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Bangkok Day 4 – Going Home Is Totally Resistable!

It’s the last day! 😦 Almost broke but I don’t want to go back. Not when I have just plain old boring ghastly work waiting for me. 😐

the 'scenic' view from our hotel room window... i loved staying in that room though

We got up and had breakfast around the same time we always do for the past three days. After that, we walked to the mall we first went to when we arrived in Bangkok – Indra Square. Now we can get the stuff we saw here first but didn’t dare buy in case there were better deals elsewhere in our shopping forages. This time, I saw even more things I wanted to buy. I ended up with a couple more of sexy tops. You know, thank goodness I’m about to quit the corporate world, ‘cos all the new clothes I’ve brought are really not all that appropriate for office!

cloth bags with environmental messages - bought a black one that says 'meltdown' with a picture of a melting globe ice cream

quirky bags that would cost a bomb back home but if i recalled correctly were quite cheap here

some of the fashion of bangkok... not the best picture of it but believe me, it's quite outrageous some of the stuff they sell here

After walking about for a bit, spending the last of our baht, I left Angel and cousin to continue shopping while I went to the Indra Regent Hotel (the hotel adjoins to the mall) lobby to wait for my dear Thai friend, Keo. I have not seen him since he came to Kuala Lumpur and we had Indian food.

I waited for about five minutes and saw him rushing into the lobby like he was in a big hurry. He has grown a moustache, but otherwise looks just like how I remembered him. He told me to come out with him quickly cos he was not allowed to park his car outside the hotel for long. Oh, he has a car! I didn’t know that. How silly of me. 😛

Went into the car, where his girlfriend Renu was waiting. I knew her because she visited him when we were both in Macau last year for our summer course. She looks just the same too. After our greetings, Keo asked me where would I like to go. I told him our flight was that afternoon and we have to reach the airport at lunch time, so maybe just a quick drink at some Thai restaurant nearby?

Apparently Keo and Renu had thought they’d drive me about the whole day to see Bangkok! I certainly didn’t expect them to do so, I just called them the moment I reached Bangkok and told them where we were staying, and if we could meet up before I leave.

Anyway, after Keo and Renu discussed something in Thai, they decided to bring me to this tourist spot nearby. It was a place we passed by in our ‘cultural’ trip with Khun Shop – the former palace of the former king. I didn’t know we could enter it! Khun Shop didn’t tell us that.

the present king - you will see various pictures of the king everywhere in bangkok for he is very loved by the people here

In the former palace of the former king, housed royal arts and crafts made by Thai artisans under an organisation which has the Queen as the patron. The exhibition is called ‘Arts of the Kingdom V’ and features intricate pieces made by artisans for the royal family. From thrones to paintings to fine pieces of decorative art, they were very impressive… and precious of course. I wore pants on that day and because of that, we had to purchase a sarong for me to wrap around. The exhibition does not allow females to enter unless they wore skirts. They had sarongs of all colours and I chose mint green, naturally. 🙂 Sadly, cameras were not allowed into the exhibition so I cannot show you the beautiful things I saw there.

entrance to the 'arts of the kingdom v' xhibition

the former palace of the former king... architecture has european influences because the former king like european architecture

After I completed the exhibition, Keo and Renu took me to a nearby cafe for a drink and chat. I had a quiche lorraine and iced chocolate at Keo’s insistence. My Thai friends really how to make their friends feel welcome. 🙂 While I had my food, Renu took pictures of me chatting with Keo and Keo told me news about his life. Apparently he has just recently tied the knot with Renu – about a fortnight ago! As Renu is a Muslim Keo has now embraced Muslim too.

We got back to the hotel after our snack just in time for me to check out of the hotel with Angel and cousin. While I was gone with Keo and Renu, Angel got some nail art!

angel's nail art

goodbye citin and pratunam... awesome shopping district

the road down soi 17, where we left citin pratunam

Keo & Renu drove the three of us to the airport as they live a few minutes away there. During the drive there, Keo told us about the situation in Thailand with the Reds, why the people love the king so much and lots more. We were with a tour guide, after all. 😉 Renu is also a tour guide, in fact! They have both travelled the world over.

When we arrived at the airport, I gave Keo a gift I brought from home and hugged Renu. God, she is so lovely… she’s in her early fifties and is the epitome of ‘aging gracefully’. I would be very happy if I could age half as gracefully as her!

Went into the airport, checked in our luggage, stole some fries from Angel, who bought her last pork burger from McD at Indra Square. 😀 Checked in ourselves and on the way to our departure gate stopped every now and then at some duty-free shops. Now that’s a whole other shopping aspect I have yet to explore…

suvarnabhumi airport under dark clouds... they don't want us to leave too!

