Our Adventure In Bangkok

We went on a holiday to Bangkok last weekend for five days and this time we took off without Nigel. (He was pleased to be staying over at my mom's place for the whole 5 days!) Instead we went with Stan's best buddy, Edmund. He was our tour guide, he speaks Thai and knows Bangkok like the back of his hand!

DAY 1 : Arrival - Shopping in the City!

Here's the both of us posing like a bunch of tourist! Central World is a shopping haven. Classy place for some branded goods. I love the bookstore, It's actually connected to Isetan and another mall with really nice ID shops. I bought lots of cotton fabrics here. There are a few quilting shops in Central - very pricey!
In Bangkok, shopping centres are located in clusters. Here you can walk over to the next mall with the pedestrian walkways right beneath the light railways. I think that's what KL is trying to do.
Everything is jampacked and chaotic in Bangkok. You'll see double rows of light railway tracks. See the traffic below! Traffic is the norm here. I hate say this - it's a great place to shop but definitely not my kind of city to live in. The drivers here are crazier than KL drivers.

Siam Paragon - the height of shopping at Bangkok. Very fancy designer shops and this is one mall you have to visit to experience the materialistic city-side of Bangkok! Everyone is dressed to the nines and I just love the supermarket and the food court!!


You can catch a train anywhere to everywhere. Beats having to wave down a taxi. Remember to emphasise that you want to use the meter everytime you catch a cab here!

Our first dinner in Bangkok has to be local. This is a restaurant called ' Mom's place'. Good food and good company. That's Edmund being a good host. My camera is acting up on me this trip. So some of the photos don't do any justice to the culinary delights we're about to dig in.

When in Bangkok, these are the dishes you must try...seafood curry in a coconut, cashew nut with meat & papaya salad, green curry, phad thai and my absolute favourite - Mango with sticky rice.

Of course we had to take a picture in front of Hard Rock Bangkok! Quite small compared to Bali Hard Rock. Nice location though!

DAY 2 : Going around on my own. Bangkok- here I come!

My first ride on a tuk-tuk. Quite a scary experience, since our hotel advised us against taking any tuk-tuks (apparently they'll con and take you around to routes to make extra money), but I was extra careful and of course, ask first before you get onto any ride. It cost only around RM3, so I decided to go for a short trip to a jewellery gallery (here, he tells me he gets free petrol even if I don't buy anything.). So with time on my side, what the heck. I had a thrilling ride around the area, visited the jewellery gallery and got back to Central for some shopping on my own. The boys have gone to visit a tackle shop 2 hours away from the City.

The tuk-tuk driver took a picture for me too.

I met with the boys at the Suan Lum night bazaar. Yikes, the jam here is horrific! But worth it, lot's of nice shops.

Shopping!
Shopping & more shopping!


DAY 3 & 4 : Chatuchak MarketThe canals around the city. The water is pretty murky and choppy. This was on the way to the money changers.
Oh, I forget to mention that outdoor advertising in Bangkok is big business. Here, you can rent a truck with a digital screen to park anywhere you want! This was outside of Pratunam centre - a silver wholesaler and semi precious stone mall.

Chatuchak is a big market place. When I say big - I mean HUGE! They have around 26 sections, and each section features fashion streets, homeware, second hand goods, antiques, crafts and whatever else Bangkok manufactures! Ice-cream stalls are everywhere. Go ahead, you can try some. I didnt have any tummy problems.

Looks like even school kids are trying to make a living here. It's a colourful, noisy, crowded and very very hot market. But I must commend Bangkok on their 'CLEAN' toilets!!!

School children doing a street performance.

This was around 11am and the crowd is pouring in already!

Food stalls are everywhere.

We walked.
And walked!
And we saw this Information buggy going around picking up tired tourist! How nice!! Anyway, I forgot to mention that you should probably get a map at the office before venturing into this massive maze of a market!

Coconut ice-cream is a must try! The roast pork too!






We had lunch at this cute little stall. It's called the boat house restaurant. Fantastic beef noodles. See the 2 huge cauldron of soup!

This stall is so crowded, my seat was bowl-to-bowl with the opposite diner!

We were sweating like crazy in here. The noodle bowl serving size here is pretty small - so you'd probably go for a few servings.

I love this little cafes around Bangkok, DoiTung. It's Thailand's version of a Starbucks. Good coffee slushies and blenders topped with cream and yes - MACADAMIA!

Our last dinner was at Chinatown. My camera actually died on me. So very little pictures of a very very good dinner. So sad!

Anyway, we had tom yum, crab in creamy coconut sauce, grilled aubergine salad, minced meat in basil, Thai otak-otak and ahhh ...mango with sticky rice (translucent ones!!!)