You know how’s a good way to start a 39-day, trans-Pacific trip? As you’re settling into your tiny economy seat and mentally preparing for a long and uncomfortable flight, the lead flight attendant announces to everyone that the cabin doors have been closed and you realize that the plane is only one-third full. Sofas for everyone! Armed with sleeping pills, earplugs, a sleep mask, and a row of seats all to myself, I had the easiest 14-hour flight ever. Dinner, sleep, breakfast, movie, done. Hello Asia!
After a short layover in Taipei and a (relatively) short flight to Bangkok, I met my friend Pantip, who was very graciously picking me up from the airport. We had first met on my trip to Thailand last year and kept in touch and she was more than happy to celebrate my birthday with me. After dropping me off at my hotel in Ekkamai (a part of Sukhumvit), she left to run errands for a few hours while I checked in, unpacked, and wandered around to get the lay of the land.
After I walked back to the hotel and went up to my room, I quickly became aware of a lingering haze inside my room, in the hallway, and inside the building in general. I stepped out on both patios and looked around at the neighbors to see if anything was clearly wrong or out of the ordinary. The family next door had a small grill lit for cooking dinner, but that couldn’t have produced the amount of smoke I was seeing. I went downstairs to talk to the woman at reception and she spoke enough English to explain what had happened. She was noticeably on edge and trying to coordinate activities with the rest of her staff as she told me that there had been a fire in one of the rooms.
You know how’s a bad way to start a 39-day, trans-Pacific trip? With a fucking fire in your hotel. On your first night.
As she was offering her best explanation – something involving a lit cigarette – she gestured towards the driveway. I finally noticed what had been sitting there the whole time: a fully packed suitcase, burnt to a crisp, with an electrical cord sticking out of it.
Holy shit, talk about a disastrous start to a trip! To this day, I still don’t know exactly what caused the fire, but I’m more inclined to believe that it was started by a small electrical device (hair dryer or curling iron or whatever) rather than a carelessly discarded cigarette.
As the staff hurriedly worked to salvage furniture and electronics from the smoky, ashy room, Pantip arrived and both the receptionist and I filled her in on what had happened. My request for a portable fan was denied, as the hotel had only one or two and needed them for airing out the fire room. My request to be moved to a different room was also denied, as the hotel was fully booked.
We went upstairs to my room to figure out what to do next. I opened both patio doors and turned on the fans in both aircon units to create as much airflow as I could. At that point, there was nothing much more I could do to improve the situation, so I turned to Pantip and said, “Look, there’s nothing more we can do. It’s my birthday and I want to go out, so I’m going to get dressed, and then we’re getting out of here.” She agreed.
We got some tom yum mama hotpot from a local spot in the neighborhood, then I requested that we go to Moon Bar, probably my favorite rooftop bar in the world. It was a very relaxing evening, which was totally fine by me after such a long day: 24 hours of flights and airports, 48 hours without a proper bed, and one near-disaster involving a mysterious fire. We caught up over mojitos while enjoying the warm weather and admiring the twinkling lights of the city. My cell phone photos never do the place justice, so I suggest looking at Google image results instead.
I slept well that night, but the bright morning sun and jet lag woke me up at 6:30 the next morning, much earlier than my usual rising time. Leaving the windows open and the aircon fans running all night had helped a great deal with the air quality in the room. (By that afternoon, the haze would be gone entirely.)
Blessed with a full day to work with, I once again wandered the neighborhood and the city, partially to pass the time and try some new restaurants, but also to run some errands. While I was packing the day I left America, I realized that I had lost both pairs of swim trunks I owned, so I made a note to myself to buy some new ones in Bangkok. I didn’t realize this would be so difficult! I bounced from mall to mall, looking for a shop selling men’s swimwear, but it being “winter” in Thailand, those kinds of clothes were very difficult to find. It took almost half the day, but I finally found a shop in Terminal 21.
While I was still in a shopping mood, which is rare for me, I opted to get a new pair of white kicks too; the pair I had brought with me had been on many an adventure already and looked the part. It wasn’t a cute look for being in a major, metropolitan city. I shopped around and bought one of the cheapest pairs of “import” shoes that they actually had in my size. Ironically, and poetically, the “import” Chucks I bought were made in Thailand.
While wandering the neighborhood that day, I stumbled upon an incredible Stranger Things 2 art installation/advertisement on the outside of an abandoned building. (Funny enough, that abandoned building used to be a music venue called Sonic that I had read about before the trip and even added to my list of places to check out.) Evidently, Netflix had commissioned a couple of local artists to make the installation, which included several massive murals, a statue of Eleven, and various props and decorations that will be familiar to fans of the show.
I was up early again Monday morning to start working remotely. The shifted sleeping schedule would become the norm for the next few weeks and worked out incredibly well, just like it did last year. When it’s 7:00 am in Southeast Asia, it’s 4:00 pm in California, so upon waking up, I’d grab my laptop and work in bed, syncing up with coworkers about anything that had come up during the day. After an hour or so, I’d close my laptop, get out of bed, get ready, and head off to my coworking space for 8 hours of completely uninterrupted working. Just like last year, I had a medium-sized project to work on, so I would hack away all day, send my changes to my manager and coworkers at the end of the day, and get their feedback the following morning. The end of my day also overlapped with the start of the day in Europe, so I could sync up with my Dublin coworkers too, if necessary. I swear these trips to Southeast Asia are my most productive work periods of the entire year.
For my week in Bangkok, I worked out of Mashmellow, a new coworking space that had just opened only a few months prior. While researching the trip, I had briefly considered going to one of the larger or well-known coworking spaces in the city, but was worried that they would be too full, which is more likely during the peak tourist season. Mashmellow was the exact opposite: though most of the private offices were occupied by small businesses, I was usually the only person in the communal working area.
Every day, after finishing up in the late afternoon, I’d walk back to my hotel and take full advantage of the rooftop pool, drying off easily in the warm evening weather and soaking up the sights and sounds of the city.
And that’s more or less how my week in Bangkok went: up early every morning, worked on my project at the coworking space, came home to a rooftop swim, then either met up with a friend in the evening or explored the neighborhood on my own. Ekkamai is very local, so I didn’t see many tourists or expats the whole week. Actually, I barely saw any farang; the vast majority of foreigners in Ekkamai are Japanese or Korean.
As with my trip last year, I tried to be better about taking photos of my food and drink, so here are a few honorable mentions from the neighborhood.
Khun Churn for vegan/vegetarian Thai food:
Mikkeller for fancy beer:
Uncle Jeff Kitchen for Malaysian food:
Tamnak Isan for Isan food:
