Good evening Singapore. This is Julian and you're listening to another episode of Sleepless in Singapore. It is a Sunday, January 28th, 2024. And it is again time for us to step away from the hustle and enjoy the quiet of the night. Step away from the hustle and enjoy the quiet of the night. Please make yourself comfortable. As for the next hour or so, I will help you clear your mind and hopefully put you to sleep just by talking to you.

Tonight I'm going to talk about a recent trip to Bangkok and then I'm going to read from Tom Sawyer, first in English and then in German. If you enjoy this or if you have any kind of feedback, please visit sleepless.sg or write me an email via julian at sleepless.sg. Alright, it is time to relax and let my voice be your guide to a restful night.

Bangkok is probably one of my favorite cities. I think it is easily in the top five. My other favorite cities are probably Hong Kong, which I think is quite similar in many ways to Singapore. Maybe because of the history and because it's English speaking but also in many other aspects like culinary aspects and the broad variety of restaurants. I think Singapore and Hong Kong are quite similar. Of course I know there are also a million differences but to me these two cities, Singapore and Hong Kong, are in my top five. And then as another Asian city, Bangkok definitely also way up there too.

Bangkok is different from Singapore and Hong Kong to me. It's got different food, it's got a different feeling, it's got a different vibe to it. But nevertheless it is great. I like it. I got lucky last year because I went to Bangkok twice. And that is even within one week. That kind of happened because a couple weeks before, I started a road trip, or rather a train trip with my buddy Hatim and we went all the way from Singapore to to basically northern Laos and we passed Bangkok on that trip. And then, I think really just a week or two later, I was back home, and Nat got some dragon boat cancellation. So we had a free weekend, and we were thinking what to do, and I love these very spontaneous weekend getaways. So I looked at my Singapore Airlines mile account and we had enough miles.

And I did some research and I could find a very nice offer from Shangri-La Bangkok for one of the big fancy rooms for a very reasonable price. So we didn't think twice. We booked everything and two days later in the evening after work we went to the airport, Changi Airport. Best airport in the world. I hope I'm not going to annoy you with that but I really believe it and I'm probably going to mention it every single time I have a travel episode. We went to Changi Airport and took a plane. I think maybe two hours to Bangkok and landed in Suvarnabhumi not the best airport in the world and made our way I think we took a taxi from the airport in Bangkok to our hotel.

The Bangkok Shangri-La, at least the one we were staying in, is right by the river which is a perfect location because you got a good starting point to go along the river. You can go down the river, see the floating markets, you can go up the river and see the Wat Arun and the typical sites everyone is doing. Or you can just stay at the hotel, which is what we did for the first hour or so, and look out the windows because it's a beautiful view. The room we got, we kind of got lucky. Or actually we didn't get lucky. I just booked it. The room we got, we had a view. They had this kind of windows that go out a bit. And that way you can look straight out of it. But you can also look to your left and to your right. Because, how do you call that? Protruded windows? I don't know. Anyway, we had these both in the living room. And even better, we had a bathtub right under one of these windows. So you could lie in the bathtub and have a basically a 180 degrees viewing angle over the river, over the skyline. You could look down to that place where the big ferries wheel is.

And yeah, so we enjoyed the first hour or so. We just enjoyed sitting there looking out of the window before we got a little hungry and thought we only have two days in Bangkok so we probably shouldn't spend them in the hotel room. And we went out and we walked around a bit and we walked past this little market, the Bang Ruk Bazaar. I don't know if that's a temporary thing or always there. It was like, you know, like one of these little night markets they have in Bangkok. And we walked over to the boats, the river boats. And I don't know if that's a secret tip or if everyone is doing that anyway but you can take the local boats like the same boats the locals take and pay a dollar and you kind of get the same experience that you get on the tourist boats except without the annoying blah blah blah so we took one of these boats and we had a fun coincidence on that boat already because there was this Indian couple sitting right behind us and I don't know how that happened I think we took a selfie and they were in it or I don't know what but somehow we got to talk to them and it turns out that Nat and this couple know the same person. They know somebody who went to the same university and they know this person.

So that is always fun, I think. This is always... There are 7 billion people on the Earth, and you meet someone, and they're like, oh yeah, I know the guy. Okay. Anyway, then, next stop, we jumped off the boat. We didn't jump off the boat. We waited until the boat was where it was supposed to be and then left it in a very orderly fashion. And then we went to this market where the... this market or event place, I don't know, where the Ferris wheel is. And we went for a dinner, we went for some, I think Nat was looking for some Thai noodles or something. I don't really remember, which probably means it wasn't terrible, but probably also means it wasn't great. I don't have any pictures, I don't have any memories.

