I arrived a bit late having to sit on the tarmac in HCMC for about an hour as a thunderstorm with some torrential rain came through. I've had super good weather luck this entire trip for the most part, this being another bit of good furtune. They made up most of the time anyway, and immigration was a lot quicker in Bangkok's giant cavernous airport, that I still made it to the Aloft deep within Sukhumvit Soi 11 around 5pm.
Gaggan starts at 9, so I had a few hours to play with and went on a bit of a walking tour through the Sukhumvit area, starting at the Aloft and ending at the Siam Paragon mall (wuth its canal food court). The first half of that is a walk through crowded streets full of bars and Thai women and food stalls and life. Probably not my ideal place to be, but a fun walk nonetheless. The second half of that walk was through various malls - starting with the Central Embassy, a glittering mall with fancy stores and the great Eatthai food hall in the basement level. I was a bit hungry subsisting on just an airport pho around 11:30am, so picked up some satay sticks and a mini pad thai, both cooked quite well. Given I was there around 6pm, I was surprised how busy the Eatthai hall was, with seemingly mostly locals.
From there it was through a few more malls, all really trumped up, even the ones that have the more normal stores like Nike and Lush and the like. They were also all humming with life. Whether its locals or the various parts of Asia that see Bangkok as one of the, if not the singular, popular tourist destinations.
Gaggan itself was great as always. They switched out most of the courses vs. what I had last year. The only real sad note was that Gaggan himself was away doing a set of pop-ups in Europe, but we were in teh capable hands of their head chef who is Portuguese and given that he was quite curious about my background, and gave me a nice knowing nod and smile when introducing a vindaloo dish.
After Gaggan, I headed to my last cocktail spot, FindTheLockerRoom, down its damp alley, past its two sets of lockers, and into cocktail heaven. I don't know if this is better or worse than most of the many other cocktail spots I went to over the course of the trip, but these are probably the tastiest in a way. Not the strongest (though not light for sure, was in a good spot by the end), but none were super bitter or burning, and just all great.
Day 18: The Long & Winding Road Home
The morning drive to BKK was quick and easy, as was the check-in and immigration process, to which I got about an hour in the Silverkris Lounge, which like everything Singapore Airlines does, is great. The seats are comfortable, the food is a panoply of all the hits, from pad thai, to spring rolls, to a great lime fish, to a chicken malaysian curry, to satay (note: I did not have all of these things...). The flight was short and uneventful, but had a nice meal with a shrimp salad, and a really lovely braised beef curry with jasmine rice that was excellent.
The time in Singapore would be short, but busy. Unlike last year where I stayed within the airport, this year I ventured down to the center of Singapore, taking their efficient MRT down to Raffles Place, emerging in a concrete jungle, with the river and Boat Quay nearby. The views of Singapore from teh riverside, along both Boat Quay and Clarke Quay are gorgeous, and every time I come there are new buildings, with more interesting, dynamic architectural design.
I did grab a quick couple beers at Brewerks, which is a fairly commercial craft brewery on Clarke Quay. It was hot, but the beer (two IPAs) hit perfectly, and allowed me to just bake this view in. Every time I do a quick layover in Singapore, I do wonder why I don't just come here for a few days next time. Certainly it can just replace the Bangkok stop were I do get some Singapore points again and run this back.
Before I knew it, I was back in Changi, going to the Business Class lounge - it was full as always but it is probably the biggest single lounge I've been to, with good views of the airport below it (though dark outside no real view of the apron). The food actually was pretty meh - definitely better food in the Singapore Lounge in Bangkok, but they had a great open bar with a good scotch selection and a cocktail list that included white russians, which I had a couple over my three hours in the lounge.
And then the flight - the world's longest, the third time I'm ending one of these Asia trips on it. For some reason, I've always gotten a relatively "short" version of the flight - this time 17h20m (and yes, that is short...). But man is the flight just great. The service with Singapore is always amazing. The food service was pristine. The seat isn't the greatest, to be honest, but has a lot of space and the bedding and pillow were super comfortable.
There are two scheduled meals, one right after take-off, and another about 9 hours into the flight to time with dinner time in New York. The odd part is the second meal is the grander, more played out one. I went with Singapore Airlines's "book the cook" format both times for the main, to great results. The first meal had a great smoked salmon salad starter, a great bread basket to choose from, and my main of the famous Lobster Thermidor - which was just amazingly well prepared. The second meal starts with just a plate of four stay sticks that were shockingly good given they can't grill them in the plane. Then a starter of a great Singaporean Prawn salad, and my main of Beef Rendang, which was also excellent.
As the hours counted down to the ultimate landing at 5:20am, I did think about how lucky I am to be able to go on this type of trip. I definitely overspent on food (but would argue underspent on souvenirs and tourism). I definitely went a bit too far going to Gaggan again all things considered. But it took a lot of planning, especially the Japan part. We were lucky at times with teh weather largely holding up, but it takes planning, time, effort to plan a trip like this, and it always amazing when the real thing lives up to the idea.
