Bangkok Part 1

Day One - 27 July 2006 - Thursday

So this day marks the day that I set off to Bangkok. First time on “my own” as in without family, but was with a friend. First of all, the flight was 12.15pm, and we had to check in at least 40 minutes before the departure time or forfeit the fare. And, I had misjudged the timing. When I reached the bus stop, I missed the bus. When I reached Tanah Merah interchange, I missed the train and had to wait another 6 minutes. When I reached Changi Airport, I still needed to take the skytrain to Terminal One. Panicked a bit, but all was ore or less settled and we soon boarded the plane.

Seats at Jetstar Asia were allocated. Unfortunately I did not get window seats and since Karen liked to sit at the aisle, I sat in the middle. The headrest had some “Oto” covering on it which made me wonder if the leather seats were by Oto. I was surprised that the plane was so small! You could see the back from the front, all the way in. And there were 3 seats on the left and 3 seats on the right, with a small aisle in the middle. Our seats were No. 16, and that was near the wing so I presumed that the plane had about 30 seats or so. The stewardess were pretty okay. Heavy made up and all, black long stockings, hair nicely pinned up. Okie, so we chatted for a bit and stoned for a bit.

When we touched down at Bangkok, it was roughly 1.35pm. Bangkok timing is 1 hour earlier at Singapore. At the airport, started grabbing maps. Then, remembering distinctively my colleague advising me to get the airport staff to call for a cab for us would be safer, and not sure about the cabs there being too safe, we got the fixed cab from the airport that cost us 700 baht. My goodness. That was like S$29.50. Toyota Camry. And the driver still happily told us that if we added 20 baht, he would go on the highway and that was faster. We were like no, no, just go by the normal route.

After checking in the hotel, and going up to our room, my friend asks me what level are we at. I say, 7th floor. She says, she hears horror stories about it. So we change floors to 5th floor. Outside there is a swimming pool. It is a smoking floor but it was okay since we both don’t smoke. And then, it was time to look at our maps and decide where we would be going. So we decide to go to MBK centre as it’s near the hotel, walking distance.

MBK centre

Its an air condition shopping centre. We started out by eating at KFC. My goodness, the KFC there is fantastic!!! They had those kind of wraps that I love. And the wrap that I ate, contained chicken, shredded carrots, broccoli, (yes, broccoli!!) and melted cheese.. those kind of nacho cheese. My goodness, it was heavenly. I bought the set and expected to be given coleslaw. Instead, what I got was a tub (roughly twice the size of SG’s small tub) of beans, corns, pineapples and tuna!!! It was delicious!! And plus the drink, all was 95 baht. Yummy.

Then, on to shopping. We saw a clothes shop and shoe shop that had items going for 199 baht. Pretty cheap, compared to SG. I got 2 pairs of shoes, of which 1 of the pair my mom even commented that it cost $35 Singapore money? Heehee.

Btw, exchange rate was $1 to 23.7 baht.

Dinner was at the food court. You have to purchase cards and use the cards to pay for your purchases. Later, you get the unspent money back. I ate roast chicken with rice. Quite nice but the chicken was too little. Then dessert we had sago with strawberry sauce (supposedly a Thai dessert).

We went back, placed all our stuff down, then decided we would go to one of the night markets that opened until 2am.

Patpong

We took a tutup (looks like our Singapore trishaw but its motorised and the driver is directly in front of us). Pretty cool. Cost 100 baht. The market was pretty cool. Saw a lot of shoes, and one exactly like the beaded shiny one I got from Mustaffa Singapore!!! :O

That’s when our bargaining started too. Bought some lovely notebooks made from recycled paper. Think the cost was $5-6 per book, but managed to bargain, the guy was quite nice and smiling the whole time. Unlike another stall that refused to give us less and did not call us back when we walked off. Also saw some guy making keychains and bookmarks from wires. He was so talented; he could come up with a lot of different creations just from the wires.

Day Two – 28 July 2006 – Friday

So today, we went for our breakfast, first time. Breakfast was not bad. They had ham eggs, bread, pancakes, fruits, sausages, rice… mmmm… we ate a hearty breakfast which was good coz we didn’t eat lunch until much later.

Khao San

Today we decided to set of to Khao San, the backpackers heaven. Took a cab there. It was an interesting sight. In fact, everywhere we went had something different even though it was the same kind of concept, as in pasar malam stores kind of concept. It was there that I did my dreadlocks! I rather call it plaits though. We went to the second one we came across, which was done by a young couple. Much better as they could speak English. I chose my favourite purple coloured beads, dolphins and gold beads for them to put on my hair. It was 50 baht per strand, so since I had 6 strands, it was about 300 baht. (About $12.65 SGD) It was very pretty haha!

It was there that I also managed to get to exotic/batik looking kind of dresses that I liked very much. I can’t remember how much though… I think was 2 for 500 baht. Then after shopping, we took a ferry down to Chinatown. Chinatown was another different sigh to behold. Super crowded, super crampy. Stuff sold were mostly cloth, beads, toys… we basically just walked around but didn’t get anything.

When we went back to the hotel it was about 6 plus, and we were so tired we decided to sleep, but in the end we slept longer… close to 2 hours instead of the intended 1.

We also purchased delicious food from a restaurant called “Ole Ole”. Next time if you’re in Bangkok and stay at Asia Hotel, you can visit this place. It’s very near, a few minutes walking distance away from the hotel. We tapowed the food, I got American fried rice, which was really delicious and came with an egg, sausage and drumstick, 60 baht. And I also had to try the chicken cream soup, since I love soup and was super hungry by then. The soup was delicious as well, with huuuuugeee chunks of chicken inside. 40 baht. I have to say I really enjoyed the food I ate in Thailand.

Pratunam

When we woke up, we decided to go to Pratunam. However Pratunam was closed so we just walked along the night stalls which were pretty interesting as well, I got some more clothes hahaha.

Also got a pancake like thing that was folded into a triangular cone shape and paced inside a cardboard wrapper. It came with all sorts of filling, like ham slices and jam. We chose chocolate. 15 baht from one of the stalls by the roadside, something like those portable ice cream stalls we have in Singapore. Hehe.

Then was back to the hotel, some nightly super (roadside stalls) and a short walk, then it was back to the hotel. I tried using the bathtub but it was pretty uncomfortable haha…coz my body length was longer and parts of my legs that kept popping out got cold, so didn’t stay long inside.
I also noticed that there were 7 Eleven stores everywhere! And also, everyone was wearing yellow shirts which we were wondering what it was all about. Later I found out it was about the Thai King, 6th ascension to the throne or something like that. Wow, the Thais were very patriotic, which was nice to see.