When Bangkok Feels Like Home

​After Bhutan, we stopped for a few days in Bangkok to regroup. It was our second trip to Bangkok, it being a major hub to many southeast Asian countries, and we were struck by how comforting it was to be back. After nearly six weeks of traveling to places that were both very foreign to our family and still relatively primitive in many ways, Bangkok offered the needed respite and recharge. 

Before we left on our trip, we vowed to avoid American chains abroad, for our goal was to immerse whenever possible into the local culture, including the lodging (and that we did in Bhutan - be sure to ask Glenn about our Homestay and the Hot Stone Bath where we almost boiled him). I had been forewarned by a friend living in Hong Kong that traveling through Asia is exhausting and that we had a very ambitious agenda. She, of course, was right, so when it came to being in Bangkok, we were looking forward to easy and familiar.

We stayed at the W in Bangkok, and it was the perfect decision. Admittedly, it was one of the nicer W hotels we have stayed in, and W hotels are generally nice hotels, but the lens through which we viewed things was different than it had been just two months ago, and it felt like heaven. From the air-conditioned van that picked us up (with wi-fi - wow!) to the bright and cheerful lobby to the comfortable beds and pressurized hot showers to the quick turnaround on wash-and-fold, we appreciated it all. In hindsight, it’s clear our perspective had started to shift. 

While we didn’t have nearly enough time in Bangkok, let alone Thailand, Bangkok was one of my favorite cities in Asia. It was a unique mix of first and third world….many luxuries and comforts of first world were accessible, but the strong cultural presence of the Thai people still dominated the scene. Simply walking the streets offered a richness of smells, sights and sounds, and we loved the adventure of tuk-tuk rides through the city. As we ventured further from the westernized city center, we discovered a number of unique sights - such as the row house with thousands of car parts piled up in the fenced in front yard….it truly looked like art. To be sure, it is a country to which we will return.