Day 3 -- Saturday, 12 December 2009

We start the day off being a true tourist – a half-day tour to Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, before heading off to the much-raved Chatuchak Weekend Market for more shopping!

To prepare myself for the Chatuchak spree, I dutifully approached the hotel receptionist to get more Thai baht (the girls simply refused to lend me any and I was down to the last 1000 baht) before heading for breakfast.

The tour starts at 6.30am. We were the first patrons at the breakfast table at 6am. The early morning and my hurting throat totally dampened my breakfast appetite. I only had a bowl of congee.

The tour van picked us up at the hotel lobby. There were a group of 5 Filipinos and 1 German together with us on the tour.The first stop is an Orchid/coconut Farm. We went out of Bangkok and passed by plots and plots of salt field. Seawater is trapped in the field and evaporated to harvest salt. It is a tranquil view.

Salt Fields

Harvested Salt

At the Orchid/coconut Farm, it is the usual ‘made-for-tourist’ farm in any guided tour. There is one section demonstrating how coconut sugar is made and other sections displaying different orchids. Stalls selling souvenirs occupy majority of the farm. We didn’t spend a lot of time there and soon headed for Damnoen Saduak Floating Village which is 45 minutes drive away.

Orchid Farm

These photo albums are beautiful, but not very practical to use as the 3D elephants will collect dust very easily. So I didn't bring them home. :(

Damnern Saduak Floating Market

Damnern Saduak Floating Market is situated in Ratchaburi province. Upon alighting from the van, we boarded a long-tail speed boat for a cruise in the canal towards the floating market. The 30-minutes journey was an interesting but ‘horrifying’ one.

Interesting as this is my first time on a long-tail boat. However, there is more than one boat in the narrow canal at a time; some are even coming from the opposite direction. The motor at the back of the boat made the greyish-looking water in the canal choppy and splashy. To make matter worse, we are sitting the first two rows of the boat! Though we sat tightly in our seats throughout the journey, some splashes still got on us :(.

Just in case you are wondering, no, you won’t get motion-sick from the steady boat ride. (I tend to get seasick but I felt I wasted one pill on this trip ^^)

The long tailed boat

Me & Ruoting on the long tailed boat

See how dirty the water is

Row row row a boat~

Both old architecture and resort-like apartments stood side by side on the banks of the canal. We even pass by a huge Buddha statue. It is quite a sight.

Upon arriving at the floating market, I was pretty disappointed. It had the same ‘made-for-tourist’ feel. The rivers are packed with boats of tourists. The locals seen there are mainly vendors. We might have missed the quieter morning market since we arrived closed to 9.30am. I got down the boat and half-heartedly walked through the souvenir stalls. Very soon, we came to the other part of the floating market – the more Thai-authentic part. You can find people selling food, fruits, veggies and spices.

Sweet Mango

You can also see people cooking in their boats and selling their dishes across the river using a basket tied to a rod.

We couldn’t resist tasting a few of their yummy-looking local dishes.

Buying from the boat lady - notice how the trade is being carried out from river to land?

Tasty coconut pancakes

Pan-fried Chinese dumplings

Taste like the Japanese gyoza but the thin flour skin is more chewy and crispy

Thai Soup glass noodle

Yummy!

We came to a ‘balcony’-area where we can look down at the bustling river from the top. It is a beautiful sight – vibrant and colourful. I am glad I came afterall; it would have been better if it was less touristy.

View of Damnern Saduak Floating Market

You can take photos with the elephant for a small fee

If you have more time, you could hire a boat or rent a canoe and visit the smaller side canals outside of the market area where the locals live and work.

After spending approximately 1.5 hrs there, we head to the final destination of the tour - Carving Wood Shop. It’s amazing watching the wood-carving masters work on the wood planks as they slowly turn a piece of wood into a 3D art.

Hear no evil; Speak no evil; See no evil

The tour agent dropped us at MBK when we get back into Bangkok city.

