Ultimate Travel Experience

A visit to Barcelona in Spain is never complete without watching the world famous Flamenco dance show. We made this as one of the key highlights for our trip to Barcelona. We made the booking for the dinner cum show at the Tablao de Carmen.

Tablao de Carmen has been operational for the past 18 years and has a strong reputation of providing great quality flamenco dances. Their show presents several different beats and styles of flamenco so that the audience can appreciate the great variety of the dance.

We arrived at Tablao earlier to visit Poble Espanyol. The tickets we purchased included free entrance to Poble Espanyol that highlighted various types of building from all over Spain.

The standard meal that we ordered came with four courses consisting of soup, salad, main and dessert. The meal was splendid. Better than what we expected. But we were at Tablao for their famous flamenco show and not the food. After the meal, we were waiting eagerly for the show to start.

At last, the waiters cleared out table and the show started at 7:45PM. The show lasted for about 75 minutes. Flamenco dance was full of energy, passion and intensity. Each dancer has his/her own style, passion and intensity when they performed.

Finally, the show came to an end at 9PM. I would say the audience enjoyed themselves thoroughly that evening. We hailed a taxi to bring us back to our apartment.

Barcelona hotel is easy to book via internet and the price is affordable as well for the discount hotels. This was how we did the reservation for our accommodation in one of Barcelona hotels.

For your ultimate travel experience, please visit Table de Carmen official website for more information.

Contact information :

Tabla de Carmen
Avda Marqués de Comillas s/n
Pueblo Español de Montjuïc
08038 Barcelona
Spain

Phone. 34 93 325.68.95
Fax. 34 93 425.46.16

Tags: Europe · Nightlife

A visit to Madrid is never complete without experiencing the traditional food and drinks of the Spanish people. I opted for a night walking tour of Madrid to have a quick sample of the Madrileno lifestyle and fabulous food and drinks in the evening.

We visited a few restaurants and bars to sample the authentic Spanish cuisines such as chorizo in cider, octopus from Galicia, cider from Asturias, sherry from Andalucia and other specialties from various regions in Spain. As we enjoyed the local cuisines and delicacies from all over Spain, the guide was explaining the tradition, culture and history of Madrid. He was from Madrid and very proud of it. He just cannot stop telling us about how great the Real Madrid soccer team.

The last stop in the evening was a a restaurant serving great tostadas with excellent salad, tapas and cheese. The food was good. The atmosphere was excellent. It was simply the best place to spend the evening away. This was a good place to enjoy the nightlife in Madrid. Madrid is famous its vibrant nightlife.

After a great party, it was time to get back to the hotel for a good night sleep. Hotels in Madrid are easy to book via Hotelclub. Prior to making any bookings, it’s good to check on hotels news and updates so that you can make better decisions on where to stay to get the best from Madrid.

Tags: Europe · Nightlife

Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino is one of the major attractions along the famous Las Vegas Boulevard. Caesars Palace is not only famous for its hotel and casino. It is famous for its world-class entertainment which features artist like Celine Dion with her ‘A New Day’ concert.

Besides entertainment, Caesars Palace has many nice and interesting attractions that visitors must not miss such as Qua Baths and Spa, Venus The Salon, Garden of Gods Pool Oasis, Neil Leifer Gallery, nightlife at Caesers Palace, shopping at Caesars Palace and

For your ultimate travel experience, please visit Caesars Palace’s official website for more information.

Tags: Accomodations · America · At A Glance · Nightlife · Sightseeing

The capital of Sweden, Stockholm, is a capital surrounded by water. It was built on 14 islands and there is an archipelago of over 20,000 islands nearby. Stockholm is famed as the city of Nobel Prize. Besides, its scientific advancement, Stockholm nightlife is something that one should not miss.

Stockholm is an old city. To be exact, it’s almost 750 years old. In this city, old buildings stand along side the moderns ones nicely. But, it’s still a small and compact city. So, it make visit easy. I can see almost all the places of interest within a short space of time.

There are a few places of interest in Stockholm that you should not miss. The oldest part of Stockholm, Gamla Stan, has the Great Church and Royal Palace with its cobblestone streets lined with quaint shops and nice restaurants. The fashion design in Stockholm is as exciting as any other European cities. The hottest and trendiest fashions are found in “Sofo”. “Sofo” stands for “South of Folkungagatan” which encompasses the area south of Folkungagatan and east of Götgatan on Södermalm. For great food, visit Ostermalm’s Saluhall which is a covered market specializing in culinary delicacies. You can find all of Sweden’s food produce in Saluhall.

