When we returned to Bangkok from our jaunt to Phuket, we decided to stay in a different part of the city. We chose a hotel in the Sukhumvit area, a new hotel called Aspira D’Andora Sukhumvit 16. It’s only been in operation a few months, and the reviews were good. Also, the price was lower than comparable hotels in Bangkok.
The Sukhumvit area is a long band of the city that has a little bit of everything. Sukhumvit is the longest street in Thailand, and supposedly goes (almost?) to the border with Cambodia. That reminds me of Colfax Avenue back home in Denver. And like Colfax, Sukhumvit has a little bit of everything, either directly on it or on one of the hundreds of lanes that branch off from it. Bangkok’s world famous red light district is there, but several internationally recognized shopping malls are, as well. It’s not just a street, but a whole district. The “Sukhumvit 16” in the name of the hotel refers to the fact that the hotel is on Soi Sukhumvit 16. The street naming and numbering system in Bangkok is amazingly convoluted, so I’m not even going to try to explain it here. But the relevant part is that Sukhumvit 16 is one of the side streets that branches off the main Sukhumvit, and it has a different flavor than where we stayed in Bangkok before.
That was a good thing, as we got to see a new neighborhood, but in the end we didn’t like it as much as the area where we’d stayed before. So today, after five nights at the Aspira D’Andora, we moved back to the Pas Cher Hotel de Bangkok.
What didn’t we like about the Sukhumvit area? The hotel itself was pretty good, though they had a bunch of problems with their internet service. But the street, Soi Sukhumvit 16, just isn’t as interesting as the soi where Pas Cher is. Soi Sukhumvit 16 has a lot of traffic congestion in the morning and afternoon rush hours. Traffic in this area is notoriously bad, which is one reason they built the BTS SkyTrain above the main street, and our street was just packed with cars and motorcycles feeding into that main street, full of people going to work or coming home from work.
Soi Sukhumvit 16 also doesn’t have many reasonably-priced Thai food stalls. Thanon Cheroen Wiang, the soi (side street) where Pas Cher is located, has probably a dozen restaurants, stalls, and food carts where you can get a plate of food or a bowl of soup for a dollar or two. Sukhumvit 16, on the other hand, only has two. Everything else there is more upscale, often way upscale.
Lastly, Pas Cher is midway between two BTS stations, both of which are only about a 1/2 km away, at easy and quick walk. But Aspira D’Andora is much farther from the nearest station. It’s not a long distance, but in comparing the two areas, I’d rather be in the place where stuff is closer, not the one where I have to walk to get to anything.
Somewhat related, Pas Cher is also close to the river, the central pier of the express boat system in particular. So when we want to go somewhere that’s best accessed by river, it’s easy. All of the Sukhumvit area is distant from the river.
Oh, I guess one last reason that we decided to move back to Pas Cher is that you can buy a breakfast package there for cheap. They serve a variety of stuff for a buffet breakfast – some really good Thai food and some OK western food. But Aspira D’Andora doesn’t offer breakfast so you have to walk to one of the cafes nearby, which will cost a few dollars for coffee and a basic meal.
Why am I telling you all this? Maybe one or two people in the future will read this and find it useful in making their own Bangkok travel plans. But way more importantly, I wanted to document the kind of things we consider when we choose a place to stay on our travels.
We’ve been trying to stick to a $100 a day budget for all expenses. That includes lodging, food, ground transportation, entertainment, souvenirs, etc. But it also includes big ticket items like health insurance. The first $25 or so of our $100 goes to pay for health insurance. How we decide to spend the other $75 is a big deal. In some cities, most of that $75 has gone to a hotel or B&B or homestay. But in Bangkok, given the quality of hotel and location we want, we can spend $25 to $40 a day for lodging. Same goes for Indonesia, India, and Cambodia. They’re all in that range. For some reason, the Philippines was more expensive, and of course Australia and New Zealand were more expensive still, even with a good exchange rate working in our favor.
Thanks for reading. It’s hard to believe, but next week we’re going back to the USA.