Bangkok. What is there to say? It’s enormous and overwhelming and definitely not a city that can be experienced in two days. It doesn’t have the compact, easy to navigate feeling of Hong Kong. This is definitely Thailand and needed far more attention that we were capable of giving it.

I’ll be back.

We were up at 5AM on our first day for the early flight from Vientiane, that made the first day pretty lazy. We spent the day at the hotel pool, enjoying the sun through the heavy layer of smog. It reminded me of Hanoi in that regard, the weather report says it’s sunny, but you never see a blue sky or the sun.

We did enjoy a nice meal on the river at the hotels Thai restaurant. Caellum especially liked the iced tea presentation. The ice cube was lychee infused and the sidecar was a lychee sugar. You added the necessary sweetness to the iced tea. Interactive food is always fun.

The second day we planned to head to a bunch of kids activities, the aquarium, kids discovery area and water park. Unfortunately, two of the 2 were under renovation and we were unable to enjoy them. We didn’t know this until we arrived. We did head to the aquarium, and Caellum enjoyed it. It’s very much like the one in Toronto, no better, no worse.

Once we discovered everything else we wanted to do was closed, we headed back to the hotel. We had no desire to walk around the malls.

Dinner was at the Chinese restaurant and it was quite authentic. I ordered what was called the “health” tasting menu. I ordered it because there was a jellyfish course, and I had never eaten that. Also on the menu was a bird’s nest soup, I’ve had a bird’s nest soup dessert, but never the savory version.

Edible bird’s nests are bird nests created by swiftlets using solidified saliva, which are harvested for human consumption. They are particularly prized in Chinese culture due to their rarity, and supposedly high nutritional value and exquisite flavor.

Caellum surprised me and tried both the jellyfish and bird’s nest soup. What was even more shocking is that he liked both, even when he knew what the bird’s nest soup was. I was a proud foodie Dad. The jellyfish was a unique texture, and I’d probably eat it again, just less of it. I didn’t have my camera with me, so there’s no photographic proof.

On our second full day, we stuck around the hotel. Everyone went to the gym, Caellum did the treadmill and then did 1000m on the rowing machine.

Caellum and I hung out in the steam room, sauna, cold tub and hot tub for an hour or so. 3 of those 4 things Caellum had never done, and he liked them all.

Once we were done that, Caellum did an elephant painting activity in the hotel. He was given a blank slate and created his own unique elephant. The hotel shipped it back for us, so it’ll be waiting for him upon his return.

It seems we didn’t do much in Bangkok, which is true. I think I booked a bit too many spots so close together and everyone was a bit drained. We’re all very much looking forward to spending the next 3.5 weeks in Indonesia. We have another 5AM morning, hopefully the traffic in Bangkok is tame on a Sunday morning and it doesn’t take long to get to the airport.

We do get to fly on a 787 Dreamliner for the first time, I’m a dork and get excited about that sort of thing.

So Bangkok was the dud of the trip, but it wasn’t Bangkok’s fault. Thanks for the hospitality Thailand, and I’ll be back, because it’s warm.