Sunday, December 25, 2011

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

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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 @___@

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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.

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finally here

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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.

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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.

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if u see this then ur lost like us! LOL

Finally with some help we managed to find the jetty

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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

Route

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!

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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

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The boat across the river cost 3 baht onli ler

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Jetty

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Tourist boat

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

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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…

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long queue…

After changing the clothes we’re finally in!

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outer view

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entrance fee 350baht

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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.

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

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

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Huge sleeping buddha inside

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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 ^_^

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

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The stairs are all very steep

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We had a hard time climbing up

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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!

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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!

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

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Tomorrow it’s chatuchak and sky bar!!