My trip ended much too soon for me! A very big thank you to Angel and cousin for making the trip so memorable for me. You were both wonderful company! And of course, Keo and Renu made it all the more special. They offered us their place the next time we visit Bangkok, which is an absolute certainty for Angel and I. We have not gotten enough of sweet Bangkok!

The shopping was very fruitful but we have not done many ‘cultural’ things. The next time, I would like to go on an elephant ride, and maybe to a different floating market, and visit the grand palace maybe or a museum, and the zoo which is behind the former palace of the former king. And all the other shopping spots which we have yet to explore! MBK mall, Platinum mall, Khaosan Road, Chinatown… oh gosh, there’s just so many things to do in Bangkok!

Bangkok Day 3: All Resistance Irresistible Whatsoever

The day I’ve been looking forward to most – Chatuchak Weekend Market!!!

I liked travelling with Angel and cousin. They’re both early birds like me. I think we can do much more in a day if we start it off early! Anyway, I think I had better sleep this time because we adjusted the air conditioner’s temperature and I might have gotten used to the snoring. 😛

Woke up, had breakfast, got the hotel to send us as far as they can in their hotel tuk-tuk (it doesn’t have a proper licence so the hotel only provides tuk-tuk service around the vicinity of the hotel), then walked to the nearest BTS Sky train station.

the bts platform, phaya thai station heading to mo chit station

Looks and feels very much like our LRT station. We got off the last station on that line, which is Mo Chit. The market is just right next to the station. Even before we reached the market there were stalls set up by the side of the road. Everything looked so damn cheap! Price wise, I mean.

regretted not buying a clock here. haggling gone wrong 😦

These are some of the unique things you can find at Chatuchak Weekend Market, also known as JJ Market to the locals.

in one of the many sections of chatuchak market

so cute!! i bought a cow one 😀

foodstuff at the market

thailand is obsessed with doraemon, seriously... you see this cartoon character everywhere, literally!

cute piggy banks... only 100 baht!

I was a little underwhelmed by Chatuchak. Maybe it was because we didn’t explore the sections I’d prefer to go to thoroughly. However, I did come home with 3 tank tops for myself, a frilly miniskirt (I can even fit miniskirts here – it’s impossible if I shopped in Malaysia!), a pair of flip-flops, cow print bedroom slippers and some other souvenirs.

It was horribly humid and stifling at the market because the place is cramped and crowded. It was even worse outside, the sun was merciless. I got a tan just walking about that day, and we avoided the outside part as much as we could. The toilets are not very nice either, but I suppose I can’t expect much from a place like that.

The worst of all was the food. The stalls looked unhygienic and we didn’t dare to eat food that wasn’t piping hot. The ones we might have gone to were filled with people and the ones without people were serving food that had been out there for a while. We settled for this place we were walking past, even though it didn’t look clean. I wanted to have an omelette, but they don’t serve it even though it’s written on the menu. I chose some noodles and chicken stew, and they served me chicken feet and blood tofu (pig’s blood, apparently). 😕 When it was time to pay, the price is not as what it was stated in the menu. Talk about being ripped off and having the most unappetising meal of our trip!

We left the place about 4 o’clock. Couldn’t take the heat and feet were seriously hurting. Hobbled all the way to the train station and took a taxi back to the hotel. While Angel and cousin took a shower, I watched tv (we had a flat screen tv in our room) and dozed off. They woke up me during dinner time and we decided to have dinner at Platinum Mall which we haven’t visited, so we can continue shopping. (We’re really hopeless shopaholics, aren’t we??)

But to our surprise, the shops were closing when we arrived! It was only 7-ish in the evening. Apparently shops in Thailand close early. This was very strange to us because malls in Malaysia open up to 10pm, and eateries most of the time are open even later than that. So we went out of the mall and contemplated where next to go. Angel and I were keen on returning to Siam Paragon (which we hoped would not be closed so soon, seeing as it is a premier shopping mall and we did recall leaving quite late first night when we went there) when this taxi driver approached us.

He also had a proposition like Khun Shop – he’ll take us to Suan Lum Night Market, which was something Khun Shop told us about when we passed the place the morning of our ‘cultural’ day, for 50 baht only (we recalled it was quite a ride to get there, and that sounds like a bargain!) if we have dinner at this place he wanted to take us to. Apparently he has some customers waiting at this restaurant so he wanted to maximise his trip by taking us there.

