January 4,

Up and about, ready to see Bangkok again. First we had our Javas. Jeff went to the 7-eleven for yogurt and a 5 liter water. We each had a coconut yogurt – yum! We still prefer the homemade yogurt of Da Lat, but this is a good second. HUMMM 🤔… what about combining the homemade with the coconut? That would be awesome!!

Anyway, we set off. We walked to a mall to get our phones going. We had kept our SIM cards from July/August (last year, unbelievable it’s 2025!). We arrived at 0950, but the mall doors themselves did not open until 1000. That’s unusual for malls back home. I guess we never went to a mall before 1000 on our prior time here. But there are so many malls here in Bangkok, maybe only this one opens at 1000. Questions?? When the doors opened we rushed in, hoping to be first there. We were close but still had to get a queue ticket! Anyway, my SIM got sorted, but Jeff’s requires a day or two. We are through different carriers, but they have merged. It cost 200 Baht ($5.80) for mine, but Jeff didn’t have to pay anything. We’ll see what happens with that. We head out as I use my hotspot for him to have service.

Now we hired a Bolt taxi to go to the Beef Brisket Soup place. He dropped us off close. Upon arriving to the cafe, it was all boarded up. A sign – translated – read closed until 1-6 for the New Year. Oh man!!😣  So… we decided to go and get Pad Thai. We hired another Bolt. We arrived at Pad Thai Baitong Restaurant. Yay! This was open. We went in and had crispy pork and shrimp Pad Thai Dishes. Yum!!! It was as good as before. The owner lady came out. She was not getting along so well. That was sad to see. But her family or workers were there, and  doing quite a bit. We paid 270 Baht ($7.83) for both our meals. (We had our own water.) Finished we hired our third Bolt to the biggest Decathlon store in Bangkok.

We made it and had a very successful venture. I found a new hat, some shirts, and one pair of pants. Jeff found one pair of pants, and some shirts. (We had both left some shirts in Vietnam, that will hopefully find new homes.) Anyway, shopping done we hired our fourth and last Bolt driver. This guy bypassed us and we had to walk a block to meet him. Well, this was wrong – he did not impress us. When we got near our place, the driver made us get out early and walk again… I don’t mind walking but we paid him for door to door service, and we did not receive this! We did not rate him – it would have been bad!!

Anyway, back at our place we cooled off and relaxed. By 1630, we set off walking to get supper. First though, we stopped across the street from us and did some money exchange. Jeff had the last of our US Dollars, some Indian Rupees, and Vietnamese Dong to change over to Thai Baht. The exchanges were fair pricing and we had enough Thai Baht to get us though today into tomorrow. It was just over a two mile jaunt to Cast Iron Burgerhaus. Yes, we wanted a hamburger. We arrived and I ordered Swiss Mushroom Burger – Swiss cheese, mushrooms, mixed greens, and a truffle aioli sauce – with truffle Parmesan fries. Jeff had Mozz Cheese Burger – double cheese sticks, Mozzarella cheese, jalapeno, and spicy mayo – with skin-on potato wedges. I had homemade lemonade and Jeff had a beer. Very good!! We think we enjoyed these hamburgers more than the previous hamburger place here. We paid 1,040 Baht ($30.14) for our meals – western pricing.

We left and walked the two miles back to our place. I blogged and Jeff read. What a good day back in busy Bangkok.