Eat . Shop . Walk @ Bangkok 2011–Day 2

We woke up early so we can go for the morning market and do some last minute shopping at Pratunam. The breakfast starts at 7am, and we were there around that time and surprisingly, there were more ppl there compared to the day before, all are early bird huh.

Breakfast was similar but tat’s not the main point :-p

After breakfast we did some more shopping at the morning market and went into pratunam market one last time.

By the time we finish shopping and went back to our room, it was already pass 9am. We freshen up, pack our things, and checked out from the hotel. I asked the ppl at the counter where is a good place to get taxi to go to Khaosan road, and they sent us to the main road with their tuk-tuk.

At the main road we grab a cab to khaosan road. One useful tips about getting taxi at bkk, always grab a cab from the main street and avoid taxis waiting at the road side, coz usually, those are the ones that will try to con you, and before you get on to the taxi, always ask if they are running meter first. Meter taxi is pretty cheap at bkk, it would be a good choice if you got 4 ppl sharing.

Another good tip would be, print out the map to your hotel and bring it with you, coz not all the taxi drivers knows english, and not all of them may know where your hotel is. Luckily I print mine, but the taxi driver still took some time to figure out where the place was @___@

Some ppl were selling the jasmine on the road while we were waiting at one of the traffic lights, and the taxi driver bought this for 10 baht

It was none rush hour but it still took us about half an hour to get to khaosan road, and it cost us around 90 baht.

finally here

we’re just next to 7-11, and the famous Lamphu house

This is a resort style hotel, not very classy but does have the resort feel. It’s actually the cheapest hotel we stayed throughout the trip, juz slightly over RM85 per room per night. The biggest problem is probably they dun have lift at some of the blocks and you may need to walk quite far.

After checking in we went to our rooms and rested for a while, before we set out for the sight seeing.

Our room

Next stop, grand palace!

My cousin used to tell me one of the must do thing in Bangkok is taking their river taxi/bus, I din had the chance to do it last time so I’m definitely gonna do it this time!

We tried to find the jetty according to the map but got a little lost.

if u see this then ur lost like us! LOL

Finally with some help we managed to find the jetty

The closest jetty to Khaosan Road is behind Navalai River Resort

We waited for a while and met an local aunty who can speak chinese, so we asked her how do we get to the grand palace but she doesn’t know where it is either @_@ funny, luckily i did my research :-p

Still, when the first boat reached, the aunty asked us to go on it so I din really look clearly, and only after i got on the boat I realize the boat doesn’t get us to the grand palace!

This is the sightseeing boat la Wyndie!

N i immediately notice at the next stop I can take an exchange boat to the grand palace, so we quickly got off, before the lady selling the tickets came to us, ok lar, I’m not an honest tourist, but it’s just 1 stop bah :-p

Well, that’s not the end, apparently we need to take a boat crossing over to the opposite jetty first b4 we can take the boat tat will take us to the grand palace @_@ I still think I’m pretty geng being able to put all of that together, HAHAHAHA

The boat across the river cost 3 baht onli ler

Jetty

Tourist boat

After we reach the jetty we decided to fill our tummy first, there’s so many ppl there!

our lunch

And finally we’re at the grand palace! after taking much time to find the entrance @_@ and we  were stopped coz we’re wearing shorts :( had to ‘borrow’ some clothes from them, it’s free but u have to queue up for it…

long queue…

After changing the clothes we’re finally in!

outer view

entrance fee 350baht

The grand palace is grand indeed, but the weather was also extremely hot! We quickly snapped the photos and proceed to the next destination, Wat Pho.

Walk through the footpath to get to Wat Pho, it’s very near, can reach within 20 minutes

Under renovation but still open :) The entrance fee is 40 baht if not mistaken.

Huge sleeping buddha inside

some other buildings inside Wat Pho

A funny thing tat happened was, some indian/bangla guys asked to take photo with me, thinking i’m korean/japanese? Well it’s not the first time, and the most awkward one actually happened at cambodia when a couple of lil monks wanted to take picture with me, i dun think i’m any celebrity look a like ler @_@

Anyway after Wat Pho we took a ferry across the river to Wat Arun, my favourite one among these 3 ^_^

The entrance fee is 30 or 40 baht i think, u will need to rent a sarung if ur wearing shorts, for 20 baht.

The stairs are all very steep

We had a hard time climbing up

But the view up there is amazing ^_^

The original plan was going to Yaowarat/China Town after this, but we decided to postponed that to tomorrow and chill at Khaosan instead, so we took the ferry back to the jetty at Navalai and had dinner at Aquatin, which is juz next to the jetty, and had probably the most delicious dinner of the trip!

they have the nicest pineapple fried rice ever!

