be living there anytime soon, I don’t even have enough money to look it, although I did steal a few sneak peeks.

Next to the MahaNakhon is a building that contains an array of fine dining restaurants, each on its own level. At the bottom floor there is a type of a deli with the most amazing foods imaginable, exquisitely prepared. We made a note to go back there for a late lunch/early supper. We took a trip up the lift and stopped at each level, having a peek around restaurants that you can only afford if you own an apartment in the MahaNakhon building.

When it became time for supper we ventured out down Soi Suan Phlu and turned up Suan Phlu 8 Alley and there I smelt something familiar and that familiarity turned out to be a familiar curry aroma, not the Thai kind but the Indian kind. Just yesterday I thougt that an Indian curry would do me just fine, and here it was, but where? I followed my nose and the curry aroma turned into a chicken tikka massala aroma as I turned the corner into a little side street. And would you believe that restaurant had my name on it… no really! It was called TJ’s Curry Kitchen, proudly displaying my initials. We sat down immediately and had an amazing dinner of… chicken tikka massala of course.

We started watching the series From Dusk Till Dawn last night. IMDb describes it as “A Texas Ranger is in hot pursuit of the infamous Gecko brothers and their hostages. They all end up trapped in a desert bar secretly run by vampires and discover a vampire conspiracy”. Not really my cup of tea but I enjoyed the movie by the same name and I love Robert Rodriguez’s work, so we decided to give it a go. It started off great but a number of episodes into the series, when the scenes in the bar called the Titty Twister – which you will remember from the movie – became too long and drawn out over too many episodes; they were really milking the Titty Twister. Tonight we binge watched another few episodes and I must admit to really have enjoyed many of the tongue in cheek and way over the top scenes. But it does get a bit jaded after a while and although it is watchable it is not really recommended.

It was Sunday morning when we enhanced our “simple” breakfast with hard boiled eggs and spicy sausages from the 7/11 literally 25 metres from the hotel’s entrance.

After breakfast I started in earnest to prepare the documents for our French long stay visa application, and the list is rather onerous. I had started this piecemeal over time but now had to put in a final effort to complete such. I spent most of the day preparing my FL’s, my French Letters, i.e. one to advise why we want to go to France, another to state that we won’t be working in France, another to prove income, yet another to confirm that I am not retired but on a sabbatical and not employed… the list goes on.

Further to the above, we had to prove accommodation for at least three months so I went ahead and booked an apartment through Airbnb in Sète (Pronounced Set) which is on the coast, about 30km southwest of Montpellier. It is a small one bedroom apartment but with everything we would need for a comfortable stay… we’re hoping here!

We also had to purchase travel insurance for those three months from an accredited insurance company and decided to use Bupa which is a well known insurance company amongst international travelers. The purchase process was effortlessly done online with the insurance certificates arriving a minute later via email.

It was time for supper and Adri was pining after the fruit buffet we had at the Bayoki Tower back in April 2016. We stopped the first taxi outside the hotel but when the reply of “Sorry no meter, 200 baht” came we sent him on his way. The guy looked a bit agro in any case I thought. The second taxi stopped, Adri demanded he use the meter but in the same breath also demanded “How much?” “Huh?”, I frowned but got into the taxi nevertheless at a quoted price of 150 baht, a trip I knew would have been 80 maybe 90 tops for this particular taxi trip. Adri complained that he wasn’t switching on the metre but accepted my explanation that it was not necessary since, “Uhm, you had already negotiated a fixed price!”  I did not mind though, he was a nice guy.

In April 2016 we paid an all inclusive amount of 350 baht to go up to the top of the Bayoki Tower – when it was still the tallest building in Thailand – which also included the fruit buffet. I think the price to go up the tower was 200 with the fruit buffet added at 150 baht if you chose that option. But that option had now disappeared, if you wanted the fruit buffet, you had to pay 350 baht whether you wanted to go up to the top of the tower or not, which we didn’t want to do… been there seen that.

I still wanted that fruit buffet but Adri was pissed, there was no way she was going to fall into that tourist trap. “But… but… but…”, I protested, but there was no way, we were out of there. Is this a last gasp attempt to force people to go to the top of their building which is now no longer the tallest building in Thailand and thus I suspect fast losing its appeal? Hmm… I suspect my suspicion is correct.

