Nickbots visit SE Asia on SK, LH, EK, TG and (last but not least!) SQ

[Lobster]

I rarely take taxis to and from BKK now. Certainly never do on arrival, instead using the AOT limos. These are the yellow staff/cubicles you see in the arrivals hall and baggage reclaim. Yes it's a lot more than a regular taxi (around 1100 BHT) but at least I'm guaranteed a seatbelt and a decent car.

I've visited Bangkok about 4 or 5 times a year for the last few years and I've had enough of sitting in the back of a car with no seatbelt while some lunatic weaves in and out of traffic at 140 kmh. I've had a few 'scares' over the years but about 2 years ago I narrowly missed being involved a real bad one at high speed I doubt I would have survived. The taxi driver was shaking and in tears it was that close.

That was it. For the sake of £ 20 on a trip costing thousand's, it's now a no brainer for me.

I had some big arguments with my company when I was based in Bangkok. They would only cover the cost of a taxi to/from the airport not a Limo. Normally I am happy with my companies penny pinching approach but here they were risking our lives plus if we were lucky enough to survive a crash they would refuse to cover our medical costs as their policy is not to cover costs if the person is not wearing a seat belt. There answer was for us to sit in the front seat where there normally is a seat belt.

[DeltaFlyingProf]

Two chickens, laughing (despite their blatant adversity) at nickbot's dietary foolishness

I must say I had to laugh at that one. Made me think of Abigail and Amelia from the aristocats!

[SQ LPP]

It's a weekend. Where is nickbot? Can't wait for the "one night in Bangkok" report. (The rest of the post has been erased from my mind, since this is not an adult only site. )

[shopaholic]

send out search party!

I agree whats happening nickbots get writing soon, I fly in 3 weeks with SQ. lol

[SQ LPP]

I agree whats happening nickbots get writing soon, I fly in 3 weeks with SQ. lol

Well, then your turn to write about your trip. A380 from London? Start the report now. How is your feelings prior to your trip on SQ?

[nickbot]

One night in Bangkok - Intercontinental BKK Part I

Sorry for the mid-season break in programming folks,...

...previously on LOST...

Upon arrival at the IC, our large bags were taken from us by the porters and we made our way to the Ambassador service desk, where a service representative greeted us warmly and asked us to follow her to our room. I quite like the idea of in-room check in (for Royal Ambassador only I think, but I may be wrong), and the lady who dealt with us was extremely pleasant and chatty, whilst detailing all of the complimentary things that were available to us (free minibar, free internet, free laundry and pressing of 3 items, free drinks in the club etc.) She copied details from our passports and then check-in was complete; a quick tour around the room to explain how to use the AV equipment etc. and then we were left to relax (and take photographs in my case!)

I can't recall the exact room class that we booked, but our RA upgrade was to a slightly nicer room with club access on the (IIRC) 26th floor; since club access was a priority for us, this suited us perfectly. May I present a short tour around the room...

Overview of the room, from entrance area



Sofa and bed, taken from office desk



Office area and TV/DVD



Bathroom I



Bathroom II



Bathroom III



I must say, on previous trips to Thailand we've generally avoided Bangkok (apart from the airport of course!) after a rather unpleasant experience on our first trip there some years ago, but we were now wishing we'd scheduled more than just one night here at the IC. We sat down and relaxed for a while with a glass of wine and polished off the cookies and chocolates

Welcome gifts (I)



In addition to the complimentary wine, chocolates etc., our RA welcome gift was a set of lemongrass bath salts (which now reside in our bathroom at home!)

Ambassador gift of bath salts



Being on such a high floor (well, high for us!), the room had a pretty good view over the surrounding area, towards the neighbouring Central World shopping centre.

View left from our window



...and view right (apologies for reflection)

[nickbot]

One night in Bangkok - Intercontinental BKK Part II

As we explored a little further, we were pretty impressed by the attention to detail in the room in terms of amenities (queue another photo session!)

Office accessories kit



i-Pod dock (played through the TV)



Close-up of bathroom amenities



A couple of things that particularly impressed me were the wardrobes (bear with me here, I know you're thinking "How on earth can wardrobes be impressive?!")

Overview of first wardrobe (note dangling lanyard to the LHS)



Close-up of the dangling lanyard -it's a jogging route map, now that's thoughtful!



Overview of second wardrobe,...seems fairly benign, but the safe holds a breathtaking secret...!



