We flew from Krabi back to Bangkok, but landed this time at their older airport, DMK. We hopped in a Grab and got dropped off at our nice hotel in Chinatown. When we checked in, there was even a bag of oranges (given for good luck and prosperity) waiting for us with a note wishing us a happy Chinese New Year. By the time we checked in it was about 10:30 pm; Sam was tired and called it a night, but we decided to don our red shirts and go out and explore the neighborhood and see what festivities were going on since we had landed on January 29, the first day of Chinese New Year this year. Our hotel was on a quieter side street, but we very close to the main Yaowarat Road we had explored last time we were in Bangkok. Chinatown was alive for the Chinese New Year, and this time, Yaowarat Road was even shut down to traffic. There were people dressed in red everywhere, food stalls lining the streets, and banners lanterns, and decorations hanging above us and from store fronts. As we walked through the crowds, we also saw dragon dances in the street, which we learned is performed to bring good fortune, prosperity, and to ward off evil spirits and bad luck. Everyone was loving the festivities, and we wandered down until we found a stage with a band performing and enjoyed that for a while. We couldn't resist grabbing some dumplings and some Tanghulu (candied strawberries on a stick). After about an hour of celebrating, we headed back to the hotel, and hoped that Sam would be treated to the same fun the next night.
The next morning, we planned out our next couple of days in Bangkok. The new year festivities were mostly at night, and today was going to be really hot, so we decided to spend some time indoors. We walked through Chinatown so Sam could see the neighborhood and made out way to the river where we hopped on a quick ferry across and made our way into yet another massive, beautiful Bangkok mall- the IconSiam (the 11th biggest mall in the world, just below CentralWorld and above Mall of America!). We had fun the A/C hopping into stores (including a crazy fancy Apple store with a whole private terrace overlooking the river and city), winning prizes from the vending machines, and eating! The ground floor of the mall was a huge food court set up to be a lot of street food stalls and split into the different food specialties from different regions of Thailand. We wanted to try it all, but we settled with Khao Soi (good, but not as good as Chiang Mai), a delicious Thai coffee brewed in traditional clay pots, and banana roti. Full and happy, we made our way back to the hotel where we relaxed for a while. That evening, we got dressed up in red again and ventured back out to Yaowarat Road. Luckily, the festivities were just as fun tonight as last night, and we had a blast walking around, trying more street food (steamed buns, pork belly sandwiches, grilled chicken on a stick, sesame balls, and more) and buying souvenirs to commemorate the year of the snake.
The next morning, we got an earlier start to beat the hear and jumped on the train to Old Town to visit Wat Pho, Bangkok's oldest temple and Thailand's first public university. On our way to Way Pho, we made a pit stop to see the impressive Wat Arun visible across the river. We walked through the beautiful Wat Pho complex, starting at the famous reclining buddha since there were less people in the morning. We knew the reclining gold-plated Buddha would be huge and impressive, but we couldn't believe how massive it was. It is about 150 feet long and 50 feet high, and barely fit in the building it was housed. It was so big, you couldn't' even see it all from one end, and could barely get a picture of it for scale. Very cool. As we continued to walk around the grounds, we admired the stunning colorful tile work on the buildings, the architecture, and the landscaping that made this temple one of the prettiest and most peaceful temples we had seen. We then queued up with others and were given a bracelet from a monk to celebrate the Chinese New Year. As we walked past, another monk splashed water on on us for good luck; we think he was having fun with it, though, because while Sam and Mel got a few respectable drops, Carson got absolutely soaked- it was very funny, and we kept joking that he was extra blessed. Walked around found out it was a University. We eventually left Wat Pho, and walked around to see some more of the impressive buildings in the Old Town like the Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha, but we didn't buy tickets to visit. We made our way back to out hotel, but not before Carson got another blessing (he got pooped on by a bird). Back at the hotel, we relxed and cooled off, and then Melissa and Sam got their final massages (oil for Sam, traditional Thai for Mel). That night, we wanted to splurge for our final night in Asia and our final night with Sam, so we decided to find a rooftop bar. We heard that the rooftop of the Hilton across the river was great, so we made our way there. Sam hadn't been on a motorbike yet in Asia, so we all called separate Grab bikes to take us there. We made out way to the 360 Lounge on the roof and enjoyed a few drinks with the views of the sprawling and snd lit up city around us. The bar was right next to IconSiam, so we ventured back to the food court to find dinner. We grabbed some curry, but for some reason it didn't taste very good, so we made a pit stop on our way back to the hotel to to stop at the Chinatown market for some street food. That night, we did a major overhaul of our backpacks- Sam had brought us a lot of the hiking clothes and shoes we would need for the next leg of the trip, and we sent her back with the clothes and souvenirs we didn't need to keep lugging around (including Carson's three piece suit).
We said goodbye to Sam the next morning so she could catch her flight, and we slept in, chilled, and finished packing our. Our flight wasn't until 9:30pm so we dropped our bags. in the lobby and went to find a final fried rice lunch. We walked thru Chinatown one last time, and then worked on the log and prepped for New Zealand. Eventually, we took the train to airport, chilled and had dinner in the lounge, and then boarded our long flight to Auckland (via Brisbane).
We loved Bangkok during out first stop there, but we loved it even more the second time. For one thing, it was great to see the city with Sam, and being there during Chinese New Year was just incredible and one of the most fun cultural experiences we had to date (and some of the best food!). While we were a little sad to say goodbye to Asia, we felt like we really maximized our time and were itching for something different after four months of wonderful but busy and chaotic travel- it was perfect timing for us to head to the next continent- Oceania.
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