Either way, Adri still wanted a buffet tonight, come hell or high water, as my dad used to say (bless his soul). So walking back the way we came via taxi we took a right into the enormous Central World shopping centre. You could probably spend 40 days and 40 nights there and still not see Mount Ararat. We entered Sizzlers where Adri ordered access to the salad buffet bar which of course includes fruit as well. I ordered a combo of fish and chilly chicken with chips which also gives me access to the salad buffet bar. I had thick mushroom soup, two bowls nogal (mind you), chicken and cranberry salad, potato salad, corn kernels, crunchy bacon bits, parmesan cheese, a bit here and a bit there. I must have sampled only about a tenth of what was on offer. Dessert included crème caramel, jelly with cream and chocolate mousse, all were great!

We rolled out of there and down the six flights of escalators to meet the very comfortable warm weather outside. We considered taking a taxi home but we had some kilos to lose after our dinner so we decided to walk home which was a comfortable 4km away.

It was before breakfast Monday morning that I dumped the significant buffet of last night where it belonged… I felt much more comfortable.

Today saw me finalizing the documents for the French Embassy. We also completed the Immigration forms and made copies of the relevant pages from our passports in order to fully prepare for our 90 day reporting journey planned for Tuesday morning. This 90 day reporting thing is really becoming a hassle and I have a strong feeling that it should not be. The rule regarding documentation here is probably “more is better”. The pile of papers for our 90-day reporting included our passports, completed TM47 (90-day reporting) and Foreign National Information forms. Then we also required photocopies of the first page of the passports which must include your picture, the expiration date page, the page containing the latest visa stamp and a copy of the arrival card/departure card that should be stapled into your passport.

The last and most important at this stage I felt was the proof of address for which the hotel gave us a printed invoice with a stamp that read “Paid”. We requested the hotel management to report our stay to Immigration but they assured us they do that only once a week so there was no need for that. They also made sure that we had the hotel’s number on our cell phone and urged us to call them should be have any problems with the Immigration officer. They were actually very good about it all. I was not totally comfortable but I could do no more. It was the last-chance-saloon for us as we needed to hand in our passports to the French Embassy on Wednesday, so if this 90-day thing did not work out tomorrow our plans would be in utter disarray.

It was late afternoon when we decided we needed some exercise so we put on the required attire and took a stroll down to Lumphini Park where we spent quite a lot of time when we were in Bangkok last time. We took a shortcut, according to maps.me and came a cropper; a dead-end lurked after a long and winding road. We must have looked rather bewildered, I would have gone for pissed off, when a young Thai girl asked whether she could help and of course she could. She knew the back roads and back alleys so soon enough we emerged where we wanted to be. She is a student staying right there in the hood and while walking and chatting we found out that she was from Samui and just a week ago she gave a speech to her class promoting South Africa, she’s studying tourism.

Lumphini Park was great as always, people running walking chatting, everybody jolly and having a good old time. We were thinking of eating at the food stalls that normally spring up close to the main entrance to the park but today there was nothing, pity.

Adri wanted a Thai supper, I did not, so we chose to eat at two different places tonight. We first went for my supper at the same place we were at the first night and I ordered the rib eye steak with chips. By now I know not to expect anything from local steaks but I was not very hungry so gave it a go. The rib eye steak was tough as takkies, I never saw the rib, I never saw the eye… it was rather awful.

At Adri’s chosen address she ordered the teriyaki noodle soup with pork… the soup had the consistency of glucose.  The reaction from Adri, after guiding the first spoonful down the hatch, was something to behold. “Ugh!!! Terrible!!!” she exclaimed. I suggested she throw the contents down the drain which was close by, pay up and go get her another meal somewhere else. She tried another mouthful which produced a slightly better result and by the third mouthful she was hooked on this terrible stuff.

It seems like it was just an acquired taste which she acquired within three mouthfuls. Even so, she could not quite get comfortable with that consistency and the strong tinge of sweetness in there, she was expecting salty. She smothered it with salt and pepper to diguise the sweetness, she did not fully succeed. She then attacked it with dried green and red chilies; it made not an iota of a difference, the sweetness persisted. Anyway, Adri did not offer me a taste; whether that was for my benefit or hers, you be the judge.

Supper tonight was a hit and miss affair, or rather a miss s and miss affair, some you lose and some you lose.