In the second wardrobe, the safe had an internal power point for charging phones/cameras etc. -this was the first time I've seen this in a hotel safe (ok, I'll probably be leapt upon by SQTalkers who will comment that this is pretty common, but this small touch really impressed me )

Safe with internal power point



Okay, now for the bit that I know HUGE AL has been waiting for,...the free minibar! In order to build this up (and not overexcite him), may I present the contents of the fridge first...

Soft drinks and beers in the fridge



The rest of the minibar, and the tea/coffee making facilities are located in a large drawer underneath the television. As we opened this, there were gasps all round from the nickbots [Remember, we lead a sheltered life, this was only our second ever free minibar!]

Tea, coffee,...and SPIRITS!!



Close-up of the rather generous selection of spirits

[nickbot]

One night in Bangkok - Intercontinental BKK Part III

After exploring the room, we decided to go up to the rooftop pool in order to relax for the rest of the afternoon (or at least until afternoon tea was served in the club lounge!) One takes the lift up to the club level, and then turn left up some steps to the pool area.

View of the pool and bar, taken from steps leading up from Club reception



The pool is pretty tiny to be honest, but perhaps the focus of the hotel is more business orientated; anyhow, the pool area was quiet so we had our pick of the loungers, but if there were perhaps 10 people around the pool at any one time, it would start to get uncomfortable. We had a couple of Diet Cokes and read for a while in the Bangkok sun

Alternate view of the pool



Obligatory floating flower shot



As the pool area was pretty much deserted apart from the two of us, I was able to have a good nose around at the views from all of the windows (with decorative bars on, as shown in the photographs above) whilst mrs nickbot sunned herself.

View from the roof



Another view! (Central World shopping centre to the LHS)



I decided to pop down to the club lounge for a quick look around and a cup of tea (can you tell I'm not very good at sitting still?!) The lounge is pretty large and consists of a reception area plus three main adjoining rooms, all of which have seating that offers similar excellent views over Bangkok to those from the pool. Again, akin to the IC club lounge at HKG that I reported on previously in this trip report, non alcoholic beverages are free all day, and there are select times (breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and evening canape reception) where food is provided.

PC facilities in the lounge



Main room, in which the buffet is served



End room, our favourite as it's smaller and a bit more intimate



The decor could probably do with a little freshening up, as looking back at the photographs the seating in particular looks rather old fashioned, but other than that the club lounge really hit the spot for us -I suppose this is almost everything that a trendier hotel (such as a W, sorry KeithMEL ) isn't, i.e. quiet, relaxing and not "happening", and that ticks a big box for us! I'll put up more photographs from the evening canape reception in the next post.

Afternoon tea buffet selection (looking a little sparse, but delicious nonetheless!)



I spent an enjoyable and relaxing half an hour or so admiring the view with a cup of tea and a small selection of buffet items before rejoining mrs nickbot for a swim in the pool.

nickbot's medicine,...a nice cup of tea!

[nickbot]

One night in Bangkok - Intercontinental BKK Part IV

After some more time in the pool, we headed back to our room to have a shower and get ready for the evening. We didn't have any great plans (I was still feeling pretty rough), but were intending to go to the club lounge for evening drinks and then head over to the shopping centre for a browse around. We were conscious that tomorrow was going to be a long day (and also the day after that, with our flight back to LHR), so we didn't want to have a late night.

Unsurprisingly, the club lounge was pretty busy when we went up for evening drinks, but we were able to secure a small table in the smaller end room; we then took it in turns to visit the rather substantial buffet...

Hot food selection



Cheese, fruit and chocolate selection



Other canapes



The photographs above perhaps don't convey how well presented the food was, so hopefully the close-ups from my (admittedly overful!) plate(s) offer a better view...

Canape selection



Close-up, rare beef wrapped around mushrooms and served with horseradish



Yet more food!



We sat enjoying the food with a couple of glasses of champagne and watched a storm fast approaching over the skyline of Bangkok.

Relatively clear view in the foreground, but looking evil towards the distance...



...buildings starting to disappear from view...



...getting pretty close now...



...finally, the storm hits us!



We certainly weren't the only guests taking photographs from the window at this point, as the storm was pretty impressive; unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to capture any of the lightning strikes. We still wanted to pop over to Central World to do some last minute shopping, but weren't relishing the thought of going out in the heavy rain!

Self portrait by the window



Old man nickbot realxing in his easy chair with a glass of champagne!



The food and beverage offerings in the club were excellent, and were in fact the only food we ate that evening. We could have quite easily spent the rest of the evening just relaxing up there and enjoying the views, but the lure of the shops was too great!

