TRIP REPORT: One Night in Bangkok, featuring the Avagard Capsule Hotel at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi – Taking the Long Way (and back) to Singapore

One Night in Bangkok, featuring the Avagard Capsule Hotel at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
Taking the long way (and back) to Singapore

With limited time in Bangkok, do I hide in a capsule hotel, or do I go exploring? What do you think?

Also, let us try a capsule hotel.

In this adventure

• I needed a break
• 02:40 on the coach? Nothing changes, with Heathrow Terminal 5 and British Airways South Lounge
• BA776 London Heathrow to Stockholm Arlanda (Club Europe)
• An afternoon in Stockholm featuring ABBA The Museum 
• Off to Stockholm Bromma, AY840 Stockholm Bromma to Helsinki Vantaa with NoRRA (Economy Class)
• A Rapid Helsinki Transit and The Finnair Lounge
• AY099 Helsinki Vantaa to Hong Kong International with Finnair (Business Class)
• Transiting Hong Kong and Cathay Pacific’s The Pier Lounge
• CX715 (AY5855) Hong Kong International to Singapore Changi Terminal 4 with Cathay Pacific (Business Class)
• Into Singapore, IBIS Budget Crystal
• The Mercure Hotel, Bugis
• Boating around the Singapore River
• Exploring Hawker Markets and random fooding around Singapore
• The Best Camera is the One You Have With You – Exploring The Gardens by the Bay
• Up to the Marina Bay Sands Skypark…
• …and the fallout of a stolen and returned iPhone
• Back to Changi Airport the Pokemon Centre at the Jewel and Terminal 4
• 3K513 (AY6379) Singapore Changi to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (Jetstar Asia Economy Class)
• One night in Bangkok and the Avagard Capsule Hotel, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
• An early morning at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi and The Miracle Lounge, D Pier
• AY142 Bangkok Suvarnabhumi to Helsinki Vantaa with Finnair in Business Class
• Out of Vantaa Airport and into Helsinki… and a little beyond
• Holiday Inn, Helsinki Airport
• Early morning at Helsinki Vantaa Airport and The Finnair Schengen Lounge
• AY841 Helsinki Vantaa to Stockholm Bromma with NoRRA (Economy Class)
• The slow return to Arlanda Airport (with a military band)
• D84459 Stockholm Arlanda to London Gatwick with Norweigan Air Shuttle
• How to get home… coach or train?
• Sometimes, Simple Isn’t Needed… Or Wanted

One night in Bangkok and the Avagard Capsule Hotel, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi.

Exiting the Jetstaar Asia A320, it was time to reacquaint myself with the wonder and joy that is  Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport – and that of course means one thing – follow the signs to Thai Immigration and Arrivals.

That is nice in theory, but then I forgot how vast this airport was. Yes. It’s a wondrous airport, but it always feels like a long hike to anywhere in this place.

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I’m sure this gets longer every time

Eventually, I reached the Thai border.

Thankfully, it was empty – so I was seen to, and stamped into the country. With no questions, apart from putting my fingers on scanners, I was cleared to proceed through to luggage claim and customs.

No need to deal with this… I hoped. 

With no big suitcase following me at this point, I could skip the luggage claim and head to the public area.

Now, I knew that the capsule hotel was in the basement of the airport – in the SRT Air Rail link area – but it was not exactly well signposted.

I therefore had a fair bit of exploration to do in the basement. So here’s a guide if you’re hunting for it:

• Head down to the basement level of the airport.
• Go towards the 7/11 on this floor. You’ll be near the SRT AirRail link. There are two “channels” to go to – the one on the right will take you to the trains. You need the one on your left-hand side where the express train services used to depart.
• Go down the corridor. It’s long. On the way, you’ll pass luggage forwarding places and currency exchange (that always had a queue, no matter the time of day).
• Eventually, you’ll come to three sets of pods – two on the right (one for the Avagard Capsule Hotel, one for The Box Hotel), and one on the left.
• Go to the one on the left to check in.

Easy, right? It took me the best part of 20 minutes to hunt for this place.

Well, my bed would have a fire extinguisher next to it, which was nice.

When I arrived at the hotel, a kind lady began the check-in process after confirming that I had made a booking. They took a picture of my passport and immigration stamp.

With that done, I was directed back to the main set of capsules I encountered first.

Luggage storage was offered if I needed to stow a suitcase behind the capsules. With that, I was asked to set a PIN on the capsule for the night. I confirmed a checkout time and instructions were given (as I would be heading upstairs around 5 am for the fight back to the Nordics).

With that, it was time to explore my little capsule for the evening.

Shoes off is a good idea.

Whilst it’s rated for up to two people, I would guess this would be a very tight pinch. For a single traveller, it’s fine enough – there’s plenty of space – with the floor being the mattress.

The capsule is controlled with a touch panel on the side, to control light, temperature and so on.

There’s also an emergency button there too.