We got up at 06:00 on Tuesday morning and by 06:30 we were downstairs to meet the taxi we had arranged waiting with reception yesterday. There was no taxi but the night watchman expected us, hailed a taxi, gave him the correct instructions and we were on our way, meter and all. Immigration only opens at 08:30 but we were taking no chances with the traffic. As we turned onto the highway the taxi was doing a hundred plus plenty. Off the highway we hit some traffic but by 07:15 we were safely deposited at the Immigration building 28km away.

While we were waiting for the doors to open we saw a familiar face amongst the sea of faces. How is this even possible? It was Linda from SA, now living in Bangkok, whom you may remember we met with her husband Derek in Kob Samui when they visited Thea and Andre. At the time we took a boat trip with them to the islands south of Samui called Koh Tan and Koh Mudsum. Wow, what a coincidence! We had a quick chat and soon enough the doors opened and the people started streaming into the Immigration office.

We got out ticket from reception with a number which we hoped would serve us well. It was 30 minutes later when our number came up and we were faced with a stern and official looking gentleman. He shuffled though our papers and frowned at us with a “Chiang Mai?” My heart sank a thousand fathoms and I uttered a feeble “Yes… but…”. Before I could continue he gave us two TM28 (Change of address) forms to complete and instructed us to come directly back to him when done, no need to reface another ticket, another number and another queue.

Once we returned he shuffled so many papers in such a short time, it all became a blur… or maybe my mind was just blurred, expecting yet another setback. But then, finally, he started to complete the Receipt Of Notification of our 90-day report, handed it and our passports back to us and sent us on our way with a wai. We were legal for another 90 days!

Relief streamed through my arteries replacing the blood, I was on a high! It was 09:45 when we went downstairs for a coffee at Amazon, the cappuccino was strong, very strong, I needed something stronger, but that would have to wait until later.

A taxi was at the ready as we exited this fine building and 30 minutes and 160 baht later we were deposited at the steps of the Mo Chit skytrain station. It’s amazing how much one can learn about someone in 30 minutes. The taxi driver’s name is Snam, pronounced Suhnam and was a Mercedes mechanic most of his life until he retired at 59. With his one million baht pension he bought himself the taxi which cost exactly that. His wife is a computer science lecturer at the university, they have two houses, they stay in the one close to the university and sometimes stay for the weekend in the one near the airport.

They have a son and a daughter who both live in the US, in Seattle and Richmond, Virginia, respectively. He is a mechanical engineer and she an architect who runs her own business. They have three grandchildren aged 10, 8 and 6 of variety girl, boy, girl. And then he continued…

After our ride on the skytrain to the Sala Daeng station in the Silom district we exited directly into the attached mall and wandered around and then took our bodies in the direction of home. On the way we passed a little food market buzzing with locals out for lunch. We had corn on the cob, sitting on the pavement across from the market, watching the goings on of the people, quite soothing actually. One can only wonder at what goes on in each brain that walks past, so many thoughts, so many dreams and so many realities…

We dropped our bodies into the same bar as Friday afternoon called Bai Meang Indy 06… don’t ask, no idea. The menu reads “We will tell you the rules of Bai Meang Indy 06. Order very very late. Food is so bad, more than shit. Customer’s not God”. I liked this place already. My big Carlsberg arrived ice cold. Adri skimmed some of it off the top and topped that up with Sprite, we needed to celebrate our successful 90-day reporting. We settled back for a peaceful afternoon, surfing, blogging, watching.  A second big Carlsberg then put on a spectacular show for us. We were celebrating, weren’t we?

The shandy was getting to Adri, she put her head on her arms on the table and took a power nap, right there, I kid you not.

It was while Adri was napping that I had an epiphany, an epiphany about a place. It was a village that I did not recognize, that I had never been to or seen, but it seemed to be made up of a collage of many places that I have been to or seen or experienced in the past, superimposed layer upon layer to form the whole. The place felt mostly Greek, maybe with a touch of Italian and French influences thrown into the mix, but it probably 90% or more Greek.

I was heading towards a house, an old low roofed stone house with similar structures making up the rest of the village as it weaved its way from the little waterfront harbor up and up against the low lying hill. It was early evening, not quite dark yet, with the warm glow from lantern like street lights – protruding from the walls of the houses – giving a golden glow to the smooth cobbled stone streets. It was warm and slightly humid but very comfortable with the fresh smells of the sea hanging thick in the air.

