Our two and a half weeks in Koh Tao were over, and it was a sad goodbye as always. But at least Olivia and I would have high-thread count pillowcases to cry ourselves to sleep into — we were headed for a weekend of luxury in Bangkok.

I’ve been in and out of this amazing city more times than I can count — and I love it dearly. This particular visit, however, was not about exploring the vibrant neighborhoods and tucked-away sois of Thailand’s capital. It was all about guilty pleasures — mornings wiled away by the pool, afternoons shopping in Siam, and nights danced away in Sukhumvit.

Our little weekend of luxury was made possible by my first attempt at playing the credit card game — I took advantage of a sign up bonus to rack up tons of Starwood points, a fraction of which I used on our stay at The Aloft Bangkok. I’ll do a separate post about that process and the hotels it allowed me to stay in, so these photos are just a little taste.

Aaaaand that pretty much does it for photos of what we did during the day time. What can I say? We were on vacation. We weren’t there to be taking all kinds of crazy Bangkok tours! We did muster up the strength to leave the hotel grounds in the evening, however. Our first night, we treated ourselves to dinner and drinks at rooftop Nest, a trendy venue right around the corner from our digs.

It was a major splurge — and by that I mean for an appetizer, entrees, and a crystal bucket of mojito (literally), we spent $18USD each. How I love this country.

Another night, we headed to the luxurious Siam Paragon mall and saw a movie in the most decadent seats I’ve ever sat my tush in. Movie lovers, get thyself to the silver screen in Bangkok.

No photos of the movie theater (blogger fail) but I did document our liquid nitrogen ice cream pre-movie snack. As some readers may recall, eating liquid nitrogen ice cream was my sole goal for my summer trip to London.

On our final evening, our destination was the giggle-inducing Cabbages and Condoms, a restaurant that raises money for programs that serve poor communities in rural Thailand.

As you might guess, many of the projects they support go along with the whole condom half of the theme — free vasectomies for low income families, STD prevention in rural communities, etc. And they do it in style — the entire restaurant is decorated in prophylactics. Can you believe they made a condom santa?

The food is fairly overpriced and the place is slammed with people, but in my opinion it is well worth it to support a good cause and have a wholesome laugh.

That night, we were joined by my friend Nic from Hawaii and his friend Lukkob. It’s always fun to bump into travel friends in different exotic places around the world, so we caught up over drinks on Sukhumvit Soi 11, home of the notorious street van bars and the expat-beloved Cheap Charlies.

Like all epic nights, this one started with “just one drink” and ended up with a cab ride home at 5am. In between we hit up several of the Sukhumvit nightspots including Q Bar, Levels, Bed Supperclub, and whatever the after hours club that the cabaret dancers from Levels dragged us to after closing. Let’s just say it was one for the book.

And with that, we were off to Chiang Rai!