What I do very much remember very vividly was the ice cream we had next though. You know, I'm a big fan of ice cream. There was this stall and they were selling coconut ice cream, which is even better. And they were selling coconut ice cream with mango like pieces of mango which is even better so so I ordered my ice cream and that I will never forget because what I a cup, like a regular cup, I guess, but it contained seven or eight scoops of coconut ice cream. I'm not joking. It was the most ice cream in a one-person cup I have ever seen. And I did my very best to not throw it out, but after maybe four scoops, I had a bit of a brain freeze and couldn't do it anymore. So sadly, even though it was delicious, it had to go. And I am kind of happy that I did not finish it, because right around the corner we found this VR thing, this VR stall.

And they had these VR goggles we all know, you know, like this Oculus Rift or something like that. Actually, I think it was an HTC What is it? HTC Vive? I don't know. And it doesn't matter. It was like one of these VR goggles. And the thing that made it special was they had a construction there, like two seats next to each other. And these seats, you could rotate in every direction. You could even flip them around. So that looked fun enough enough and I guess it was cheap enough. I don't remember what it cost but probably not that much because again then I'd remember. Not too cheap because then I'd probably also remember. So I'm assuming they charged a reasonable price and we wanted to do it and we jumped on these seats and we got the goggles and we picked a roller coaster ride and that was tons of fun. You get the goggles on, you don't see anything anymore, You only see the video of like the three-dimensional video of you going down a roller coaster and your seat is moving adequately. And by adequately, I mean your seat is flipping you completely on your head when in the video, in the 3D roller coaster video, you go on your head.

And while obviously due to the acceleration-deceleration in a a proper like in a real roller coaster that is still more interesting in we are you can do stuff you cannot do in a real roller coaster i hope that never happens to you in a real roller coaster because our roller coaster, it broke down. And then it was very shaky. And then we dropped down from some great height. And it felt realistic enough to not scream, but it felt fun. It was was fun it was a very good experience I can recommend it it's somewhere like behind the Ferris wheel in Bangkok I don't know if they have a link if I can find anything I will put it to the notes for this episode.

Anyway, it was wild enough for me to be glad not to have finished my ice cream. Not all eight scoops. And then the place was closing down. Like the whole area was kind of closing down, so we walked a bit more and decided to go to bed not too late because we only had two days in Bangkok, like one and a half left. And we didn't want to waste any time.

But of course in Bangkok you don't just want to walk back to your hotel, so we found a tuk tuk. This little motorbike based transport thing which is probably not the most safe mode of transport but it's a lot of fun because you can sit in the back you're still outside. There's music blasting. They have lights and they go fast. Yeah, it's a fun thing to do. I never know how much to pay. Usually I look up Grab or Uber in Bangkok and then if the tuk-tuk is around maybe double or maximum triple of what the uber is for the same distance I take the tuk-tuk I'm not sure if that's reasonable if anyone thinks I'm overpaying a lot, then please let me know. So next time I can do better. But so far, this is what I've been doing.

On the next day, we woke up early. And the weather was alright and we started our day in at a breakfast place called Sarnies. Actually there's a Sarnies in Singapore too. It's a western style breakfast. They have Eggs Benedictbenedict, they have peanut butter toasts that are at least four centimeters high and probably a thousand calories. They have all kind of coffee based drinks, cold brews, teas and juices. I mean basically it's a breakfast place but it's a nice one. I can recommend it.

And then from breakfast we were walking around a bit and I remember we walked past this wet market and I always love wet markets because they make for good motives, for good pictures. They don't always smell that nice. This one was particularly smelly. I think like somehow fishy, meaty. And I'm pretty sure we also saw some rodents running around. But with the meat and the fish and then the very colorful vegetables and fruit, it just makes for very nice pictures. And that time in Bangkok, I brought my new camera Alpha 7 R5, which is a bit of an upgrade to the one before. It's actually not even that big of an upgrade, but I got a good deal, so I thought there's no harm. Would be stupid not doing it.

And I brought this camera, and I don't want to make this episode about the camera. I'm sure there will be a camera episode very soon. But I had this new camera and it was only the first 10 releases or so. It died on me. And I could only revive it by completely removing the battery, waiting for a bit and putting it back. And well, long story short, that happened like three more times and I already got frustrated with it. And it never happened with the old model. The old camera was basically the same camera just from last year. Never happened with that, but did happen with a new one three times in Bangkok.

