It’s a weird time.
As I’m writing this blog, the US and Israel are bombing Iran.
As a result of that, Iran has bombed Qatar and the Hamad International Airport has been closed since March 1st. Exactly one week prior to the airport closure, I was at Hamad, enjoying the Ramadan decorations before hopping on my 15-hour Qatar Airways flight home.
Hamad is one of my favorite airports. I first flew there a decade ago during a trip to South Africa and Qatar Airways remains my go to for flying internationally. It’s all so frustrating and sad and weird and dumb and could’ve been avoided but folks just hate women, especially black women, so much.
It sucks.
On to happier things, let’s talk about my trip to Thailand! In November 2024, I got a wild hair and decided that I wanted to go to Thailand. As with most trips, I began planning this as a solo trip and after doing a ton of research, I decided to go for two weeks in February 2026. I purchased my plane ticket in July 2025 and my solo trip quickly turned into a group trip as my friends Tina and Josh, and my sister Artes all quickly bought tickets to join me on my adventure. Traveling with friends is so much fun and I’m so glad we got to experience this life-changing trip together.
We flew from Atlanta to Doha to Bangkok, arriving early on a Monday morning. I can’t think of a better introduction to Bangkok than Monday morning traffic. Now, I’ve seen some crazy driving in my day. I’ve been to Egypt. I’m pretty sure my cab driver is Istanbul drove through someone’s backyard one night. I lived in Atlanta – I know traffic. Bangkok traffic is probably a 7/10 – overwhelming for the uninitiated, but there’s a method to the madness. We stayed in the trendy Thong Lo neighborhood of Bangkok, an affluent area officially named Soi Sukhumvit 55. Our accommodations were the Shine Aparthotels Sukhumvit Thonglor, a part hotel/part apartment building. It was in a great location and was excellently priced, but I’d stay somewhere else next time (hint hint for the final day of the trip).
After showering, napping and taking pictures of our stacks of baht, it was time to hit the streets for food. Where do you go when you want food, but don’t know exactly what kind of food you want? The mall, of course! We visited the sprawling food court at ICONSIAM. You could find literally anything there. After drooling for a bit, we settled on Peppery Thai Bistro. We each ordered at least two dishes and ate family style until we couldn’t eat anymore. We ate deep fried shrimp cakes, crispy garlic squid, spicy clams, fried pork belly, stir-fried Chinese kale, and so much more! We even had raw, fresh prawns – unheard of here in the states. It was delicious and no one had any gastrointestinal issues from consuming it.
After dinner, we checked out a few floors of ICONSIAM. With more than 7,000 stores, it was impossible to see everything, but a few highlights were the art pieces at Tamburins and Gentle Monster.
At Tamburins, a luxury perfume shop, there’s a giant mechanical dachshund statue sleepily “breathing” with twitching ears and perfectly trimmed nails.
At Gentle Monster, these cool robots and giants were displayed all over the store.
If you think the art is only on the installations, you’d be wrong. Gentle Monster had some stylish, but pricey, eyeglasses.
We were struggling by this point, so we decided to call it a night. Sometimes I felt bad that my baby sister had to hang out with a bunch of 40+ year olds. Our old asses literally fell asleep on the way back to the hotel.