In the evening, Stockholm nightlife is even more interesting. As the sun sets, Stockholm’s nightlife begins to hum. Stockholm has a wide variety of clubs, bars, discotheques and pubs. You can find small pubs to huge bars with many dance floors. The top most bars and clubs are found around Stureplan and Kungsgatan, Stockholm foremost entertainment district. Most of the pubs and bars in Stockholm are opened till 1 AM while nightclubs stay open till 3AM. However, in Stureplan and Kungsgatan, the outlets there stay opened till 5AM.

Tags: Europe · Nightlife

Las Vegas – City of Entertainment. The City That Never Sleeps. These are words that can never fully describe how vibrant Las Vegas can be in the evening. Everyone is full of life. Everyone wants to be seen on the street or partying away the night. You may be gambling in one of the many casinos, go for the many extravagant shows or just go pub hopping the night away. On the first evening, I was ready to party. My friend and I got a Las Vegas map and got ready to leave Excalibur Hotel at 9PM. The first group of people whom we saw on the street was a couple going to get married the Las Vegas style. Then, we saw a group of people going for costume party. Some are dressed like Freddy Mercury, Elton John, doctors and nurses in nursing scrubs.

When we hit the Las Vegas Boulevard, we realized that no one needs a map to stroll on “The Strip”. One needs to walk on one side and walk back from the other side to see the whole strip. There were the humongous hotels, colorful neon lights, happy and sometimes, drunk people on the street.  Many people are handing out call cards for sex related services along the street. Many people, including us, just took the cards for the fun of it.

Along The Strip, there are 3 major stops in front of Bellagio, Treasure Island and Mirage hotels and casinos. These hotels offer free shows by the street side. Bellagio with its Fountains of Bellagio which performs every 30 minutes starting from 3:00PM - 8:00PM and then, every 15 minutes till midnight. The fountains will dance to the rhytm of the music. Add it with colorful lights and wonderful music, the show is really amazing.

Treasure Island Hotel & Casino’s “Sirens of TI” show is performed on every evening at 7:00PM, 8:30PM, 10:00PM and 11:30PM. The show is about 17th century clash between a group of beautiful and sexy sirens who fought against a group of renegade pirates. The Sirens charmed the renegade pirates with their powerful songs to overcome their bigger and stronger opponents. The show is located outside of the hotel at the Sirens Cove. Its comes with a full size version of at 17th century ship.

The Mirage Hotel & Casino offers its Volcano that erupts hourly from 7:00PM til midnight daily. The Volcano has been one of the many attraction in Las Vegas since it started in 1989. It continues to mesmerize audiences with its thunderous display of water and fire which shoot up to 100 feet above ground.

The rest of the evening is filled with photo shooting and hotel hopping with regular stop at the many pubs and night clubs along The Strip.

Tags: America · Nightlife

After a tiring day of moving around Bangkok, a good place to relax is to spend one evening to be entertained at the Calypso Cabaret. The performance at Calypso can make the evening to be most memorable and entertaining, filled with laughter and fun watching the beautiful ‘women’ performing.

These ‘women’ are commonly known as ‘katoey’ or ladyboy. They are transgender from male-to-female. They work in traditionally feminine occupation such as hair saloon, restraurant, coffee bar, beauty saloon and also in entertainment and sex industry.

Calypso Cabaret is in Asia Hotel located at Phyathai Road. You can reach this place by train at Ratchathewi station which is around Siam Square. There are two shows a nite at 8:15PM and 9:45PM. Each show is about 45 minutes. The auditorium can cater about 350 pax.

The ticket is price at 1,000 THB for a normal show. If you book online, it’s only 750 THB. For dinner show, it’s 1300 THB or 1050 THB online.

Besides Calypso, there are a few other cabaret shows you can go to such as Mambo, Ratchada, Golden Dome and Alcazer. Since all of them are performed by ‘ladies’ whom are nice to see but no to be spoken to, I guess after seeing one, you have seen all.

After the show, the ‘ladies’ will lineup along the walkway to bid the guests goodnite and allow you to take pictures with them without any fee.

Here are some of the pictures from the show at Calypso Cabaret.

 

 

Tags: Asia · Nightlife

Thailand, The Land of Smiles, has been in the front page due to its bloodless coup de’tat. Thaksin Shinawatra lost his Prime ministership. But for a billionaire like him, it’s more of getting his big ego dented than anything else.
 

This incident brought me back to 1992 when I had to travel to Bangkok for the first time in August. There was a coup de’tat in Bangkok a year earlier lead by General Suchinda Kraprayoon. Then the Black May uprising which started in May 17 that lasted for 4 days against the military dictatorship that saw many students and civilians killed. King Bhumibol Adulyadej intervened in this crisis by meeting up with Suchinda and Chamlong Srimuang, leader of the democracy movement. This intervention effectively ended the military dictatorship and transitioned Thailand back to democracy.

