You don’t need long to see the best of Bangkok... STOPOVER SECRETS
AFTER watching through floor-toceiling glass windows an eerie blood red sun drop huge and fast behind the skyscrapers from the 15th floor of my hotel, night fell in a place that feels like it was born to be solely nocturnal.
By the time the sun rose again the following dawn, I’d danced with a handful of strangers at a jazz club and tried some strange delicacies. I’d also discovered how you sweat consistently in Bangkok but with the right digs, you’ll see the place in a whole new light.
How do you spend such a finite amount of time in a city with so much colour? My senses were smashed within ten minutes of landing. The airport seemed chaotic but somehow had the order of Tokyo underlying when it came to cars and transfers. The skytrain was equally well signposted.
Speeding along the highway into the big city, at this point the sun still high on a late Saturday afternoon, the glinting of the skyscapers and combined humidity felt like science-fiction to me. It was incredibly exhilarating to finally be here — and such a contrast after quieter days on jungled islands.
WHICH is why I extended my stopover from the south of Thailand home to northern Europe from two hours to two days. I wanted to feel and see the balm and clamour of this built up metropolis of structures, night markets and characters. Locals, vagabonds, flaneurs, suits, dancers, hustlers, everything in between. I just didn’t know what to expect from Bangkok, but I knew it was going to be a lot.
I wanted to see the glamour and the grit combined, and so checked into the boutique VIE Hotel near the CBD and Ratchathewi station. Its location is smack in the middle of various street foods and hectic malls, in close proximity to the notorious Chatuchak weekend market, the river from which you can catch a boat easily to the old city, and the Skytrain directly to/ from the airport in just under an hour.
The decadence and old-time glamour of this locale — including its free-flowing cocktail hour (two hours) in the chandeliered, candlelit piano lounge, and 11th floor bistrotheque serving everything from Gillardieu oysters to fillet steak and traditional Thai cuisine — is balanced by an impressively slick renovation: plush upholstery, marble floors, a water fountain entrance and the hotel’s two pieces de resistances: a rooftop gym, pool and bar, and an on-site fine sushi bar.
Unsurprisingly, Bangkok is such a travellers’ mecca across both business and leisure that it nails global fine cuisine, and Japanese is certainly one.
Which brings me to that time I ate shirako, aka cod testicles — among other delights such as fatty tuna sashimi with gold leaf and seared wagyu beef and their signature yellow tail. Within the gorgeously lit lair that is YTSB, all reds and polished woods with lines of bottles of sake, the amazingly fun and skilled staff watched intently as I poker-faced my way through an exquisite omakase, graduating exponentially to impressive raw and blow-torched things from the ocean, my waitress gratuitously pouring sake (chilled, just how I love it) and sharing stories of food and travel.
The beautifully nonpareil fresh wasabi, grated before my very eyes by a chef whose sharp knives fashioned some of the most excellent nigiri et al I’ve ever laid my mouth on, will stay with me forever. I had the most heavenly garnish to accompany the acquired taste of the shirako — and I was thrilled to be able to leave saying I’d tried this delicacy.
I was thirsty for an adventure, so set upon seeking out Bangkok’s best jazz club after hearing about it in Phuket. ‘A great mix of local music lovers and jazz aficionado tourists,’ they said.
Bopping tipsily to the cartoonlike song of the skytrain’s tannoy, I reached Victory Monument and heard an old Japanese man utter the word ‘saxophone’ to his friends, introduced myself and together we found the very thing a few minutes’ away, as we enjoyed some beers. They were senior tennis champs, fresh from a tournament in Pattaya and had travelled the world in their whites.
Next day, I sunbathed and swam rooftop-style in the roaringly hot Sunday sun, then explored the madness of Chatuchak market where I stocked up on tiger balms and snake oils (the internet insisting it’s a sustainable and crueltyfree by-product of the popular crocodile meat and leather farming industry, which does wonders for the face). Pounding the treadmill while gazing across the skyline was really powerful, and having all these amenities — plus an epic breakfast of choice; char sui, dim sum, omelettes, kimchi, fresh fruit: khob-kun-Ka (thank you). I love Asian hotel breakfasts.
By evening, VIE can deliver you by jingling tuk-tuk (hold on for dear life) to a tuk-tuk foodie tour of the old city and as it’s usually closed-at-night temples, this is incredible. Go hungry as you will eat at least six dishes with Singhas. You will need all the energy to prowl the night market. I adored the Ratchada Train one for its silks and costume jewellery and close proximity to the best gay bars in town, aka the best and most relaxed places to dance and a way to swerve the backpackers fresh from Full Moon gap year experiences.
Yhe kindness expressed by the Thai people is incredible.
It was a full moon of serious proportions as I prepared to fly home late that night, and the throbbing orange sun began to fall fast again. Everyone was gearing up for the magical Loy Krathong festival of lights in which beautiful flower arrangements and offerings float downstream and upstream and indeed upon any water as night falls, lit with candles and lanterns. The base of these wreaths are made from a slice of a banana tree trunk or spider lily plant or bread that can be scoffed by the fish.
Bangkok is a strange and brilliant wonder, and if you’re there briefly, place yourself in a duplex or penthouse somewhere central for a comfortable and rounded experience with easy access to the gems this city has to offer.
Where I was, I could almost scan the city without leaving. With a new spa from Organika just opened and sister VIE properties in both the Thai wine region and the Maldives, the hoteliers behind this inviting behemoth know how to whet one’s appetite for a Bangkok stopover.
TRAVEL FACTS
How to get there: Emirates flies from Dublin to Bangkok from €550 return, visit emirates.com Where to stay: Rooms at VIE hotel cost from €100 per night, visit viehotelbangkok.com