Dying for some Thai cuisine, we decided to walk-in to the first Thai restaurant we came across as we entered MBK.

The restaurant has a colour theme of white and brown with wooden furniture. Though it has a big pane of glass for one side of the wall which allows natural light to shine in, the soothing colour theme calms the glaring sun rays, creating a pretty relax lunching ambience.

The menu has both English and Thai description with pictures. We quickly decided on a few dishes and waited eagerly for our lunch to arrive. Again, there was no coca cola so we had Thai ice tea instead.

This 'innocent-looking' green curry is what made my sore-throat worse. It is much more spicier than it looks

Tom Yam Goong

Glass Noodle salad

Once again, it is a tasty yet cheap lunch. It cost us less than 600 baht. (MK is 800+ baht) Joyce was so pleasantly surprised that she even forgot to check the bill prior payment.

Chatuchak Weekend Market

I have been hearing about this infamous weekend market even before I had planned to visit Bangkok. Chatuchak weekend market is the largest market in Thailand. It contains more than 5,000 stalls - most of the stalls open only on Saturdays and Sundays. The market offers a wide variety of products including household items, clothing, Thai handicrafts, religious artifacts, collectibles, foods, and even live animals.

We set off to Chatuchak from MBK Shopping mall on taxi for 150baht.

Chatuchak is indeed huge. If you are coming in large groups, do agree on a meeting place in case you got separated in the massive market. Since there are only 4 of us, we decided to stick closely together and started ‘attacking’ the first shop we come upon as we enter the market. Very soon, we found something to our liking and asked for the price. We were shocked when we were quoted 690 baht. This happens for a few more shops. Isn’t this supposed to be Chatuchak - market of the cheap and good?

Apparently, Chatuchak is no longer the market of cheap; most clothes starts from 490 baht and up. Though the price is still considered inexpensive, it does not make sense lugging items back from Bangkok when you can get them at almost the same price in Singapore.

We continue combing the shops and did came across some having ‘sales’ (400 baht and below)

Though all of us managed to get something in the end, I would say that the current Chatuchak is not such a shopping haven after all. The humid/sunny outdoor shopping condition and the over-priced items do not justify for a nice shopping experience. Most vendors are Chatuchak are not as friendly as those we came across in the Platinum mall – they just do not share the same level of enthusiasm when selling their goods. It kind of reduces my shopping adrenaline.

However, as promised, you do get a great variety of items at one location – clothing, accessories, shoes, design sandals, toiletries (nice towels etc), souvenirs, food….you name it, you get it at Chatuchak.

It was stated on almost every website that Chatuchak market operates till 6pm (which is true – most of the shops in Chatuchak market packed up at 6pm.), but we observed many little stalls sprouting up just outside the sheltered Chatuchak market as night falls. Ruoting managed to grab a few cute hair accessories from one of the stalls before we left the market.

We headed back to the hotel for a dinner at a nearby restaurant – Kuang Seafood Restaurant (recommended by one of the hotel staff).

As it was the peak hour, we had a hard time getting a taxi. A tuk-tuk approached us and quoted us 300 baht! The next taxi came along and quoted the same. I think we looked like big, juicy foreigners to them! Unwilling to take up the offer, we walked along the road to a nearby bus-stop. Finally we got on a taxi who quoted us 100 baht.

There was a slight jam along the way. To compensate the nice taxi driver who quoted us a reasonable price, we decided to give the taxi driver some tips at the end of the journey.

At Kuang, the indoor seats were all taken up so we had to sit on one of the four tables on the outside. The waiter was prompt in taking order. Despite my painful throat, I could not resist the spicy food, especially seafood Tom Yam Goong! And at last, there was coca cola on the menu!

Seafood Tom Yam Goong Mini Steamboat

Spicy stir-fried Oyster

Curry Crabs

Overall, Kuang fared fairly well in terms of fresh seafood. The dishes were average (it is definitely better than the breakfast offered by the hotel), but a seafood meal for less than S$20 per pax, was really worthwhile.

