Back to Bangkok it is. Bangkok, or Krung Thep Mahanakhon as it’s native name is. The City of Angels. That translation of the native name appeals to me much more than the translation of “Bangkok”: “Village in the plum woods”.
Bangkok’s changes in 5 years
Last time I was here was my first journey to South East Asia. Man, I haven’t been here for “only” five years. And it seems to have changed quite a bit in the meantime.
- First contact now: New airport – larger, more comfortable, more modern than the old one. Much more.
- Second impression: air quality. Wow, five years ago I wouldn’t have bet one sarang that this city will get to grips with the air pollution within only a short amount of time. Well, I should have bet and get rich. Damned rich…
- Third, many more high rising buildings than I saw last time. And many more are under construction or still to come. Bangkok has been bustling with national and particularly international business people in the last years, as Daniel, the groom, explained. And so the city grows: outwards and upwards. Sukhumvit, the area Daniel is about to take us, is now in the center of the city. 80 or so years ago it was jungle. And we know that because Daniel’s Grandpa has experienced it himself.
I love international weddings
Ah, yes, Daniel. One of the people we are here for. That’s because Daniel and Karampreet are getting married. From Wednesday to Saturday. Right, the International Wedding Collector (IWC is not only a wristwatch brand) is on the road again. On Bangkok’s roads this time.
Huge Indian wedding
And the wedding’s gonna be huge! When we met last time, Kenny (Daniel’s father) and Daniel were expecting a „medium“ sized wedding, sporting some 500 or so guests. Yesterday we learnt that 500 is more or less “just the family” with all the brothers and sisters, cousins and cousines, grandparents and their families… But there are also the close friends and their families, so it will more probably be somewhere between 700 and 900. Possibly 1,000, though none of the two believes so.
And it’s gonna be a Indian Sikh wedding. That means several festivity acts in the next days to come. Stay tuned if you want to read more about that… 😉
Personal pickup by the groom himself
For now I am just awed that Daniel, besides running a business and preparing for the wedding, takes time to personally pick us up from the airport, wait extra time during the unusually long immigration checks and to take us to the hotel. By the way, the Privacy Suites hotel (update: review@tripadvisor) was just great: Very friendly staff, relatively small, quite new, wonderful rooms, designer interior (at least it looks like), a rooftop pool. Centrally located, yet in a quiet side road of Soi 20 to Sukhumvit road (the main business road here, and said to be the longest in Asia). And it’s probably not too bad to know that the owner is Daniel’s cousin and Kenny’s nephew 😉
After taking us here Daniel makes sure we have everything we need and leaves us for the rest of the day. Time to rest, adapt to the time zone and recover from the 10 hrs direct flight. We start it with discouvering the neighbourhood and grab some food: Thai Curry! The yummie stuff! A few hours later we have an approximate plan of what to do here when, juggling appointments with the groom’s family, Lupo’s friend and Flora’s new Thai family members.