After dinner we went back to the hotel, taken our bath, rest for a while and went off to explore Khaosan!

And we sat down for a lil drink to end our day :)

Tomorrow it’s chatuchak and sky bar!!

Eat . Shop . Walk @ Bangkok 2011–Day 1

If you take a look at my fb photo albums, you’d notice there’s an album titled “Eat . Shop . Talk @ Bangkok 2010”, I’ve paid my first visit to Bangkok November last year for about 3 days, it was so insufficient tat all we could do was juz eat, shop and talk. I din even got close to the famous grand palace @_@ There and then, I promised myself that I would go back to Bangkok again soon for all the things I missed out, Grand Palace, Chatuchak Weekend Market, Floating Market, Khaosan Road, I know all of them, it just doesn’t feel right not to actually visit them.

Well, how I finally made it to Bangkok in april was quite a story by itself, at first i tot i was going to miss out all those places again on my second visit to Bangkok, but somehow, i guess the universe wants to fulfil my dreams after all, so there I was, walking on Khaosan Road and Chatuchak Weekend Market as I always wanted to, and this time, we did so much walking, I decided to theme it “Eat . Shop . Walk” as tat’s the 3 main things tat we did while we were in Bangkok.

We got our tickets pretty cheap, it was less than RM300 including the flight to KL, tat was actually one of the main reason we decided to go, but the catch is, we had to go on pretty odd hours, around midnight when we reach there, and early morning flight back to KL. Some more, we had to take the 230pm flight from kch-KL, then 1030pm flight from KL-bkk, about 6 hours transit time in KL @.@

Luckily, tis time there was someone there to bring me out for dinner while we were waiting for the flight ^^

We had dinner at a Korean restaurant at Nilai to kill time, thanks to +x

The side dishes tat all Korean restaurant would have

forgot the name of the dish, but it’s chicken :-p

kimchi soup

+x sent us to LCCT after dinner and everything was smooth, the plane landed around 1130pm. The airport link that we were taking terminates it’s services at midnight, so i was a little worried weather we could make it in time, but luckily, we made it to the last train. N surprisingly I found that the price has increased from what I paid last time, it’s 40 baht per way, but still quite cheap if you compare with the taxi that would cost about 400 baht.

We’re staying at My Hotel Pratunam for 2 nights. I found this hotel on the net while I was searching for hotels to stay in pratunam, this caught my attention cause it was the same brand as the one I stayed in Medan, and the hotel in Medan gave me a very good impression. I wasn’t very sure where the hotel was, and got the place plotted on google maps, but then, things could be different when your on the ground >_<

We got off at Ratchaprarop Station and was completely lost @_@ Now that I think of it, it was quite dangerous for 2 gals to walk in the middle of the night, carrying 2 big luggage. I roughly know the direction but still felt really lost, luckily someone pointed out the way and after half an hour, we finally reached the hotel.

The hotel is a bit off the main road, from Ratchaprarop Station it takes about 20 minutes by foot, but it’s pretty cheap, just about RM95 per nite, including breakfast, the down side is, they don’t provide mineral water and coffee making facilities like most hotel does. But if you don’t mind the walking, it’s a pretty good choice.

our room

They sell some interesting stuff :-p

Breakfast starts 7am, we planned to wake up at 8am but somehow both of us woke up before 7am, so we got ready and went down for our early breakfast (tat way we can start shopping early :-p)

outside our window

y is there a hold button in the lift?

Breakfast was buffet style, simple, but not bad.

The bell-boy came talking to us during breakfast, saying we can take the free tuk tuk to pratunam area, and some tour packages that they offer. You could find better offer if you go to Khaosan Road, but if you wanna save the trouble, this could be a good choice too, since they will fetch you directly from the hotel. Anyway, we rejected the offer cause I felt like walking to the market, it’s about 10 minutes walk, but along the street there’s still some interesting things to see, so I don’t mind the walking at all ^^

out view of the hotel

the street leading to pratunam market

When we reach there the morning market was about to close, still manage to buy a few clothes though, hehe. The morning market starts at 6am, the clothes are cheap, and it’s a good choice for last minute shopping ^^

We went into the large pratunam market and started our day, the things here are really cheap, they will usually give you wholesale price if you buy 3 piece and above from the same stall/shop. So usually a conversation there would sound something like “How much?” “wholesale?” “how many piece?” “can mix?”

