Bangkok, Thailand

Hopped over to Bangkok for the weekend with a couple guys from the studio. Its about a 3 or 4 hour flight (I don't know exactly as I pass out before most planes take off) that leaves Bangalore at 12:30am and arrives in Bangkok at the crack of dawn. This makes for a long, wild first day in Thailand. Stayed at the Shangri-La on the banks of the Chao Phraya river (next post). The first night went to a pan-asian fine dining restaurant on the 64th floor of the highest tower in Bangkok, the state tower. The dinner was truly fantastic. The wine list was very complete, and astoundingly over-priced. From a US$6 bottle of grocery store wine (Coppola Claret) going for over US$160 to a US$2000 bottle of '98 Cos d'Estrounel, it was a wine list designed for someone who doesn't give a shit about the price. I settled on one of the cheaper Bordeauxs on the list, a '95 3rd growth from Margaux for about US$600 that turned out to be pretty great. At some point about 2/3 of the way through the meal, there was a tremendous BOOM. No one in the restaurant seemed at all disturbed, but the three of us we quite shocked, called the waitress over, and asked "what was that explosion!?". To which she calmly replied with a bit of a giggle, "hmm, maybe bimb?" and went about filling our water glasses.
Well, turns out it was a bimb. A grenade to be exact. And pretty damn close.

View Bangkok Bimb in a larger map
Crazy. We drove by the bank later that night and saw all the damage, but didn't know about the attack until we got back to India.
We wanted to go to a Muay Thai fight, but Sunday was a holiday so the fight center was closed. Sunday night was spent at a fine dining Italian place with a '99 Barolo and later at an Irish pub drinking delicious Guinness beer from the tap and playing Golden Tee, an evening impossible in so many ways in India so all the better.
So, despite the terrorist attack (which was against the bank, and not people, to be fair) Bangkok was a huge amount of fun and a great escape weekend from India. Excited to return.