A Trip Down Memory Lane - Revisiting Bangkok After 7 Years!

Firstly, I'm glad I found this community since I wasn't quite sure where to post. Now I know that there's a community I can post in for all of my content from SEA 🙂

Yes! I arrived in Bangkok, last Friday, early in the morning. Needless to say, I was exhausted after the long flight(s). I hadn't slept at all on any of the 2 flights (I was traveling daytime 'my' time so for me it was 12:30 am when I arrived. Here though it was already a new day, 6:30 am. I had traveled through and skipped the night. It's always a strange feeling to change time zones like that. It was a bit challenging because I couldn't check in at the hotel until 3 pm so I had to keep myself busy, but I was desperate for a bed.

I decided to have a 90-minute Thai massage, mostly to kill some time, but I also felt it was a good idea, at least I could lie down for a while. When I finally could check in I fell asleep immediately, woke up after one hour, and somehow managed to go out to get some dinner. Then I came back to the room and slept through the whole night, Thai time. So that was really good. Yesterday I felt way better.

I'm only in Bangkok for 3 nights, mostly to recover from the flight. I decided to stay in the same area as I did 7 years ago (not the same hotel though, back then I stayed at an Airbnb where yoga classes were included). So I'm in Sukhumvit. I'm about 10-15 minutes away by foot from Terminal 21 shopping mall. I remember it very well from my last visit. I really liked it. It's crazy busy though so it was a bit too much for me when I was wandering around before I could check in. But yesterday I did some shopping there. I didn't bring so many clothes because I don't really have much for the Thai climate anyway, and it'll both be easier and cheaper to find here than back in Sweden.

They had gone a bit over the top with the Christmas decorations. Christmas songs are on repeat kind of everywhere, even in the corridor at the hotel, which has driven me a bit crazy, haha.

They have built a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge inside the shopping mall. Not as impressive as the real one but it's kind of funny. There's a giant food court in the shopping mall, as well as many restaurants. What always strikes me when I travel is how boring and limited restaurants are in Sweden. But it also strikes me how much unhealthy food that's available here.

Everything is very clean at this shopping mall. They clean the restrooms every 30 minutes.

It's very busy outside of the shopping mall. I also have to remember how to look when they drive on the left side of the road 🙂

I was really happy about the day yesterday. It felt great to be back and it felt very familiar. Last night I couldn't sleep much though. Maybe because I wasn't as tired as the first night. But also because the bed was too hard, my hips started to hurt quite badly (I guess I was just too exhausted the first night to let that bother me). In the morning I was really sore. I don't want to sound like the princess in The Princess and the Pea fairy tale but it's a bit of a concern I have for my rather long stay here in Thailand since I know that the beds here are usually harder. Let's just hope the bed is better at the next place.

I have also felt nauseous the whole day today. So it's been a bit challenging. I haven't managed to do much. But I also reminded myself that the plan was just to recover here.

Tomorrow morning I have a flight to Chiang Mai, where I'll probably stay for at least a month. Right now I don't understand why I booked a morning flight, I think I have to get up at 5:15 am. Luckily it's just a short flight, 1 hour and 15 minutes. But I always find airports to be a hassle. And then I'll have to wait again until I can check in there. Not the best planning from my side. But there were many things to consider and I'll survive 🙂

Do you see the poinsettias in the pictures below? A bit too sunny for them maybe. I'm so used to being careful with them because they are not so resilient, at least not to freezing degrees. They don't have to worry about that here 🙂 (It's almost 35 degrees Celsius here).

It's always nice to find something green among all the concrete.

I'm sorry if this post is a bit incoherent. I'm very tired and I'll jump into the shower and then try to sleep. I'm looking forward to arriving in Chiang Mai. Then I think I'll be able to relax more and start to structure my time here a bit. But I wanted to post something to let you know that I have arrived and I'm very happy to have escaped the Swedish Winter!

Thanks for reading 🌸

Wishing you a lovely day 💚