We knew he’s getting a commission by doing this and we didn’t mind. He even said specifically that this place is ‘cheap’ and that food at Suan Lum Night Market was ‘expensive’. So of course we were curious what place did he want to bring us to and we agreed in the end.

the place where we had 'cheap' food!

He took us to this seafood restaurant that was far from cheap! It is impossible that Suan Lum Night Market’s food would be more expensive than here. A plate of fried rice (I don’t know how big, I must admit) costs 300 baht! It was ridiculous. I had some money left but I didn’t want to spend it so lavishly on a meal as I wanted to get some clothes I saw at some shops we went to yesterday night. Angel’s cousin very generously treated Angel and I because she wanted to eat there. She doesn’t quite take to street food as Angel and I did for our dinner the night before.

tom yum goong - absolutely divine

She was right – the food is good. That’s our tom yum goong and my lord, it was absolutely delicious! I think I had three bowls of it. 😛 Slurped every drop of the sour, tangy goodness. To my surprise, though, it isn’t all that spicy. We always hear Thai food are especially spicy.

our one and only real proper thai dinner - which looks very similar to what we could have in a seafood place in malaysia, haha

That was some fried fish with mango, and what they call a ‘morning glory salad’. Delicious too! I drizzled tom yum goong soup all over my rice and tucked in heartily.

After our dinner, we waited for the taxi driver, who promised to take us to Suan Lum after an hour at the restaurant, but he never turned up. We took another taxi back to the hotel and went around Pratunam again to get the clothes I wanted. I bought a black Grecian style top, a grey cardigan and ruby red ballet flats with a slight heel. Now I can click my heels and say three times… 😀

We then went around the night market at Pratunam. Stalls and stalls of clothes and paraphernalia!

Bangkok Day 2: I Couldn’t Resist :(

I didn’t sleep very well the first night because I’m not used to sleeping with an air conditioner, so I was sneezing for a bit. That, and Angel’s cousin snores.

We had a surprise when we went down for breakfast. It’s vegetarian! For me, I’m not used to breakfast as I usually bring a Tupperware of fruits to work and eat whenever I feel hungry. For Angel and cousin, they are used to their sausages and bacon. There wasn’t even eggs – totally vegetarian. I can’t remember what I had, but it wasn’t bad. And I ended up eating quite some ‘cos it was a buffet. 😳

On this day, we were going to explore the *ahem* cultural side of Bangkok. We planned to visit the Grand Palace, but apparently we set out too early for it as it was not opened yet, according to the taxi driver. So we considered the Floating Market, but the estimated fare according to the meter would be about 800 baht… and that’s just one way! It’s not looking to be a very fun day at the moment…

Then the taxi driver proposed to us: for 1000 baht, he will take us around wherever we want to go until 5pm. That’s like RM100 to go around town. Floating Market already costs RM80 one way if we followed the meter! And since there’s three of us, it’d only cost us about RM30+. And the taxis are really quite comfortable, even better than Malaysian taxis. Taxis in Thailand are Toyota Corollas. So it didn’t take us very long to accept that deal.

Our first destination? Floating Market, of course. It was a looooong drive there, about 80 kilometres outside of Bangkok. Thankfully, we have a pretty friendly guy for a taxi driver. His English is of course rather broken, but he was funny nonetheless. We kept laughing during the course of the day with our taxi driver, with his funny Thai accent and interesting grammar, to put it mildly. An example would be like this:

Our sweet taxi driver proposing the whole-day deal: You wan I take yoo alaau, holiday?
Translation: You want me to take you around, the whole day?

This famous forward mail is really spot on when it comes to local Thais (who are not fluent in English) speaking English.

this isn't our taxi driver, it's his father... the resemblance is there, though! he calls himself Shop... rotfl

So after a very very long taxi ride, we arrive at the Floating Market dock. There are many types of floating market and the one Khun Shop (Khun is Mister in Thai, if I’m not mistaken) brought us to is called Damnoen Saduak. The dock/jetty is just a makeshift hut and the toilets were *shudder*. But it was an awesome experience!

on the way to the main floating market

i wonder how many souvenirs have dropped into the muddy river

beautiful pictures for sale... i bought one (not a set like these above) with an image of three colourful tuk-tuks

the main section of the floating market... just like in the pictures!

does it look yummy to you?

We went solely for the experience and we were not disappointed. Sure, the water is muddy, with plastic bottles and small branches floating in it, the place looks dirty and old, but it was a wonderful experience in spite of that. And of course, we tried not to shop to save for Chatuchak and failed miserably… Angel bought one set of those beautiful pictures while I bought just one piece, and Angel’s cousin bought many handmade flip-flops. They also bought some coconut pancakes which were made fresh on the boat of the vendor, and gosh it was delicious! I don’t like coconut, by the way.