My neighbour and his neighbour, sitting outside their respective homes – probably having an ouzo – awaiting evening to finally fall, greeted me warmly like old friends would as I took the keys from my pocket to unlock my abode. I felt a deep feeling of calm and serenity, punctuated with an intense sense of community… I felt complete peace.

This vision and feeling must have lasted no longer than a few seconds and then, ever so gently, it slowly dissipated into the mists of my mind where it lies imprinted, ready to be called upon at any time. Not only did I see the place in my mind’s eye, I truly experienced it, how cool was that! I have to look for this place, somehow, somewhere… or else I just need to stop drinking Carlsberg!

Supper was at a lovely little restaurant about 100 meters from our hotel. We have passed this way many times before and each time the very friendly staff invited us in and before we could reply they’d smile and say “Maybe tomorrow?”And that “tomorrow” was today, we decided to give them a try and man, we were not disappointed; the food was great, the service and staff were great, it was a really cool little place.

Wednesday morning arrived with its own set of trepidation. It was 09:30 when we left for TLS to hand in our French long stay visa application with its abundance of supporting document. Because we were making use of the premier service I did not print out any documents but prepared everything, to the best of my ability, electronically. I dumped all those documents onto a USB data stick but took my laptop with… just for incase.

Arriving at the reception of TLS we were told to leave all our electronic gadgets in a safety deposit box, none of it could go inside with us. “Drat!”, I thought, but held onto my data stick which was safely stowed in my wallet.

We waited in the holding area for no longer than five minutes when we were called into a separate office where two consultants were seated, we were the only clients in there. The one lady called us over and she started handing out forms for us to complete. “But… but… but…” I protested as I triumphantly pulled the data stick from my wallet. “Drat!” I said aloud this time as I was told that none of their computers had USB ports, for security purposes of course, so the documents could not be copied and printed. “There always is a snag, isn’t it?” but I kept my thoughts to myself. Okay, so I can go outside, fire up my laptop, link to their wifi and email the files to her. No can do, they don’t have wifi, for security purposes of course. “Double drat!” I mumbled to no one in particular as I took the piece of paper with the email address of her boss to whom I could email the documents to… once a find my own wifi.

We went to the first level of the building where there is a Starbucks but could not manage to get hooked up to their wifi… it just did not work. The second coffee shop had no wifi. I was getting rather miffed but we ventured out the building, across a busy street and settled into a coffee shop with excellent wifi and bad coffee.

By the time we got back to TLS the lady advised that her boss was already printing out all our documents. Once printed we went through the list of required documents, handing it to her as it was called for, her scrutinizing it and calling for the next. The second lady in the office started collating Adri’s documents and in no time we had completed the process, all required documents were there, not guaranteed that the French Embassy would accept them though.

Our documents were placed in a neat plastic folders, ready to be delivered to the French Embassy but there was another small matter that had to be taken care of, we had to pay of course. It was now 12:30 and we were told to return by 13:30 as everybody was now on lunch, the business was closed for business. What’s another hour in one’s life, so we took her advice and headed to the basement of the building for lunch where there is a full food market with probably 50 food stalls or more, of every kind imaginable. Oh, and there was also a place to have photos taken, ours were older than the required maximum one month age of such.

Once back at TLS we paid up a handsome amount which included the French Embassy’s visa fee, the TLS visa fee as well as the TLS premium service fee. If the applications are accepted and the visas issued it would be well worth it though.

Patrick from Samui was in Bangkok so we scheduled to meet him for dinner tonight and arranged to meet at The Game sports bar next to the Nana BTS skytrain station. Of course we could have taken a taxi or the Metro or the Skytrain, but Adri demanded that we walk; we needed the exercise… so we walked the whole damn five plus kilometres!

Of course it took longer than expected, it always does, but Patrick did not mind, he was happily sipping away at a big beer when we arrived, 20 minutes late. Man, it was great to see Patrick again, we had a good old chinwag, ordered more beers, and then it was time for dinner.

Walking up Soi 11 where there are a multitude of great looking restaurants we finally decided to go German at the Old German Beerhouse and it did not disappoint. Patrick and I went for the crispy pork knuckle with mashed potato and… sauerkraut of course. Adri had a pork steak with crispy bacon and a wonderful potato dish. Man, we feasted until there was no trace of a feast left on our plates, this was an amazing dinner. I could not help but think of Frank, he would have so loved this place and meal!

