Our flight arrived dot on time and Leah started to perspire the moment we hit open, humid air. Hot weather is not her strong point! Immigration was a breeze and once we’d grabbed our bags it was a matter of deciding how to get into Bangkok proper. The BTS link is not complete yet (due to be finished next year and it’ll make the journey incredibly quick and cheap), so the options are meter taxi, limousine or airport bus. The bus had gone up to 150 Baht from 100 Baht with the new airport being further out of the city. A meter taxi is far quicker and not that much more expensive (traffic conditions dependent) so we went that route.
Within half an hour or so and less than 400 Baht lighter we arrived at the Indra Regent. We’d picked somewhere nice for the first couple of nights because it’s Leah’s holiday. And I liked the excuse to have somewhere posh for once. The room was nice, the staff polite, everything sparkly but (as expected) with no free internet. What is it with posh hotels that they can’t give you something like that for free, whereas the cheapest hostels seem to?
It was early evening by the time we settled in and unpacked. Outside the hotel we hopped in a tuk-tuk to a place around the corner (it was chucking it down, so walking wasn’t an option). It wasn’t cheap, but the setting was nice and the food was pretty good. After a beer and some chow, we dodged the drizzle and got a BTS to the Paragon centre where we picked up tickets for Wanted. Not a bad little film. If you switch your brain off and just watch the pretty colours.
We had a fairly early night as I had quite an important appointment the next morning.