Montien Hotel, Bangkok: Day 1

After packing on Friday, we spent an hour trying to get Sue-Ann’s new combination suitcase to lock. I eventually figured it out but locked it without remembering what combination I used, so we had to start through from 001 at 1am on Friday. Luckily we only had to go through around 200 combinations before we found the right one.

SA bought me a 90-300mm zoom lens for my camera at Gatwick duty free, but it turned out it doesn’t have image stabilisation so will have to return that when we get back.

We arrived in Bangkok at around 8am [2am UK time] after travelling for 20 hours on just one and a half hours sleep and were met by our rep from Tour East - upset to find out that he did not follow in his predecessors footsteps by having a fantastic name such as Mr.Mac and Umaporn, instead the guy was called Phillip.

Anyways we got over that pretty quickly, he was a nice enough guy though and so off we trekked to the Tour East minibus. It was only once we had set off that we were reminded how scary an experience a drive through Bangkok could be. This was only made worse by the fact that our driver tended to drift in and out of lanes and motorbikes weaved in and through traffic without a care in the world.

After many scares and curb collisions, we arrived at the Montien Bangkok [Bangkok is such a dump]. It’s very hot, but overcast - we’re looking forward to Phuket already and are trying to remember why we decided to visit Bangkok at all.

The Montien hotel is a bit crap, not like it’s sister hotel we stayed in a few years back, the Montien Riverside. The bathroom is a bit dirty but the people really nice & friendly, except those that give me the look as if I just bought Sue-Ann - tossers. Another bonus is the hotel is right on Patpong Road, which come night time turns into a great night market. You get offered many different things from jeans and dvd’s to ping pong shows and pussy! Not tried the pussy but the jeans and dvd’s are a hit!

We had dinner at a restaurant called the Mango Tree. The food was good: tom yum goong, garlic squid, stir fried morning glory [ung choi] and carb meat fried rice. The drink was also good: Singha beer and frosted orange cocktail, We skipped desert and went right onto liqueur coffee - mine was the b52! [kahlua, gran marnier, baileys, espresso, milk] and Sue-Ann had a cold one - the banana split [creme de cacoa, banana liqueur, ice cream, whipped cream, cherry].