But also I should mention that after Bangkok, I went to Sony Singapore where I bought it. I bought it at Visma. There's a Sony shop at Wiesma. And they were very professional. They had very good service. I explained to them, look, I bought that thing like two weeks back. And I tried it for the first time now this weekend, last weekend. And this is happening. And I luckily could show them, I could reproduce the problem at the store. And the guy said, okay, don't worry about it, I'll take care of it. And he didn't even bother to offer me to repair anything. He said, okay, here is a new one, brand new, out of the box, still sealed. And I got the new thing, including new battery, including all the, including everything, like a sealed box, new camera, without big fuss. So, cheers to that. Luckily, no trouble. Also, it's an amazing camera. I never had any trouble after. And I took it on quite a few trips after.

Okay, now I got distracted by the camera. So let's talk about the nice market and the rodents. And oh yeah, after that we took a local bus. I think we were on our way to lunch. And we still had some time to kill. So we took a local bus. And that was an experience in itself. Just taking the bus. Because it was very old. It was very run down. There was no AC. There were a couple of fans on the ceiling. But mostly you got your air conditioning because the door was open. So you could just like crawl in the bus at a red light, sit, look out the open door, enjoy the ride, enjoy the view, enjoy the sightseeing. And 20 minutes later we jumped off and made our way through some university area where Nat was actually playing the piano. There was one of these like pianos just like standing around. I made her play.

And then still on our way to lunch there was a park and in the park there was a guy, I unfortunately forgot his name, but he was in his 70s at least, I'd say. And he was walking on these sharp rocks with his bare feet. And I wanted to try, and somehow we got to talk to him, and somehow we talked to him like for half an hour. His English was excellent. And he was describing how he's been doing this, like the rock walking, for the last 50 years. And he was never sick even a single day. And all because of the rock walking. And you know what? I cannot prove him wrong, so maybe we should all do the rock walking. I tried it, hurt like hell, but maybe that's what makes it good.

And then finally after the rock walking we made our way a couple roads down again to lunch. For lunch we went to a place called Gagan. Gagan is one of my favorite chefs. He's an Indian chef born in India and then he moved to Bangkok, I guess, and opened a restaurant there. And usually it's very difficult to get a reservation, especially on short notice. But on the plane to Bangkok, I was mindlessly scrolling through my Instagram and I saw this guy, Gagan's social media feed, Instagram feed, and he was posting, or I guess the reservations lady who's managing that stuff was posting that she's got two cancellations and that she's looking for somebody to fill them up. And she just posted that like a minute ago. And I saw it, and I thought like, we're on the way to Bangkok, this is our chance. And I texted her, and I thought like we're on the way to Bangkok, this is our chance and I texted her and I said like look, I'll take it, no questions asked. And she answered, like half an hour later she answered like okay, you were the first one, you got him, I'll see you tomorrow.

And this is how we got the reservations on such very short notice to the very famous Gagan restaurant. And I've been there once before with Christian. A couple of years back, 2019, I think, or 18, 19, I don't know. A couple of years back. And I was very excited to show Nat. And it was the same. It was maybe even better, I don't know. We were sitting at the chef's table. I think there only was the chef's table for that lunch. I'm not sure. And everyone else, there were like 16, 18 seats, everyone else was from a birthday party. So Nat and I, we were the only regular guests. But that didn't change anything, we got the same as everyone. Nat went for the vegetarian, which I can recommend, because unlike in other restaurants, where often the vegetarian is some stripped down regular meal, vegetarian menu option was amazing. I don't think it was better than the regular one but it was at least the same.

For those of you who don't know Gagán, I will again leave a link, but also let me describe the food a bit. Gagán got, I think, 18 or 21 courses. And don't worry, I won't go over all 21, even though I want to put you to sleep. But let me at least describe my favorite ones. So there was one in the very beginning, which is a somehow candied green leaf. It's very small. Every course is basically like one bite. It's very small, like everything is... Every course is basically like one bite. You're supposed to put it in your mouth all at once. And the first one, there's this green leaf candied, and there's a ball of yogurt in it, and the ball of yogurt inside has this prick prickly bristly kind of candy or sweet in it and then you put it all in your mouth like all together and it's somehow exploding exploding both of flavors but also almost physically like erupting in your mouth. And it feels interesting, it tastes interesting in a good way. It's just a lot of fun to eat.

And then there is another dish, like some kind of chocolate cone. He's asking you, like the chef is asking you to put out your middle finger in a gesture you usually don't do in public. And he's putting that chocolate cone on top of it. And then you have to lick it off your finger. and then you have to lick it off your finger.

