Back in Asia: Bangkok

After almost 5 years it's that time again, our first new entry on our travel blog during our 3 Montaigne trip through Asia.

First stop: BANGKOK.

Actually only planned as a stopover on the trip to Tokyo, we decided to extend the stay to almost 6 days, and so we were there from November 3rd. until 8.11. back in the Thai capital.

Our first impression: A lot has changed. Some hotels, restaurants and cafés that we visited during our last stays no longer exist. Street vendors have almost disappeared from some parts of the city. The city seems cleaner and there are probably 3 new malls.

These changes made us sad at first; the new partial order seemingly gradually takes away some of the city's charm.

Of course it also has a lot of good things. For example, taking a taxi can now always be done with the “Grab” app, saving you the hassle of negotiating. But we were particularly pleasantly surprised by the urban design. During the renovation of Benchakitti Park, for example, great emphasis was placed on re-naturalization in the middle of the metropolis.

In addition to these first impressions, there was a lot on our agenda over the 6 days. We have been particularly looking forward to the food for months and so, using the Michelin Guide as an example, we ate through several restaurants and street food establishments. In addition to shrimp dumplings in the alleys of Chinatown, fish ball noodle soup in a restaurant on the street & boat noodles in a trendy restaurant, “Polo Fried Chicken” was also on our list. In addition to half fried chicken for €3, this restaurant also offers wonderful papaya salad and incredibly good fishcakes. The name of the restaurant comes from its location on “Soi Polo” (Soi = street), near the Polo Football Park, one of the largest in the city where dozens of chicken restaurants have set up shop.

Other highlights of our stay were:

• The great cafés we were able to discover, like Phatom, which is located in the countryside
• The CityCity Bangkok gallery, with a great interactive exhibition
• The teas we drank in the garden of the Mandarin Oriental and in a new teahouse Araksa, which grows and brews its tea in Chiangmai Mai
• Lunch with our friend “Pa”, the daughter of one of Katharina’s grandpa’s business partners, where she showed us the cuisine of southern Thailand
• Our visit to Philipp's trusted tailor for shirts, trousers and vests

Now we continue in Japan. Here we spend two weeks in Tokyo, Hakone, the Ito Peninsula and Osaka.

Greetings from Asia!

Kati and Philip