And they sell a large variety of fashion stuff, ranging from clothes, skirts, pants, belts, hats, accessories, bikinis etc etc etc, and u can even find some very interesting things like these

Pratunam market is one of the best place to shop for clothes in Bangkok, I even bought some t-shirts for just 60 baht per piece (that was because I needed something to wear at nite when I zzzz, but actually the t-shirt were quite good, and very comfortable too). Of cause the bad thing is you can’t try out the clothes here, but no one seems to mind at all cause it’s just so cheap! It’s not air-conditioned but most of the places are covered so you won’t be exposed to the sun, and they have fans installed at most places, you can even hear songs from radio while shopping! We wondered inside the market for about 3 hours, until we finally made it to Platinum mall.

Platinum mall, or more accurately, Platinum Fashion Mall, is a wholesale fashion mall where u can find everything related to fashion, you will not believe how many shops they have here, a full day is not even enough to finish up all the shops! The last time we were here, there was only one thing lacking of this mall, they don’t have any shops selling shoes, and not much selling bags either, this time around, they opened a new mall just beside this one, with a whole floor selling shoes, and another floor selling bags!! So it’s official, Platinum fashion mall is the shopping heaven!

But of cause, with all the air conditioning and the comfort of being in the mall, the clothes here usually are slightly more expensive than the ones in the market, but you can still find some pretty cheap ones, and the quality here is usually better than the ones in the market.

Anyway, by the time we reach the mall it was already noon, n we’re pretty hungry from all the walking, so we went up to the food court for lunch.

Duck Soup Noodle

Pad Thai

desert

The food here is not bad, and most importantly, not expensive, we both had a main dish and a desert, a bottle of drinking water, and it just 75 baht each.

After lunch we continued to shop~ of cause we weren’t able to finish off all the shops, so we just walk around, stop whenever we see something interesting, and spent a lot of $$ @__@

We quickly finish the old mall and moved on to the new one, where the shoes are $_$ but before that, we took a break from shopping and went to have some coffee (let our legs take a rest too)

The Thais are just so thoughtful, i think there’s 3 black canyon coffee in the mall, so there’s always a place to chill out when you’re tired of shopping (and a place to rest before you continue for more, hehe). My fren describe Black Canyon Coffee as the Starbucks of Thailand, I do see more BCC than SB over there. Their coffee is not bad, a must try!

And some interesting stuff we saw out of the window when we were resting

The taxi queue being occupied by tuk-tuk, now tat’s something i don’t see in Malaysia! I din manage to snap the photo but they actually have some ppl there helping the customers with the taxi (or tuk tuk), helping them carry their stuff (which can be REALLY a lot) And I’m really impress by the crowd on a weekday, can’t imagine how it would be on a weekend @__@

After our coffee break we proceeded to the new platinum mall and bought our shoes! was so happy to be able to find my size ^__^

After buying the shoes both of us have spent more than 1/3 of our money, n it’s just the first day! so we quickly made our way back to the hotel, and took our bath before coming out for dinner again.

The walk back to the hotel was not very long, but very crowded, we had to share the road with cars, tuk tuk and all the other pedestrian, it actually felt like a traffic jam all by itself.

After we reach our room we took turns to take our bath and then took out all the clothes we bought, and started trying them out, was very content with our prized possession, hehe.

But still, being content doesn’t fill our tummy, so we went out for dinner. The restaurant that I wanted to go was located at soi 17, according to google maps it should be just at the same lane as our hotel, but when we reach the end and asked the people there, they said it should be at the next lane, seems like google maps could be wrong too @__@ (later we remembered that we could have asked the free hotel tuk tuk to drive us there =___=)

It’s not very easy to find, but you can’t miss it

Once Upon A Time, quite a good name for a restaurant I would say. The atmosphere was nice, and mostly ang mos there.

The pics are not so clear coz it’s pretty dark there, n a lot of vegetation around so yea, expect a lot of mosquitos, but fear not, all is in control!

This is the first thing they give you as soon as you sit down, insect repellent! so thoughtful rite?

The food is not bad too, we ordered Green Curry and Chicken in Pineapple, taste really good ^^

And like most high-end restaurant in Bangkok, the rice is free for refill. Overall we spend 700++ baht, so it’s less than RM40 per person. It’s quite worth it for the food and the environment.

After dinner we walked back to our hotel, but of cause, not without shopping at the night market first! I would say the night market is not as nice as the morning market, but still with a lot of things to see and buy. Not leaving empty handed of cause :-p

When we finally reached our room, we realize we have bought more than RM1k worth of goods added up together! And just the first day!!

I personally bought 20 pieces of clothes, 4 pair of shoes and *some* accessories. Does sound a bit scary huh :-p

The shopping queens and the prized possessions

After the photo session, discussing wat to wear tomorrow, trying out some of the clothes, and packing up all our stuff, we turned in to get ready for another early start tomorrow, am not leaving pratunam till we shop in the morning market!