With all of my food blogs, I figure I should put in a travel entry. We've been planning this trip for two years and it came so fast. First i have to thank my wife for booking all of our flights and hotels. Another shout out to aeroplan for sending me on this adventure :) no they're not paying me but my spending habits covered our flights. Because I'm writing from my iPad, I'll have to post photos afterwards.
It started Thursday evening....
Out first flight was to Paris, France where we had a 13 hour layover. Now you're probably thinking that's way too long for a layover but it's a lot better than a 4-5 layover where you just sit in a hotel. This way we would have the opportunity to take in Paris for a few hours. The only thing we were nervous about was what were we going to do with our bags for 13 hours. Luckily the airline took care of the bag transfer. We landed around 10am Paris time. The flight wasn't bad but the time adjustment is always the tough part. We were very close to renting a room for a few hours just to get some shut eye. We decided to go downtown to Champs-Élysées which is their main shopping district and all the big name shops are. We waited for about 2.5 hours for a bus before we decided to take the train into the city. Bus service in Paris is horrible!
We got into the city and it was cold and raining. It was about 7 degrees but felt colder because of the rain. They were having a Christmas street festival. It was a bunch of vendors that lined both sides of the street for a long stretch. I started off with a Panini to take in the culture. Followed it up with a scalloped potato mixture with bacon (forgot the name). After a few hours of walking around we went back to the market to get some grub before our flight out to Bangkok. We had some sausages, churros with warm nutella and warm wine. The sausage was tasty but i was more Facinated by the way they dispensed their condiments. It was like a cow teat that you squeeze :) the churros were good but a little too much lemon in the batter. Bu the warm nutella was an amazing touch. The warm wine was interesting. It smelled like wine but tasted like warm apple juice. I was expecting an alcohol taste but only the smell was present.
We made it back to the airport for our 11 hour flight to Bangkok. The airline is great! If you've ever flown with Cathay Pacific, you will appreciate Thai airways. Each seat has 10" screens with remote and touch screens. The remotes are for games. They have a ton of movies as well. Like Cathay Pacific they offer choices in menus for food and they actually serve thai food. I managed to sleep but only a few hours. To be honest I was starting to get restless. I hadn't slept in a bed in almost two days and If you know me, you know I am particular about showering.
We finally arrive in Bangkok and this airport is massive and real nice. What was even nicer is our hotel. We stayed at the Lebua At State Tower. It's likely one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed at. This is one of the hotels that The Hangover II was filmed. They sure use this as their claim to fame with posters all over the hotel.
It felt so good to finally get a shower in and we took a 45 min power nap before we hit the streets. We decided to just roam the streets until we saw something interesting. There are as many tailors it reminded me of Hong Kong. They have more massage spa's as they do tailors and they're filled with tourists. We walked into the first one and booked an apt for 10:30 for 90 mins then went on our quest to find some food. We found street food that looked pretty good. We got curry soup, spring rolls, curried prawns and chicken panang. The spring rolls we filled with vermicelli and cabbage so it was a waste of real estate. The panang and curried prawns weren't anything special but the prawns were massive.
After dinner we hit the market, clubbing and sex district. Its all tied into one area and the sex part of it was interesting to say the least. They have many what seem to be strip clubs. The doors are wide open for you to see the women dancing on stage. They're not naked but in bra and underwear. It seems like a pick one and go to the back room type of place. They probably had 20+ of these within a 1km radius. Then there were men and women advertising 'pussy shows'. Excuse my language, but I'm just saying it the way it is. The women do circus tricks with their vagina's. I didn't see the while list but from the glance I got, I see they do tricks with ping pong balls, razor blades....etc. I'll take a glance at that list when I head back at the end of my trip. Next we walked through the clubbing and bar district. There were many female, she-males, and questionable's waiting to be befriended for the night.
We had enough of the markets and it was time for our massages so off we went. We took a tuk-tuk to the salon. A tuk-tuk is a moped with carriage attached to the back. These are cheaper than cabs. An 8 min ride was about $1.50 CAD. The massage was 90 mins and was about $30CAD. Surprisingly it was really good. The lady had some power which is rare outside of North America. But she had some funny methods. She would strattle/squat over me when massaging. Jess and I were in the same room and she said i was snoring for about an hour :) hey, I was tired and still adjusting to time difference...
Next stop, Siem Reap! Until then.....
Phu'd and Travel
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