Bangkok Trip Day 1: 4th April 2012, Wednesday
曼谷之旅第一天：4月4日2012年, 星期三
Our first picture for a trip is always a picture of us in a plane lol.
Woohoo! BKK! Finally going there! Everyone's been there except the two of us. Just nice cousin Vivian and hubby Melvin and their friends are going there so we sort of tagged along. We booked AirAsia this time round. The trip took about 2 hours 20 mins. Bangkok time is one hour after Singapore time so even though we took off at 1055hrs, we reached BKK at 1215hrs lol. At first I was wondering how come the return trip takes so much longer? (1645hrs to 2005hrs = 3hr 20mins > 1055hrs to 1215hrs = 1hr 20mins) LOL...
Once we touched down, we were greeted with a beautifully decorated wall next to the luggage collection point. Sawatdee khrab!!! We're at BKK!!!
We were at the art gallery.
We then hired a cab big enough to ferry all 7 of us plus our luggages to our hotel. Saw an interesting picture in the cab lol.
This cab has an air-conditioner, not an air-freshener. Thank you.
And it took about an hour to reach our hotel in Ratchathewi Distrinct - Budacco, The Living Place. Vivian introduced this hotel as it's one of the better ones cos they always go to BKK. We recommend booking the hotel via Agoda, one of the best sites for hotel booking. It has a user-friendly interface and they have various rewards program for booking hotels and even writing reviews.
For a list of the hotels available for booking in Bangkok via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Budacco, The Living Place, click here.
For a list of the hotels available for booking in Bangkok via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Budacco, The Living Place, click here.
We're here at last!
Dear does the paperwork while I go trigger-happy lol.
Can't remember we got which room, but Vivian and her friends were one storey below ours. We were greeted with pink walls and pillows and white furniture when we entered our room. Looks quite ok. Even has a wooden bench instead of sofas lol.
What's on TV?
Interesting design.
A tropical island beach feel.
Pink walls - Dear's favourite
Some more pink walls - Can tell that she loves the place.
We quickly settled down and unpacked our stuff to get ready to move out. This hotel is not like your 4 or 5 star hotels. The moment you step out of the hotel, two rows of shops are what you see. It's like the hotel is hidden in the back alley or something.
A short alley leads us to the main street.
The main street looks so messy.
As can be seen in the above photo, there's a small sign that points to the right, which will lead to the entrance of our hotel. If you're pajiao you may just miss it lol.
Baiyoke Sky Tower II
But the moment you turn around from the view seen in that previous picture, you'll be able to see Baiyoke Sky Tower II, the tallest building in Thailand, which contains the Baiyoke Sky Hotel. So it's a good landmark for people going to Budacco to identify instead of the super long Thai address which is hard to remember. And maybe cab-drivers may not even be able to identify the road lol.
We then walked past several streets of shops. In fact all around the area are just shops. Full of shops. Selling mostly clothing. We then reached the main road whereby just happened to have Thai monks doing some procession along the side of the main road, so lucky! The locals were sitting by the side of the road and worshipping them as well.
Thai monks doing a procession.
So many locals sitting at the roadside to worship them.
Some people even pick up the flower petals which are said to bring good luck.
Melvin and Vivian takes a picture with the monks.
Our first destination was the Erawan Shrine, or the Four-face Buddha (四面佛). It's a popular shrine for worshippers to have their prayers answered. But it's quite a distance away and therefore we had our first try on a tuk-tuk. Haha damn fun though it's nothing much really. The driver was damn skilful in that he cut lanes like nobody's business and sped through the busy streets and brought us to our destination in a jiffy.
Finally took a ride on a tuk-tuk!
No he's not speeding, I think.
Well...the weather was so freaking hot that we had to drop by McDonald's for a drink to cool down. Tried the Green Tea Cream Frappé. Shiokz!
Sawatdee khrab at McDonald's!
Nothing like an ice-cold frappé to fight off the heat.
We then walked less than 100m away to the shrine. Plenty of tourists and locals thronging the place. I even met my ex-colleague-cum-ex-junior-armymate, Jimmy, at the shrine. 有那么巧吗？ I just left my company before this trip and didn't expect to see ex-colleague there. He was there on a vacation as well as he took leave to go to BKK.
Lots of worshippers like to come here.
Even met a friend here lol.
At the shrine, Melvin and his friends took turns to pay the Thai dance troupes to perform so that they will pray at the same time. Interesting eh?
Spot the difference.
We then walked along the main road of Thanon Rama I towards the west, past several shopping malls like Siam Paragon, Siam Paragon Mall and then reached Siam Center for barbeque dinner at Bar B Q Plaza.
They have huge malls all over the place.
Our first meal at BKK - BBQ!
Beautifully laid-out plates of meat, make you feel like eating more.
Some side dishes to go along with the BBQ.
First and only group photo for the trip.
Looks damn sinful but delicious eh? We ordered several side dishes, as well as drinks, which eventually totaled our bill to 225 BHT per pax. That's less than SGD10 per pax lol.
So colourful.
We walked around the mall, where the few of them bought clothes or shoes from the Adidas shop. Cheap meh? Hmm... Such international brands should be standard pricing around the world.
Road-stalls selling weird stuff.
Anyways it's already night time, and we proceeded to walk along the main
road back to where Central World mall is. It's the third largest
shopping complex in the world, as quoted from Wikipedia. There, the
famous Naraya shop was flooded with tourists, all grabbing baskets of
merchandise ranging from wallets, bags, to handphone covers. Holy cow
the people there were crazy. Dear resisted the temptation of buying
anything there, but not for long... When all of them had finished their shopping, Dear decided to grab a few pieces of her own. We ended up buying quite a few for our mothers as well. $_$
Outside Central World.
So we then walked along the busy night markets which lined the whole stretch of streets back to our hotel. It was NOT the time to shop. Best is early morning like 5am, as what our BKK guide, cousin Vivian, says.
Their nght markets sure are popular, even with the locals.
We headed back to our room to take a break, therefore I visited the 7-11 store just across the road from our hotel and got some drinks. Saw some interesting-looking drink and therefore decided to give it a try lol. Not too bad hehe...
Oishi Chakuza! No idea what it means.
We flagged two cabs to get us to this Memorial Bridge Night Market which was quite far away from our hotel. It's literally a whole bridge full of pasar malam stalls, which extended to quite a distance outwards from the bridge as well. Didn't really find anything worth buying and therefore we returned after spending quite a long time walking past almost every stall. It even rained for a short while, but luckily we brought umbrellas lol. Dear and I walked on our own for a period of time, while Vivian and the rest went their own way too. Somehow when it rained, EVERYONE else went to hide inside the stalls, but only WE took out our umbrellas. What a funny sight. We then met up with the rest and then took cabs back to our hotel to rest for the day.
Many clothes, shoes and accessories are sold at this night market.
Well... we didn't manage to get supper from the night market, so Dear and I bought some food from 7-11. 7-11 is our best friend whenever we go overseas hahahah!
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