When our kids school announced a swim meet in Bangkok, Thailand I was like wait, what?! This is insane. But then I realized what an opportunity! So we signed Ava up and added bonus our dear friends from our time in KL now live in Bangkok so we would be able to spend time with them too- a win win. Sadly David could not join us due to a work conflict so we missed having him with us. However I was excited to take the kids traveling by myself and show them that mom can do hard things too (I mean I know I can but I am not sure they knew it)!
I always get suckered into a Starbucks run with the kids!
We found a great Marriott brand hotel called the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit right in the center of Bangkok to stay in, directly on a stop for the BTS (their mass transit- like Chicago’s elevated train). Down side it was about 30-45 min from ISB where the swim meet was but better to stay downtown than out by the school with nothing to do! After a hellacious travel day full of cancellations and delays, we finally arrived to our hotel at 2:30am on Friday morning. We slept in, grabbed some breakfast at the hotel, and ventured out for some exploring since the swim meet didn’t start until Saturday.
passed out on the airplane!
I have been to Bangkok a few times prior to this trip, check out some old posts here…. so I didn’t feel the need to go crazy seeing everything but I did want to show the kids around and hit some highlights. I asked our friends who live there for some advice on things to do with kids since I had only been there without kids, or pregnant, or with a baby- lol! Jen gave me some gems and off we went!
Who knew?! International Women’s Day!
The BTS- a success!
I decided to make the kids and I figure out the BTS system….Mac was super impressed with me getting us tickets and onto the right train and his words were “Mom, I didn’t know you could do all of this without Dad”. hahaha, so loved impressing the kids with my travel skills- lol! What a lesson to teach them that we can do hard things!!
They were in awe of the graffiti- it was pretty awesome!
Our first stop, after a fun walk from the BTS stop along the canal where we watched the taxi boats float by and checked out all the amazing graffiti artwork on the walls, was to check out the Jim Thompson House. You can read more about Jim’s story here but the gist is this: He is an American man who basically reinvented the Thai Silk Industry, and is fondly remembered as the “Thai Silk King”. He was sadly killed while vacationing in Malaysia in 1967. His house and the grounds are so stunning, filled with tons of Thai artifacts. There is also a great Thai restaurant on site, as well as his wild popular silk shop, which of course I had to purchase something from. We enjoyed walking around, checking out artwork, and talking about his history and about Thai silk in general.
We all loved how tropical and lush the grounds were. Love these turkeys!!
Our next stop, via a Grab taxi, was the famed Snake Farm of Bangkok. Yea…basically my worst nightmare, well actually mine and Ava’s! But wow it was crazy to see all these snakes and fun fact this is run by the Red Cross and is actually the largest facility for snake venom within SE Asia. Pretty cool. They do offer a venom extraction show but that was in the morning which we missed, but we did catch the afternoon snake handling show. TERRIFYING would be the word I would use to describe it but man Mac was in heaven. At the end they offered pictures with a boa……yea……the things you do for love. Mac was loving every bit while Ava and I took LOTS of deep breaths and tried to smile for the camera. haha, a fun way to spend a couple of Horus if you find yourself in Bangkok with kids!
What’s up Lance!
A very cool, albeit, terrifying, venue!
And the sequence of events with us holding the snake…..TERRIFYING.
After this whirlwind handful of hours we found ourselves chilling my the pool, which we loved. It’s not a huge pool at Sheraton Grand Sukhumvit, but it was super lush and tropical and definitely felt like an oasis away from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok! We were all super third that night and knew we had an early start for swim so we just ventured across the street to Terminal 21- a mall that mimics the feel of being in an airport with a theme for each floor. We had fun exploring, got some Thai food, and even found Cold Stone!!! We were in HEAVEN with that ice cream.
Our lush pool oasis!
Terminal 21 Mall
Haha, like an airport
HEAVENLY
I won’t go into too much detail of the swim meet except to say a few things. The campus, ISB (International School of Bangkok), was so massive and stunning. We all had a blast wandering around their fields and pool area in between events. The event itself reminded me of Ava’s swim events back in the states, except that it was on a MUCH larger scale, and looking around at all the teams and their supporters, seeing team shirts like- Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Bangkok, Singapore, Shanghai, and of course Beijing. Just surreal to be competing like this- what an amazing opportunity! We loved every bit of our 2 day swim meet.
We even got a nice home cooked meal Saturday night after day 1 at our friend’s house. So great to catch up as we haven’t seen them since 2021. On Sunday we took their youngest to cheer on Ava and then all met up for an afternoon & evening filled with tourist things. Jen took us on the BTS to the Bangkok River, where we hopped on a water taxi, pretty cool experience for the kiddos, and checked out (well the outside at least) the Grand Palace and the Wat Phra Chetuphon Temple, home of the famous reclining buddha. I had seen it years ago and we wanted to take the kids, but they didn’t want to stand in line, lol! Nevermind, we got some cokes with straws while we wandered and even got a tuk tuk ride (Also a MUST DO) to the amazing Siam Icon shopping mall which was so awesome. Very unique in that the bottom floor looks like a huge rendition of a traditional Thai market with all sorts of goodies to buy and to eat, while a short escalator ride up housed all the major global brands. Super cool. Of course the girls made a beeline for Sephora, haha! They even had a light show with their fountains, which lasted about 5 minutes around sunset, followed by yet another yummy Thai meal before we all headed home to pass out so we could fly home early the next day.
We love you dear friends!!
Ice cold cokes on the street, yep
Temples!
Water taxi!
Doesn’t get much more Thai than this- kids with a temple and a tuk tuk behind them!
Jam packed tuk tuk fun!
Icon Siam light & water show
Holy delicious fried coconut balls
Beauty in the mall
and DUH, Sephora
So yes as you can see a whirlwind weekend in Bangkok, but one I would do again in a heartbeat. Sure we missed traveling with our main guy David, but there was also something super cool to have this moment just me and the kids. We adventured, we did hard things, we laughed a lot, we swam, we saw friends….we just a blast and I will cherish this memory always.
Until next time, thanks for reading friends~
xo, Kimbra
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