bangkok
When life throws you lemons (no seats on any flights to HK from Paris), make lemonade (fly to Bangkok instead and meet your other half there for a few days)! I did just that and landed bright ‘n early after a night flight then pulled a genius travel hack - paying for a couple of hours at an airport hotel gym for swimming pool, louger and shower access. The perfect refresher and time killer after a long flight. I met R off the plane and we picked up a rental car for the next few days, we decided to stay within shortish driving distance of the airport for an easy departure, but to get outside the city and see what we could find.
After some cute roadside stops for snacks, drinks and ice cream and winding our way along a river and through small towns, we ended up out in the countryside. We stayed at an eco lodge for the night, lots of wood furniture and tree-house kinda vibes. It was pretty isolated and empty, but nice accomodation and good food.
Starting with an icy dip in the pool the next morning we then headed off to check out the Khao Yai National Park where we booked a guide for a hike and got convinced to buy and wear leech socks! Having a guide didn’t feel that necessary to begin with, but then we heard Sun Bears in the distance (just after he’d showed us their hefty claw markings on a tree) and he pulled out his gun (to shoot towards the sky and scare them away) … so then we were kinda happy to have him around. It was also cool to have him to show us some interesting insects and trees, and help us hear the amazing sound of a Hornbill flying! Even though we didn’t see Elephants as hoped, we did see lots of Monkeys, and a Moose, on the roadside. It turned out we were on a trail which is some sort of Thailand-Switzerland friendship hike which was also kinda cool.
We left the National Park and headed to a nearby winery for lunch, so random but all around the park is lots of vineyards. We’d never heard of Thai wine and the novelty of a vineyard lunch was too good to pass up. Sadly the wine was nothing to write home about but it was fun to do a tasting and the food was great!
After lunch we drove back to Bangkok, grabbed a hotel with a pool and had a quiet night. Our final day was a Germany bakery for breakfast, a massage and some chill time at the pool before flying home to Hong Kong. So fun to see a totally different side of Thailand and actually really enjoyable travelling on our own steam, decent roads, interesting scenery and the freedom of our own pace.