Our boatman was friendly and loved to take pictures, even when nobody wanted him to, haha. In every shot of Angel (for she was the one sitting right in front of the boatman, while I sat right in front and Angel’s cousin in the middle) the boatman was behind her, flashing the peace sign. 😀

We had a small lunch on the boat, eating some soupy noodles with strips of pork or beef in it. It cost us 30 baht, which was rather pricy as there was so little of it. But it was hot and freshly cooked, and we were hungry so it was pretty tasty. I asked the boatman what is the dish called, and he said, “Kuey teow!” I laughed, because kuey teow are flat noodles and is a common dish in my country. I was expecting some sort of exotic Thai name for it. I guess we’re not all that much different! 🙂

It was terribly hot when we went around the floating market. Even as the boat sped along when there was little traffic on the river, the wind that blew across my face was hot. Thank goodness that the boat we sat in had a covered top. Some boats were without covers so those tourists had to use umbrellas to cover themselves.

We took about two hours to complete the floating market. After that, we went back to the taxi. Khun Shop waited for us during the whole floating market trip. We weren’t sure where next to go, so he suggested we go for an elephant ride! I was very enthusiastic about that.

When we reached there, though, it was around 1 o’clock and the sun was ruthless. It was so hot my flip-flops felt like it was burning my feet wherever I walked. The fee to have an elephant ride was 600 baht… per person. And it was only for about half an hour. Our money was dwindling fast by then and we haven’t even got to Chatuchak. So in the end, we didn’t go for the elephant ride. Not just because it was too expensive but because the sun was much too hot!

Back in the comfort of the air-conditioned taxi, Khun Shop took us to a nearby temple to visit. I don’t even know what’s the name… and it’s unfinished.

some temple... so much for a cultural experience! i mean, me being totally uninterested in the temples.

some statue

some information about the temple we visited... i think

The sun was still really awful when we were here. After a quick visit here, we went to Wat Pho, a temple nearby the Grand Palace. We decided not to go to the Grand Palace for some reason I can’t remember. Anyway, Angel and I were wearing flip-flops and we couldn’t go in wearing that. Oh right, I think we didn’t go cos the entrance fee was 450 baht… RM45 just to enter it! Crazy… and you can’t even wear flip-flops to do that.

some temple in Wat Pho... i'm really not into cultural stuff, i discovered

i have no idea what are these and why are there so many of it throughout the grounds of Wat Pho

Wat Pho was another hot, sweltering visit. We were quite tired by then and ready to get back to the hotel. But before that, we promised Khun Shop that we would go to a gems store – the biggest in Asia, apparently – so that he could get some commission for bring customers. For every person he brings there he gets 100 baht. We did not have to buy anything if we didn’t want to so we didn’t mind going. After all, he did give us a very good deal for driving us around for the day.

a government building Khun Shop expressed dislike for because he is one of the Reds!

Throughout our drive, we learnt quite a few things about Khun Shop. (Pity we didn’t take a picture of him.) He drives his father’s taxi by day, while his dad drives it by night. On a good day he can get 1500 baht driving the taxi around. I suppose it isn’t a good time now that he was willing to make that deal with us. Nearing the end of our day with him, I saw that the meter was running up to about 1800+ baht. 😮 He’s a Thaksin supporter and doesn’t believe in the present government. He would be entering some protest the next week, or so I understood from his broken English. He has a family but they don’t live in the city. He has two girls, around teenage age. It was interesting getting to know a local like that.

Oh dear, I’m really long-winded about this day, aren’t I? Anyway, we went to the gems store and I bought something I totally shouldn’t have – a pair of silver earrings that cost RM150 (USD$50?)!! I know, I’m crazy… I did like the earrings so much and it was totally me, colourful and flowery and all. Oh well, when you’re on vacation you’re meant to do crazy things, right? Right??

We got back to the hotel around dinnertime and were too pooped to go anywhere far for dinner. Angel and I bought a packet of fried rice, some soupy pork noodles and sausages from the many roadside stalls near the hotel. The food was freshly cooked and hot, so it was pretty safe to consume. We made sure we didn’t buy anything that wasn’t hot. And it was sooo delicious!

a stall along the road our hotel is on... didn't get food from here as the food's prepacked

After that, we walked about Pratunam area, places where we did not cover yesterday. I saw some clothes I’d have loved to buy but I deliberately brought just a few baht out with me so I couldn’t get anything. I’m saving for the big one – Chatuchak Weekend Market tomorrow!!