To the side of the pillows, there was a bottle of water, tissues from Minso and that’s it.

To the right is the main control panel for the capsule.

The sheets themselves were clean, with the majority of the noise isolated from the outside. Well. Most of it. I knew when a train was arriving or departing, for example, and snores permeated through the walls at night.

In terms of facilities – anything else, like food, drink or a toilet – there was a walk, with the toilets being on the ground departures level (Level 1). Not so good if you need to go in the middle of the night for a “2-minute walk” and then into a small room

Wi-Fi in the capsule… wasn’t good – to be honest. I suspect it was connecting to a travel router and out, but the performance was… enough for text-based websites. Rich or video sites suffered hard.

For me, I took this as a chance to lighten my rucksack and prepare for a quick walk around the Siam Square area of Bangkok.

To do this, it was time to enjoy the SRT Airport Rail Link. But that required another battle – fighting the ATMs, which were in mixed Thai/English mode.

Put it like this: Using Google Translate and trying to use an ATM is not a fun experience.

Eventually, the cash machine spat some money out at me, and I could go and get a ticket for the train.

With the ticket vending machines being more of a pain than usual, I went to a person behind the booth and got my RFID token to ride the train.

Even at night, I was wandering into downtown Bangkok, trains were every 15 minutes.

Although the trains will be familiar to those who have come from the UK – they’re Siemens Desiro UK trains. These were the trains that were initially used on Heathrow Connect and Greater Anglia, which are now operated by East Midlands Railway. SRT ordered a batch for their railway, with much more power air conditioning packs.

These trains used to be divided into two types – an Express variant (used to travel between the airport and Phaya Thai) and The City Line, which was configured as a stopping service. Since 2014, the Express service has been suspended, so it’s just a stopping service which takes 30 minutes to Phaya Thai for 45 Baht.

It’s a shame that contactless payment methods aren’t supported.

Boarding the train, it is very much a commuter-style train – by that, it’s plastic seating in a longitudinal form.

For those commuters who think they’re hard done by by the delay in the East Midlands Railway refurbishment of their trains, you could always have this….

…. Thought not.

Even though it was late, the train was busy, with both airport and local passengers using the train – which is good to see, especially if they go through with the plan to extend the line up to the old Don Mueang airport.

Getting off at Phaya Thai, it’s a matter of heading downstairs and to the exit (depositing your RFID token first).

I continued my wandering around over to the BTS SkyTrain to take me to Siam Square.

All aboard the BTS Tea Train.

Although it had long passed 10 pm at night. A lot of places had shut up shop in the evening at Siam Square.

Getting off at Siam Square, it was clear to see everyone had given up for the night, with accessways closed and barriers off.

I walked down to Rama 1 Road and walked for a little bit – but unlike Singapore, which had been dry all trip, Bangkok was in full wet mode.

Combined with everything shut within visible distance, I chalked this up to a loss… and made my way back to the airport. I know I could have explored a little more, but honestly, my adventurous spirit had been tempered the past few days (and there was a part of me still looking to abandon the rest of this ticket and head directly home in economy class).

I still needed dinner.

Tracking back to the airport was pretty much the same – onto the BTS SkyTrain to Phaya Thai, and buying another ticket (with a vending machine that loves to take notes, but gives back coins as change…. sigh) for the train back to Suvarnabhumi Airport.

So. Many. 10 Baht. Coins…. and an RFID token for a train ticket.

Racing back towards the airport

The airport line as it currently stands 

The classic “easy to see, easy to press buttons”

Exiting the Air Rail station, I was hungry – I’ll be honest, I hadn’t eaten properly in the last few days thanks to the iPhone incident (a roll with cheese, ham and pepper, two onigiris and a bowl of instant noodles do not count properly as sustenance).

Thankfully, there was a 24-hour 7/11 nearby. That would do. A combini dinner is a passable one, with a hot toastie, bottle of water and some crips to nibble.

Well, it is slightly better than it was on the Jetstar flight’s sandwich.

After popping upstairs for a comfort break, I headed back to the capsule hotel to bed down for the night. When I got back there, there were a few more pairs of shoes out – including one over my capsule.

Thus, I snuck into the capsule and bedded down.

I’m going to be honest – it was comfortable to the point that I only woke up because the first alarm that told me to get up woke me. I don’t know if it was the exhaustion of the past two days or other factors – but I got a reasonable night’s sleep in a capsule.

Waking up, it was a matter of putting my crap back in my rucksack, finding the door control button, then closing the capsule door behind me.

Overall:

For just a few hours, the Avagard Capsule Hotel was perfect.  It gave me the safe I needed securely to relax, store and explore, whilst allowing me to pause between flights without leaving the airport complex.

The only moan I have would be the air conditioning units need to be a little more powerful in the capsule, as well as better directions to the place – because finding it the first time was a royal pain.

Next:

An early morning at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, and The Miracle Lounge, D pier.

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