We said our goodbyes to Patrick but it won’t be for long, we will see him back on Samui next week. We had the good sense to take the skytrain back to our hood which left us with just 1.5km on foot. We got home thoroughly tired after a rather successful but exhausting day, be fell asleep almost immediately.

Thursday was our last full day in Bangkok and with our carefully laid out but brittle plans having worked out 100%, today we had no admin tasks to be bothered with and could spend the day cavorting around Bangkok.

It was mid morning when we arrived at the skytrain station, bought two unlimited skytrain cards that are valid until 24:00 for 140 baht each, and climbed aboard at the Chong Nonsi station. We got off when we reached the Saphan Taksin station which is right next to the King Taksin Bridge over the Chao Phraya River. This is also where the Central Pier is located, a good point from where to venture far and wide on the many ferries on the river. Entering the pier building it is not immediately clear where to buy tickets for the ferry ride. The first ticket stand wanted to sell us a private ferry trip for 1200 baht and the lady enthusiastically showed us the route on her map. On learning that we wanted to go to The Grand Palace the price changed to 100 baht per person.

I took out the wallet but Adri forced it back in. “We’re not going to be ripped off by this tourist trap” so we proceeded to another stand which was for the government operated ferries, the ones we were looking for in the first place. Here we paid a pittance for the ride, something like 20 baht per person with a ticket that you can use for any number of stops in one direction. If you want to come back the same route you need to buy another ticket for the opposite direction. This was great!

We arrived at the pier closest to The Grand Palace and got off from a crowded ferry. We have been to the palace before so did not want to go through it again, but just wanted to experience the place now that King Bhumibol had passed away, and also to show our respect. There was a hive of activity around and as we wanted to cross the street close to the main entrance it was cordoned off. A procession of mourners, probably a thousand of them all dressed in black, walked passed in a neat row and into a separate entrance from the main one, where they could pay their last respects to their beloved king. People come from all around the country for this memorable but sad experience, I assume it has become a chosen mandatory sabbatical for most Thais.

Once the procession passed we came upon a park which serves as a holding area for mourners, in their thousands at a guess, from where they then join the procession we had just witnessed, probably every hour or so.

We proceeded to walk around the huge palace grounds and then ventured further afield, walking up and down streets, side streets and back alleys, taking in the sights and sounds of the city. We then walked back to the river and another pier and bought a ticket for our return journey, back to the Central Pier.

Adri read about and had a fascination with the Sathorn Unique Tower, or the so-called Ghost Tower. The building is an unfinished skyscraper of which the building was suspended during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when it was already about 80 percent complete. It is a beautiful building but it seems to be rotting away with little chance of it ever being completed. The Ghost Tower seems to mean more than a mere unfinished building. Wiki reports that “There are several superstitions surrounding the building held by people in the nearby communities. Some believe the building is haunted, as the land upon which it sits is probably a former graveyard. Others believe the location of the building, whose shadow is cast upon the neighbouring Wat Yan Nawa to be inauspicious, resulting in its failed completion”.

We weren’t planning to go to the building but as we emerged from the Central Pier area one gets a clear view of it a few blocks away. It really would be an awesome building should it be completed, if someone can just get rid of those ghosts! For more facts on the building head over to Wiki or this travel blog.

My feet were starting to hurt from all the walking but Adri seemed to be in better shape, maybe I should change shoes. We found a lovely little restaurant just off the main road, and just off the beaten track, where we had some beers and where I could rest my feet.

From there we got back onto the skytrain, headed back on the Silom Line and got off at the National Stadium Station, Adri wanted to visit the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. We walked around the several floors, marveling at the mostly photography displays on offer; one floor was dedicated to the work of Princess Sirindhorn, photos she took on her extensive world travels. I also found a very verbal art house, below a video I recorded inside its innards.

We eventually made it back to our hood; it was s now dark and we still had to eat and get to bed early as tomorrow we needed to get another early start for our travels to Koh Samui. We decided to go back to the lovely little Thai restaurant we went to on Tuesday and were received like family. After another wonderful supper we headed home and passed out, again almost immediately. Our trip to Bangkok was most successful.

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