And then we had a dish that looked like a flower pot with proper real earth. But it was some kind of green cake kind of thing. And then I also remember from the first time I went the long story about this very traditional Indian dish where they use condensed milk or sweetened milk to caramelize and to make some kind of dough or cake dough out of it. And he kind of put that to perfection. I remember him telling it takes 24 hours just to make it. And then he's putting some cream on top and then he's putting something that looks like caviar on top. But I really think it wasn't caviar. It was something else.

And then we had this dish that looked like brain, like a drink almost, that looked like brain, but it was beetroot. And they gave us this whole story about how they use every part of the animal, because that is what you're supposed to do. And when they have rats in the kitchen, they use the rat's brain and the rat's blood. And he was writing that story maybe a bit too intense because two of the other guests from that birthday group, they were like oh really is this I cannot have this obviously it was beetroot and some other stuff then there was a glow in the dark dish then there were a couple more regular dishes like less fun, but even better. You know, just like grilled pork in what looks like a taco here. But excellent taste. but excellent taste.

And then there is one thing I was thinking about. These very fancy dishes where you put tons of effort and where you get the most expensive ingredients. That is what you usually get at fine dining, right? And that is maybe what sets apart these very fancy restaurants from normal restaurants. But I think what sets a very good chef apart from a normal chef is that he can also make the most basic dishes in a way that you can feel, oh, this is an amazing chef. And this guy, he gave us a pot of rice and it quite literally was nothing else but rice. There was no sauce. There was no meat. literally was nothing else but rice. There was no sauce, there was no meat, there was... it was rice and some... and some seasoning and a little... a little bit of fruit or something. So you would think... so you would think everyone could make that, right? But it was one of the most delicious things I've ever had.

Oh, and then there's another classic, of course. This spicy, sour flame you have to lick right off the plate. That seems to be a classic he's always doing. Anyway that was a great lunch, a great day so far. Excellent fun for both of us. Really enjoyed it. And then our stomach full, we went on to do some sightseeing in the afternoon. That was more of the classic stuff everyone is doing. We saw Wat Arun, we saw the sleeping Buddha, we were just strolling around the city a bit more.

And then in the evening we took another tuk-tuk to Kaosan Road because Nat has never been and I wanted to show her. But it kind of turns out it's not that much fun if you don't drink. We just walked up and down and we went for a foot massage. And then we decided to leave for another classic, which isada train market and we sampled different food. We had a bowl of spicy tofu which was delicious. We had a what is supposed to be one of the best Pad Thai which also was absolutely delicious. And we were standing at this stall selling insects and I was contemplating if I should have some insects or not. There was this Aussie guy, like old guy in his 60s, big guy. And he came and he ordered a big bag full of crickets, like roast crickets. And he was eating them like chips. But he didn't offer us, so we didn't get to try and I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a whole bag of crickets just to try one and then throw it out.

And then after the Ratchada train market we made our way back to the hotel and called it a day. The next day was our last day already, so we enjoyed a big big hotel breakfast. Actually we had so much hotel breakfast that one of the two of us got a little bit sick. I'm not telling you who that was. And then we made our way to Chatuchak weekend market, which they say is the biggest market in the world. And seeing it, that could be actually true. They have everything. They have plants. They have fruit. They have food. They have clothing. They have home decor. They have... I think they have basically everything. I'm not sure they have electronics. I didn't see any electronics. But otherwise, it seems they have everything.

We spent a good hour there. And Nat got some glasses. And then we got tired and it started to rain. And our flight was in a couple of hours. So we decided to go back to almost the hotel. There is this big, big shopping center called Iconseum. And in the basement of Iconseum, I remember, there is a big food court. And in the basement of I Can See Em I remembered there is a big food court. And in that food court we had another bunch of dumplings, I remember, that were really beautiful. And then we got this multicolored mango sticky rice, which also was very nice and then after that next door or actually the whole street is full of massage places like legit nice massage places so we went for a one-hour massage

And then maybe before I conclude my Bangkok story, one, I don't know if that's a secret, probably not, but one tip. If in I can see them, you go up all the way, there is a Starbucks and the Starbucks got a very nice rooftop terrace and you have a beautiful view over the river. Over half of the city you look across to where all the hotels are. There's this like Lego brick kind of tower you can see and there's the Hangover Bangkok hotel, you know, where they shot the Hangover movie in Bangkok. The one with the golden dome on top. So yeah, you just go up there, get a coffee, or don't even get a coffee, just go out. That's okay too. And enjoy a beautiful view.

So much for Bangkok this time. And now, let me read the second part of the first chapter of Tom Sawyer.