Last year, one of my girlfriends had mentioned in the summer that she wanted to spend her next birthday in Thailand. Now if you know me well enough, you know that mentioning a trip around me is almost like extending an invite, and in some cases that just means that you are putting me in charge of putting an amazing experience together, and I did just that.
After doing some research on when to go, and finalizing everyone that was coming we had a group of 4 and were ready to start planning our trip. I like to consider myself a very resourceful person, so when I saw round trip tickets to Bangkok for about $450, I hopped on that deal. We ended up booking a flight that had a layover in Beijing both going and coming, which we did intentionally so that we could stop and see the Great Wall of China. (Because our layover was so short we were able to pay about $25 and get a day visa to go out of the airport and explore).
The three of us that traveled from California arrived in Bangkok first and there was instantly so much hustle and bustle in the city. Cars, people and tuktuks everywhere. We stayed at the W in Bangkok which I definitely recommend visiting. The staff, food as well as the swimming pool were awesome. Since Sascha was traveling from London, her flight arrived a little later, and once she arrived we sat by the pool to catch up and then headed out for a night on the town to bring in the birthday.
Now i've heard people refer to New York as the city that never sleeps, but for some reason I find that whenever I go out of town, especially to Asian cities, I find a true city that Doesn't Sleep. People were up at all hours. We went to Khao San Road, the backpacking district, 'traveler hub of South East Asia. Jam-packed with raucous bars and restaurants as well as budget hostels, it’s a favorite for late-night revelers.' Although we passed up a bunch, we did not go see a Ladyboy or pingpong show (I've gotten asked that question quite a few times). After partying and trying to push through our jetlag, we all hopped into the back of a tuktuk and headed back to our hotel.