Siem Reap - Bangkok (400km)

Siem Reap airport was a little unorganised. We managed to get in front of a large group of Portuguese tourists to check in without issue. We went through to immigration to receive our exit stamp from Cambodia and saw that there appeared to be only one guy working. Then Matt noticed that there were a number of other guys asleep in their cubicles. Several of us were lined up behind the one awake worker, but then a security guard came through and started waking up others.
A very grumpy looking immigration official waved me over to his line and brusquely stamped my passport.
Unfortunately while we waited in the airport terminal there was a series of brownouts which then

resulted in the air conditioning being turned off. So we had a sweaty wait in the intense Cambodian heat before boarding our plane to Bangkok.

(Photos: front of the Alt Hotel Nana; shacks opposite the hotel).
Once we arrived in Bangkok we took a 40 minute taxi ride to the Alt Hotel Nana in Sukhumvit. Matt has never been to Bangkok before and he was struck by the sheer size of the city. Bangkok city was also a stark contrast to Siem Reap in terms of the prosperity and modernity of the city. Our hotel was very nice and had a pool as well as a gym (we were able to book a nicer hotel for our 3 nights in Bangkok using one of our free nights from Hotels.com rewards).

It is a very nice hotel but directly opposite from the reception is a small complex of corrugated iron shacks housing a number of families and cats. It feels strange to be staying in a luxurious apartment with people living in poverty literally right at the doorstep.

After getting settled in we decided to head out and find somewhere to eat dinner.

(Photos: view of Bangkok city from the hotel balcony).

We were a bit disoriented however being in such a large city and we had to walk for a while before we finally found a nice little Thai restaurant and ate some amazing beef massaman curry. We discovered that we are staying in the middle of a red light district, and walking up the street to the main Sukhumvit Road we passed countless bars with their resident 'bar girls' and lady boys and of course the middle aged fat white guys who are their biggest customers. We are also close to an area known as 'Little Arabia' and at night the narrow sidewalk along the street is converted into a makeshift market with people pressing close together in the tight space to stop and look at the merchandise on offer. As we were squeezing past we noticed that the market vendors were selling some fairly standard merchandise such as phone cases, cheap handbags, souvenirs etc. But then we came across a number of vendors selling sex toys. Like blow up dolls and massive dildos just right out on the street. Awkward.

On our first day in Bangkok we took the free hotel shuttle (a little electric gold buggy) up to Sukhumvit road and then walked 5 minutes to the Nana BTS station. We really enjoyed taking the Skytrain to Siam Central station as we got to see the city from a unique viewpoint. It was hot in Bangkok but nowhere near as hot as in Siem Reap. Nonetheless we decided to seek out some air conditioning for the day. Having had our fair share of temples in Siem Reap we decided to go for a completely different experience and checked out the Centralworld Mall in Bangkok.

(Photos: Erin at Nana Skytrain station; Centralworld mall).

Centralworld is just enormous with floor after floor of clothing, homewares, food and even an ice skating rink. We did some shopping and some eating and then made our way back to the hotel as I was still feeling a bit sick. For dinner we found a great Lebanese restaurant in Little Arabia and had the most delicious chicken shawarma for super cheap.

On our second day in Bangkok we decided to go to the Sealife Bangkok aquarium which is located on the basement level of the extremely flash Siam Paragon shopping mall (just up the street from Centralworld). We had a great morning at the aquarium which is still very new having only been built in 2015. They certainly spared no expense in setting up the aquarium and there were a huge number of very elaborate tanks across 4 subterranean levels. We saw some species of fish that we had never seen before and really enjoyed seeing the native species of fish.

For lunch we went up to the food court level. We found a huge gourmet market which is like a deli/supermarket with food stalls interspersed amongst the foodstuff. The Siam Paragon mall is a very upmarket mall full of designer stores and luxury car dealerships. So we were not surprised to find some of the best quality meat, seafood and produce in the gourmet market. Matt was absoltuely drooling over the Wagyu steak and we noticed that one of the food stalls offered to cook any steak you purchased for 200baht plus extra for sides and sauces. So you can just buy a piece of steak from the butcher then take it over and sit down while a chef cooks it up for your lunch.

(Photos: Siam Paragon mall; aquarium; Guinness world record dish washing attempt).

There were similar arrangements for the seafood and Matt was tempted by oysters the size of his hand (expect that they cost the equivalent of $10AUD each).
We tried some waffle dogs from the 'food truck' set up in the food court which were just out of this world.

Then we went back to the hotel to use the gym and swim in the pool.

The next day we checked out at lunchtime and then took the Skytrain back to the Siam Paragon mall to see a movie while waiting to head to the train station for our trip to Phuket. We were disappointed that we didn't have time to see a 4D movie, but we were still very impressed with even the standard cinemas which were much more luxurious than our cinemas in Australia with enormous reclining seats and leg room for days. We saw Angry Birds which was ok and then took a taxi to Hualamphong Train Station.

(Photos: Hualamphong Train Station; on the train).