[nickbot]

One night in Bangkok - Intercontinental BKK Part V

Arming ourselves with an umberella from the room, we headed out across the road to Central World to have a look around the shops.

Bangkok street view, from the pedestrian walkway



Outside view of the Central World shopping centre (there was some sort of a festival going on here during the day)



To be honest, we didn't really buy much (apart from stocking up on a prepay card for my Thailand SIM and some cheap daily disposable contact lenses ), but enjoyed wandering around the shopping centre for an hour or so. I was feeling pretty ill by this point so we decided to head back to the hotel

View looking up towards the IC, from Central World plaza



We got back to the room and launched into final packing and preparation for the next couple of days (we were going to be checking our bags straight through to London and so needed clothes for our stopover in Singapore). Our complimentary ironing arrived back by 9 pm after an extremely quick turnaround service, but (characteristically) I was still dawdling over my packing at 11 pm, much to mrs nickbot's annoyance! Annoyingly, I discovered that I'd purchased the wrong kind of topup card for my phone, so was running extremely low on credit (PM me if you're on True, and if I can put my hands on the card I'll let you have a 100 THB topup for free!)

The lights went out by about 11:15, but that's when my evening really began; I was up about every 20 minutes throughout the night having to visit the bathroom (and consequently keeping mrs nickbot awake too), and only managed to get to sleep at about 5 am -certainly not the best preparation for the most historic flying experience of our lives so far

[nickbot]

One night in Bangkok - Intercontinental BKK Part VI

After one of the most miserable nights sleep in my life, we were up bright and early, as we had an SQTalk VIP coming to visit us for breakfast (the first of many we'd see during this 24 hour period )

We'd been chatting to DeltaFlyingProf for the past week on and off via text message, catalysed by SQ LPP who mentioned that DFP would be passing through Bangkok at the same time as us after his first SQ A380 R Class experience. We'd invited him to join us for breakfast at the hotel and had been quoted a fairly steep THB 1500 for having a guest to join us in the club lounge; as it turned out, I wasn't able to eat anything, so DFP was able to have my breakfast at no additional charge

If I may "borrow" a couple of DFP's photographs, as mine didn't turn out so well:

Here they are, Mrs and Mr nickbot at the Intercontinental in Bangkok:

Splendid breakfast and view over the surrounding area.
I was very happy to see get together with them.

It was fantastic to catch up with DeltaFlyingProf, as the last time I'd seen him was at FRA at the end of CGK's LPP run (whatever happened to him?!?) We spent an enjoyable hour having a nice breakfast and chatting about R-Class and our imminent SQ F trip home. It was great to chat to someone with such a great deal of F experience, as a pep-talk for the final two flights of our holiday (perhaps the evil CGK, who was unfortunately grounded, sent DFP as his proxy-evil messenger? )

Time raced along and we unfortunately had to make tracks and get to the airport, as we were keen to extend the F experience as long as possible. We said our goodbyes to DFP and caught a taxi back to Suvarnabhumi. We were extremely grateful to DFP for taking the time to visit us (involving a rather early morning after his late arrival in BKK the night before) and we both hope to catch up again in the not too distant future

DFP and mrs nickbot enjoying their breakfast



Our stay at the IC Bangkok was most enjoyable and I would certainly return to the hotel on our next visit to Thailand and spend perhaps three days at the hotel; the experience was dampened somwhat by my ill health at the time, but I wholeheartedly recommend the hotel (especially the club lounge).

NEXT SQ F, BKK-SIN

[SQ LPP]

Thank you for taking the time of your Sunday!
It brings back memories I had in Bangkok.

[Greatfox]

i-Pod dock (played through the TV)

w00t Midnight Oil! Excellent choice

[shopaholic]

well SQ LPP
You asked how i'm feeling i'm totally petrified lol. we fly out LHR on 28th Sept on sq321 then on to Adelaide, from there to melbourne, on to brisbane, then to sydney( all on jetstar im afraid) and home on the 23rd Oct. yes on the a380 my partner is a plane nut too and i truly think we only going on sq cause at the time of booking only sq had 1 !!!!!!.
No not entirly true he flown with them before,
its a long flight for me, furthest i been was canada (huge difference). and being a worry wart that suffers with panic attacks, well i'm suffering already, bad dreams and hot sweats. lol.
so if any one can make me feel better, you guys can!

[shopaholic]

so glad to have you back nickbots