I was anxious about my personal safety in Bangkok . Not sure of what to expect. My colleagues in Bangkok told me that everything was fine. No more demonstration. No more soldiers on the streets. I felt better and look forward to visiting “The Land of Smiles” and “The Venice of the East”. Now, I can’t wait to get to Bangkok !!!

Arrived at the Don Muang International Airport on time and joined the ever long queue to clear the immigration. The queue took about an hour to clear. After that I was out of the airport fairly quickly. Got into the hotel limo and I am now in Bangkok . Yippee!!!!
 
The trip to the hotel took about 2 hours due to the infamous Bangkok traffic jam. Checking into Novotel Bangkok on Siam Square was very quick. The hotel is located in one of Bangkok’s busiest shopping area. It’s a very nice hotel.

Now, it was time for some strolling around. Checked out the area and found Hard Rock Cafe Bangkok was around the corner. Mah Boon Kong (MBK) and Siam Center shopping malls were within walking distance. There was a nice Thai restaurant “ Ban Khum Mae, which means “My Mother’s House“ which served excellent Thai cuisine in front of the hotel.
 

It’s night time. It’s time to go for dinner. I decided to have dinner at Ban Khun Mae to try out Tom Yum Goong since I love hot and spice stuff. On the way out of the hotel, I saw a person walking towards the hotel. The figure of this person looked like my former room-mate in the university. Taking a second look still convinced me that it’s him but this in BANGKOK . I told myself it can’t be true. As he approached the hotel entrance and the light shone on him, it’s HIM!!!! I have not met him for 5 years. He just had early dinner at Ban Khun Mae. He decided to join me for dinner at the same place again.

After dinner, we discussed on what to do for that evening. Since it was his first time to Bangkok too, we decided to take a taxi ride around the city to check out the place. Getting a taxi in Bangkok was easy. The taxi drivers were honest and they use meter without question. Upon getting into the taxi, the taxi driver started talking to his two MEN customers.
 
 

Driver : “Where you want to go sir?”
Friend : “somewhere nice to see in Bangkok”
Driver : “Nothing to see in Bangkok at night. All black”
Me :      “There must be something nice.” I was thinking of modern cities like Singapore and Tokyo with their bright lights.
Driver : “You want girls, night club, massage, sex, tiger show, sex show?”
Both : “No, no, no”
Driver : “Bangkok girls are good and nice. Must try”
Friend : “How about Democracy Monument.” He was thinking of Champ Eleysee and Arc De Triomphe
Driver : “Nothing to see there. Very small place.”
Friend : “Just show it to us”
Driver : “Ok ok ok”

As he was driving towards Democracy Monument, he reached out for a small pamphlet in his back pocket. It’s a small brochure for sex services he was promoting. He handed over the pamphlet to us.

Driver : “Nice girls ha. You like?”
Me : “No.”
Driver : “Why?”
Friend : “We are not interested”
Driver : “Girls are very nice. You must try.” He started to sound agitated as we continued to turn down his offer.
Driver : “See. Finish. Democracy monument is small. Where you want to go?”

Silent

Driver : “Tiger show is good. I bring you to this place. Cheap and good.” He started to sound more interested in getting commission for getting us to these places than showing us Bangkok.

My friend and I started to get worried as the conversation is going no where other than such palces. Since we were in Bangkok for the first time, we decided on Tiger Show.

Friend : “Tiger show, how much?”
Driver : “Ha roi baht.” Showing us his five fingers to indicate five hundred baht.
Friend : “OK !.”

The driver pressed on his accelerator and we sped towards the pub which offered such show. We arrived in less than 5 minutes. He must have been circling the place just waiting for us to make a decision.

Inside the pub, the show has started and we were told that we did not miss anything as the show will run continuously till the wee hours. We quickly sat down and got ourselves captivated by the performances on stage.

Novetel Bangkok on Siam Square
Address:
392/44 Siam Square Soi 6
Rama I Road Pathumwan
10330 BANGKOK
THAILAND

Tel : (+66)2/2098888
Fax : (+66)2/2551824
E-mail : reserve@novotelbkk.com

Ban Khun Mae
Address:
458/7-9 Siam Square Soi 8,
Rama 1 Road,
Prathumwan,
Bangkok 10330
Tel : 662-658-4112
Fax : 662-251-5657
Cuisine : Thai cuisine
Hours: Open Daily 11:00AM - 11:00PM

Hard Rock Café Bangkok
Address:
Hard Rock Cafe Bangkok
424/3-6 Siam Square SOI 11
Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand

Hours:
Restaurant:
Open Daily 11:00AM - 2:00AM
Merchandise:
Open Daily 10:00AM - 2:00AM

Tel : 662-251-0797

Contact: mgt@hardrockcafe.co.th

Tags: Asia · Nightlife · Sightseeing