Well, it is our last day of vacation and we are on the search for a couple of things to bring home with us! We have been looking at the ICONSIAM mall for the last 5 days across the river from the hotel – perhaps being tormented by its noise at night – it is time to check it out! Unfortunately the hotel’s ferry boat is out for maintenance for the week so we need to take the public ferry which I think from an accessibility standpoint is a much better situation for me! The public dock is right below the hotel – however the “lane” you need to walk down to get there leaves a bit to be desired – you would think that the hotel would keep it a bit cleaner! There was dumped garbage bags (which in the heat did not smell lovely) and various other things along the side of the path.
The cost of the boat? 6 baht per person, each direction. Yup, about 3 cents each per direction! Very quickly we were across the river and at the dock on the other side! We walked near the still set up and still going on at night, Mulay KickBoxing area and into the mall which had quite the beautiful entrance! Inside it was still very exquisite – the ground floor an indoor “souk” type area and the upper floors a mall with stores. We were doing some power shopping here and once we found the elevators we were in business and found the places that we needed to go to and purchase the items that we needed to find! Now it was time to go back to the hotel to complete packing and get ready for our scheduled ride to the Le Meridien Hotel which is near the Bangkok airport, making our very early morning a bit easier! For those who have not been there, the Bangkok Airport is about 45 minutes from downtown Bangkok when the traffic is behaving!
The Le Meridien Hotel is very elegant – it is a hotel surrounding by a golf course. I did not really care what kind of room that we got here – other than the kind we booked – they were pretty upset that they could not upgrade me though! As I said to the desk clerk – for a half a night stay – please do not worry! I got a huge Thai smile from her for that comment – I guess this is one of the hotels where people’s expectations are pretty high for upgrades. As we were not going to be at the hotel for breakfast, I had the option of having 1000 Marriott points or a handmade elephant. The elephants are made by people with various disabilities so of course that was what I selected! Our room was beautiful and I would loved to spend more time there however the hotel is in the middle of nowhere! There is a nice lounge bed on the lanai and it looked over the golf course. We saw a beautiful sunset that evening – our last sunset in Thailand!
Like at the Royal Orchid – the Le Meridien provided an evening light buffet in their bar which was gratis for people high up in the Bonvoy program. Andrew had no issues eating from the small buffet but me – that was a different story! It was fairly gluten loaded. So they said they would bring me a gluten free box! And sure enough one arrived – quite cute! Andrew got the bacon skewers in the top right corner – the rest of the box was very delicious and just the amount that was needed for me this evening! We walked around the hotel a bit – it was a very nice hotel with ramps everywhere which was nice to see, and then went back to the room early so we (I) could optimize our luggage for check in tomorrow! As we were flying Business Class home, I wanted to check in one of my knapsacks as luggage so we (Andrew) had less to carry and worry about. Then it was to bed – we had a 4:30am departure for the airport scheduled!
