Traveling to Bangkok for a weekend

It can sound like a long trip to travel to Bangkok from Europe for a weekend but due to the time difference I would say jet lag wise and time wise it is more efficient than going to New York. Many flights leave Europe towards Bangkok in the afternoon and then you spend approximately 12 hours on board and wake up in Bangkok the next day. If you manage to sleep it is a great deal. Same when you travel back, flights leave Bangkok just after midnight and you arrive in Europe at breakfast time the same day. I just got back from a long weekend in Bangkok and this journey I have done many many times when I need a bit of Asia. Especially during the dark winter months.

Where to stay in Bangkok

Bangkok is a huge city and depending on what you want to do you need to consider that when booking your hotel. Spending hours in the traffic is nothing you want to do. The newest hotels are nearby the river but to get to the city center from there takes an hour. Those hotels are great with magic views and if you just want to hang out at great pools and do one activity a day it is worth it. Otherwise I would say that staying at Asok station near Sukhumvit road is better. There are also new hotels there but also many 10+ year old ones. Often the ones which is a little bit older are better since the new ones tend to have their pools in shade so the water is ice cold.

What to do in Bangkok on a weekend trip

The city has something for everyone. Sightseeing, shopping, bars, fantastic food, entertainment, sports, concerts you name it. Just pick and pick and mix what you like. This weekend trip our focus was on rooftop bars, enjoying the atmosphere, for me running Bangkok half marathon, seeing one new thing every day, eat Thai food and hanging out at the pool.

There are all kinds of food in Bangkok but honestly the very best food can be found at the small hawker places where you sit on plastic chairs. The food cost almost nothing and the atmosphere is truly local. Suda at Soi14 in Sukumvith is a traditional place you must add to your go to list.

Bangkok is the city of rooftop bars. There are constantly popping up new places. The newest one is Tichuca in T-one building. Unfortunately neither myself or my travel friend was impressed. It looks nice but the logistics behind getting just one drink was to complicated. First show your passport downstairs, then order a drink and pay for it, the taking two different elevators, and after that you expect your drink to be ready when you come to the rooftop but well it was absolutely not and you had to wait again like in any other bar. Thanks but no thanks. The view was great and not extremely crowded to be one of the go-to places in Bangkok right now. A place a liked a lot more is Sirocco, the place where scenes from the movie Hangover II was captured. Drinks are very expensive in Thailand standards but the view makes it worth it. Another new place we visited after recommendations from others were Brewski at Radisson hotel. It felt very international and laid back. We worked our way through a lot of rooftop bars and another one we both liked was ABar at the top of a new Marriott hotel. The style there was a bit of industrial design and they had a great selection of cocktails. Yet another place we headed to was Octave. A little bit older place also at one Marriott hotel but still a great place to go to and you get nice views of the futuristic Tichuca bar.

From experience new things list we had our doze of local sights when visiting the Buddhist temple of Golden Mount. Not a lot of tourists finds its way there and I can strongly recommend a visit.

Our friend Towe that is a Bangkok expert recommended taking the Khlong boats a the river and we were curious to try out. It was absolutely the best new thing I did during this trip. Getting to see Bangkok from the waters was giving a lot of other perspectives of the city compared to the touristy streets.

Usually my long weekends in Bangkok is one day shorter than this so the last day we did more or less nothing than hanging around at the pool, went for a walk in a new park, had smoothie bowls for breakfast, went for some shopping of junk or at least we tried but nowadays after covid almost of the small shops selling magnets and other stuff along the streets are gone. And I really wanted a last banana pancake but there was no one in sight.

Bangkok half marathon

The half marathon I ran deserves its own heading. If I went to BKK for the halfmarathon or I ended up run the half marathon because I was in BKK, what is your guess? It was honestly a mix of both. My ambition for this 21K race was to manage one more race at my favorite distance this year and when I read the information that the start was at 03:00 local time I almost fell asleep. Crazy idea to run 21K in the middle of the night in nearly 30 degrees heath. I know but once you sign up you need to follow through – right? My ambitions for this run were low. I just wanted to get over with it. After sleeping 1,5 hours that night I woke up to my alarm in a state that was not ready for race. I had bought the strongest coffee I could find at 7eleven and while watching others warming up near the start I had the koffein kick and a banana as race preparation. I have never been running a half marathon at that time so I had no idea what to expect. But if it is a race it is a race and when it was time to start the GPS watch my race mode kicked in. The tiredness was long gone and I enjoyed it running the closed highways to the light of the streets. I thought it would be incredible hard but my body surprised me and I could run in less than 5 min/km pace without any special effort. Due to my zero experience in nightly half marathons I decided to stay at my comfy half marathon race pace and finish sub 1:45. Little did I know that the fastest five in each age group (mine is 30-39 years) got a trophy. I finished at 1:43 and that was just seconds from a trophy. If I had known that I would finished up faster. The last two K’s I ran in 4:30 pace without pushing myself to much and I could easily have done that some more kilometers. I am pretty sure I will not come back to this night half marathon again. Not because of the arrangement but because of running in the middle of the night is not my cup of tea.

Thanks Bangkok for great new memories and the city is still going strong for being a top destination to visit during a weekend in November when the need for sun is there and some cravings for a bit of everything takes over the November darkness.

/ Pernilla that had a great weekend trip to Bangkok