Sawasdeeka everyone!
While everyone was happily enjoying their Merdeka holidays, I was celebrating my Merdeka in Bangkok. To be a little patriotic, we took AirAsia to Bangkok. There’s nothing better than supporting Malaysian “made” no?
Touched down and checked into our cool “hostel”, on the way catching glimpse of the Bangkok highways, XXL billboards, colourful taxis and loads of colourful taxis. =)
Taxi! We rode a pink one into town. =)
Dropped our stuff and headed to a street stall selling fried pork. It caught our attention on the way to the Hostel. Good stuff. Took a stroll around the area and discovered lots of things. Such as an awesome Chicken noodle soup stall. Thinking of it makes me salivate… Slurppppp…… This was also where we were absolutely lost for words.
After that, we headed to Suan Lum Market or so we thought and stumbled onto more interesting things.
Watched people dancing in Lumphini park, they even jog at night. I wonder if anyone does that here. But their park is huge! Suan Lum was kind of a let down. The stuff was a little pricey for our pockets.
Had ourselves a good old foot massage and got scammed into a 600 Baht Ping Pong show. Honestly, I would rather pay to stop the performers from performing. It’s just… just… wrong…. OH…… Next!
Day 2 saw us heading to the Grand Palace, Wat Pho & Wat Phra Kaew.
The minute we stepped out of the taxi, we walked right into a scam. Very clever this people. They told us we couldn’t go in dressed up like that since the grand palace has a special ceremony till 11:30am. We can go in after 11:30am though. So the nice “official” looking gentleman suggested we head to the pier to catch an hour boat tour and be back just in time to visit the grand palace. The kind gentleman even guided us to the pier and brought us directly to the pier itself. Wow! How helpful! Then the tour agent comes and describes it and at 900 Baht we can see this and that and so many other things. That’s when we realised we walked into another scam. Aish. The lady eventually cut her price into half. Anyways, we headed to Wat Pho first and the day went better from there.
I was awestruck by the massive detail of their Wats. It takes tremendous effort and patience to do those details man! Amazing stuff.
Pagodas in the sky.
Can u see the details? Not close enough?
See the intrinsic details?
Imagine how long it took to make it look as beautiful as it does now
Ok enough. The “tour” took longer than expected but it was a tourist thing to do. All tourists do it I’m sure.
Day 3 – Damneon Saduak Floating Market
Hired a taxi to bring us to the floating market and I think we somewhat got scammed into taking a motorboat instead of a normal rowboat, but oh well. It was an interesting experience. I still can’t quite comprehend how they can cook in their “sampans”. How?
Check our her huge soup pot. How does she get to balance the boat? Pro.
Went for an elephant ride after the tour of the floating market. Interesting situation but I think Chiang Mai’s elephant ride was nicer. The route was more natural or maybe cause the Chiang Mai one was the first time. Hmmmm….
Reached the town late noon and made our way to Platinum Mall! I wonder how anyone can walk finish the entire mall. There’s so much stuff there! Just not enough moo-lah!
After that we headed straight for Asia Hotel to catch “Calypso”! This 600 Baht was well worth it!
Before the start of the show, I noticed the disco balls on stage and I told my friend.
“That disco ball reminds me of the Wonder Girls”
She said: “Yeah, we’re here to see the Wonder Girls mar… Later when the show start, they’ll come out.” *or something around there*
I said: ” Yeah right.” *and forgot about it….*
Feathery friends
About 5 performances after the start,
Thai version of the Wonder Girls!
AH! Wonder Girls! Me & me mate was like… “uh…… ok….. we were just talking bout it….”
There's something pretty ghostly about this. If I would just crop it.
Just keep spinnin
Day 4 saw us heading towards Platinum Mall for a shop till a drop session.
At the end of the day when we wanted to head back to the hostel. It rained cats and dogs and we were advised to go back into the building cause it would take 2 hours to go back.
There was this taxi driver that wanted to convince us to do something else other than wait for a taxi.
Too Free Taxi Driver (TFTD): “Take 2 hours to go there, go shop/massage then come back, just in time.”
Us: “Shopped already.”
TFTD: “You want to go massage? I know good massage.”
Us: “Massaged already.”
TFTD: “Go have dinner.”
Us: “Ate already.”
TFTD thinking, “you want ping pong show?”
Us: “Watched already.”
TFTD just smiled. That darn Ping Pong Show that you’ll bring us is so darn near our place and you can bring us there but not to our hostel? Grrrr……
Day 5 brought us to the famous Chatuchak Market!
I would say Chatuchak is huge! The prices here are slightly steeper than Platinum, depending on store, but I think they have more variety. Hence, I would prefer Chatuchak over Platinum if only it were air conditioned. They have pretty interesting stuff at Chatuchak but it’s harder to browse. You can’t really have second thoughts. Once you walk pass it, no turning back, you can’t find that store again *for a tourist at least*
They had awesome coconut ice cream! Mmmm… delicious on a hot day!
We had our last dinner at Somboon, which served the best fish I’ve ever eaten!
Deep fried Seabass with sweet fishsauce. Lip-smacking stuff!
And of course, what would be a trip without visiting Patpong eh?
Super Pussy! No I did not go in.
I took one of their “saleswoman” cards and straight away the lady ushered me to the shop… scary stuff. She took it back when I said I’ve watched a ping pong show. Man! This people are pushy!
Day 7 saw us checkin outta our lovely hotel rooms and left for Suvarbhumi Airport after a hearty breakfast of sausages, eggs, pancakes, toast, cereal and yoghurt.
I like the curvaceous design. There's also lots of natural light. 2 thumbs up!
Bye Bye Bangkok! It was good fun while it lasted. I’ll be back. The question is when?
Oh… Coincidentally, Jason Lo was on the same flight as us.
P.S. I rarely used the word Sawasdeeka in Bangkok. I just said hi or nodded my head.
P.P.S. Now I know how tourists feel when they come to Malaysia.
Fairly harassed by unscrupulous touts.
“You want taxi?”
“Where you want to go?”
Seriously, a real cabbie wouldn’t be standing waiting for you at the bus stop even before you get your luggage from the storage area asking you where you wanna go.
Destiny... I'm coming! 