Suan Lum Night Bazaar near Lumpini Park is great place to spend an evening in Bangkok and is popular with locals and tourists alike. It is a huge complex with a large number of stores selling everything from Thai arts and handicrafts including paintings, sculptures, paper crafts, handmade bags, clothing and shoes, souvenirs an accessories, lamps, as well as the ubiquitous CDs and DVDs that you will find in most Thai markets. You can also have your palm read, get a massage or a tattoo.
There are plenty of things to do besides shopping, with a puppet theatre and lot of places to eat. There is a huge beer garden surrounded by various types of food for sale, where you can sit and relax while watching a variety of Thai and international acts on the big stage.
Being centrally located and well served by public transportation, the area provides a great place to base yourself while staying in Bangkok and the are plenty of good hotels in the area. Check out the map below and read more about the hotels at Hotels near Suan Lum Night Bazaar.
Clicking on the location markers on the below map will bring up information on each hotel, including address, key features of the hotel, star rating and a link to the reservation page. You can enlarge the map if you would like to have a closer look at the street level and also move the map around to see the surrounding areas.
View a larger version of this Google Map of hotels near Suan Lum night bazaar
Just 2 hours and around 1500 Baht by taxi from Bangkok, Hua Hin is a pleasant and convenient side trip if you are looking for a beach-side holiday, without the seediness of Pattaya. 
Back to the room, which was pleasantly appointed, not surprising for a Marriott property. The bed was large and comfortable, with plenty of pillows and a Thai silk bed runner over the foot of the bed.
Satellite TV with all the channels you would expect, CNN, BBC, HBO, ESPN, Star movies, MTV and the like were of course available.
The bathroom was well appointed with separate bath and shower with plenty of towels, some of them folded in cute little configurations, see the elephant on the bed in the picture to the left. 
That morning we decided to try the pool. Unfortunately, it seemed that while I was enjoying the sunrise at 6 am, a lot of guests from a certain European country were busy heading down to the pool to place their towels on the poolside lounge chairs to "reserve" them for when they decided to turn up at the pool sometime later that morning. Unfortunately this seems to be quite a common practice among certain groups of tourists in Thailand. After circling around the pool a few times we asked one of the pool staff if there were any places available to sit. He looked around and moved a couple of unaccompanied towels from some poolside lounges and told us we could sit there. About 30 minutes later we were accosted by a middle aged European couple who were outraged that we were sitting in "their" sun lounges. Thankfully, one of the pool staff soon came to our rescue and sent them on their way.
The pool is large and quite family friendly and features some waterfalls and a small slide made of stone at one end of the pool.
