When it came time to go away for Justin’s birthday, it was pretty clear we would head to one of his favourite cities — Bangkok.

Only after we booked, did we realise this was the big birthday! All the better!

My mom kindly offered to watch the kids for six days so we could travel without kids, which takes heaven to a whole new level (love you, girls). So, we were off.

Full of surprises

Even though it was Justin’s birthday, he still found ways to surprise me. It wasn’t until we walked onto the plane that I realised the miles he used to buy our tickets were actually miles to get us there in Business Class. WHAT A TREAT!

Singapore Airlines had incredible service, always greeting us by name, coming to see us immediately after we woke up to offer a drink and of course bringing out a wonderful birthday surprise for him.

We didn’t have long in Singapore for our layover. Just long enough to see a gorgeous pond you could walk on and eat some crazy good kaya toast (thick butter plus a very sweet coconut-like spreadable jam).

On the way home we got to see The Jewel and the Butterfly Garden at Changi airport in Singapore. You have to go out through immigration to see The Jewel but it is a seven-story waterfall and the largest indoor waterfall in the world — it was quite incredible.

Lucky for us, we got to take one more flight and enjoy some more Business Class — more good food (Justin had amazing chicken satay) and even another birthday stuffed animal!

As if we needed anything better than that, then we arrived in Bangkok.

Why we love it here

There is something strangely wonderful about the bustle, the grit and the heat of Bangkok. It is hectic yet calm, bustling yet safe and hot yet tolerable. And everything you eat is DELICIOUS. Justin had been here as a youngun but he took me for the first time when we started dating back in 2014 and then again in 2016. I immediately fell in love with the kindness of the people and the amazing food on every corner. I could bury myself in fruit here and die happy.

Where we stayed

This time we decided to split the trip into two hotels. The first was Lebua at State Tower. We’ve stayed here twice before and it was always so special. This time we had a suite facing the river and even years later, it did not disappoint. There were even some birthday decorations and treats in the room…how did that happen?

Lebua is famous for being in The Hangover II when they go to Bangkok. This time our room was down the hall from the room they shot the movie in (cool!) and of course we went up to the Sky Bar for a stunning view of the city lights, 60 floors up. We didn’t recreate the famous Hangover scene but most other guests did.

Lebua also had an incredible buffet breakfast with too many categories of foods, let alone dishes, to name. We’d start the meal with a Thai soup and end it with longans (our fav). In the middle might be sushi, dumplings, crepes, stir fries, curries, or papaya salad. No need to waste our time with eggs, pastries, salad, cheese or yogurts…that’s so…what we can eat at home.

The service here was so attentive and one morning a server saw me putting a candle in a pastry for Justin when she whisked it away (I thought to light it) and returned with a gorgeous slice of birthday cake for him, took a photo of us and then came back with the printed photo as a momento!

One night we walked out on the balcony and just as we stepped out, a fireworks show started — clearly they got the memo that it was Justin’s birthday! It was so special watching this beautiful fireworks show right from our room.

After two glorious nights at Lebua, we went across town (closer to MBK…the mall and food court we love) to stay at VIE Hotel Bangkok – MGallerie. We got the Executive Suite (81 sq meters/870 sq feet!!) and it was stunning. It is the kind of room we could see staying in for a few weeks and working from (if we could afford that). It was just wonderful.

And somebody set up a ton of birthday decorations in the room also 🙂

What we ATE

Our true love in Thailand is the food, so everything is about finding great food, trying great food, re-trying great food and exploring…to find great food. And we are never disappointed. It’s impossible to list our favourite dishes but here are just a few:

A special birthday dinner

Justin picked Saneh Jaan, a One Michelin restaurant six years in a row, for his birthday dinner. We made up our own tasting menu and had incredible string beans with crispy shrimp, Pad Thai with river shrimp, Massaman curry with chicken and incredible red curry with huge prawns.

Dessert was super unique with a make-your-own bowl of shaved ice, sweet sticky black rice, pandan jelly, puffed rice, chia pudding and sweet coconut syrup.

A Chef’s Food Tour

We had never done a food tour in Bangkok but love doing food tours whenever we travel. This one had crazy amazing ratings and we knew the company from a food tour we had done in Phuket, so we decided to give it a try. It was a night food tour through Chinatown so it was a mix of Thai and Chinese-influenced food.

WARNING: DO NOT EAT FOR A YEAR BEFORE GOING ON THIS FOOD TOUR. We had almost five hours of some of the most amazing food and many things that we had never tried (or might not try) ourselves.

All the markets (and malls!)

We were on the hunt for street markets, filled with stalls of food and goods. And there are so many good ones. This time we went to two new ones which we loved: Jodd Fairs Night Market and Platinum Fashion Mall.

Jodd Fairs Night Market

This time we went to Jodd Fairs Night Market for the first time. It was a huge market filled with SO MANY food stalls and gifts. We found a tiny stall with really cheap Pad Thai and fried rice that was AMAZING. Somehow a birthday candle even ended up in the Pad Thai!

Platinum Fashion Mall

We just stumbled through here and weren’t planning on staying but once we started exploring, we quickly found this was one of our favourite places to buy gifts. We bought personalised leather luggage tags, tote bags, accessories and elephants.

But best of all was the food court. OMG they have a great food court. It was like MBK but a bit bigger, a bit nicer (not more expensive) and we also found our beloved pad macaroni — maybe even better than the one at MBK!

The malls in Bangkok are amazing. There are the fancy ones like Siam Paragon (which we spent time in last time and Icon Siam, where we went for the first time during this visit. The basement floor of Icon Siam is an amazing permanent floating market with food stalls and shops. Everything from cooked meat and seafood, desserts and fruit. This was where we had jackfruit for the first time on this trip — which is maybe the best fruit IN THE WORLD. OMG it was so good!

Upstairs on the next 7 floors are some of the luxury brands as well as more general stores. We stopped for a very chic coffee and then saw a three-story fountain on the top floor. Amazing.

MBK

Our favourite mall of all is MBK. It was one of the first malls we went to when we came here in 2014. It has the most incredible food court and isn’t overly fancy (like…at all), which we like. We were thrilled to find the food court exactly the same as we remembered it from years ago. And Justin was finally able to find is Pad Macaroni which is big macaroni noodles cooked up with some onion, egg, chicken and a sauce of tomato sauce with condensed milk. It really was incredible.

MBK not only has incredible stalls of Thai gifts but also a tiny arcade. This was where we played basketball years ago on our first visit and this time we were serious about beating our high scores.

This is us from our first trip in 2014!

And after a lot of sweaty attempts this time, we did it…451!!!

But then…oh…on our third day, tenth game, we hit FIVE HUNDRED SEVENTY EIGHT!!! OMG we were thrilled (and hot).

Overall, it was an incredible six days and always so special to be in one of our favourite cities together. Can’t wait to come back!