We decided to take stroll back to the hotel and get some lozenges for my tortured throat from the convenience store on the way. We had dessert – Black forest Cornetto for 20 baht per cone! It is selling for 3 times as much in Singapore! Slurp!

Back in the hotel, we immediately washed up and dressed up for the night programme – Full body Thai massage (Oil Aromatherapy massage for Ruoting) at Health Land Spa and a drink at Skybar, State Tower.

We took a taxi from the hotel to the nearest Health Land Spa - this time, by a metered-taxi. We had planned to reach Health Land Spa by 9.30pm but were stuck in the traffic jam for a full 1 hour! (The meter hit 100 baht when we finally reached Healthland Spa! So its actually cheaper to take a metered-taxi!)

It was already 10pm and there were no slots available for massage! (We should have called for an appointment but it slipped our mind.) Feeling disappointed, Joyce put on an extremely upset expression and told the receptionist that it was our last day in Bangkok and that we would REALLY love to have a massage before we go off.

Surprisingly, this worked. They agreed to put us on the last slots for massage before closing – this also means that we would have to leave out the visit to the Sky bar.

Ruoting managed to get a full oil aromatherapy massage (1.5hrs for 850 baht), while the rest of us get a 1 hr full body Thai massage for 450 baht (usual price: 2 hrs for 450 baht). Nevertheless, it was a wonderful experience. I never knew my arms can bend so far over my shoulder and my legs behind my back. My tired body felt rejuvenated at the end of the 1 hr session (though I almost got suffocated when the masseur did my shoulders as my sore throat got pressed repeatedly against the pillow.). It was too bad we did get to enjoy the full 2 hours.

Feeling dazed and relaxed at the same time (it was past 12 midnight), we decided to head back to the hotel to pack our luggage for the early check-out the next day.

.......... Day 4

Day 2 -- Friday, 11 December 2009

Today, we are going to learn to cook some yummy Thai dishes. Organizer Lynn got this idea from the Bangkok episode in a Taiwanese travel show, The Adventure King (冒险王).

Baipai Thai Cooking School (Thai: โรงเรียนสอนทำอาหารไทยใบพาย)

Baipai is approximately 30min drive away from Pullman King Power Hotel. We took the morning session. Transportation is provided at 8.20am at the hotel and lunch will be whatever we cook. It’s kind of ‘exciting’ as whether we go hungry or not depends on how well we did our dishes. @_@
Baipai is a charming two storey house with wooden door and locally styled furnishings in tranquil surroundings, cozy and relaxing atmosphere. The workshop is an opened-air Thai stylish home-like kitchen at the bottom floor of the house and each student has an individual cooking station.
There were 3 other people in our class – a couple from Singapore and a professional chef from France (This French chef came to Thailand to learn about Thai cuisine and has been learning from Baipai for the past week!)

All ready to cook!

We are supposed to prepare 4 dishes. The lessons are taught by a Thai chef and a bubbly translator in a fun and simplified manner. Each dish is taught in 4 steps – show, taste, cook and feast! The chef will first show us how the dish is prepared in details and let us taste the dishes as a guideline before releasing us to our stations to prepare our lunch.
We did not perform as badly as we thought we will. The dishes tasted just as delicious. =p It is indeed a unique experience – Nice job, Organiser!

Our lunch: Tod Man Pls (Fried Fish Fillet), Tom Kha Gai (Chicken & Galangal in coconut milk soup), Gouay Teaw Pad Thai( Thai Fried Rice Noodle) & Tab Tim Grobb (Water Chestnut in coconut milk dessert)

Preparation

Tod Man Pls (Fried Fish Fillet) - Getting ready to fry the fish fillet

Our Gouay Teaw Pad Thai( Thai Fried Rice Noodle)

Souvenirs from Baipai

MBK (Mah Boon Krong)Shopping Mall
After a filling lunch, we asked to be dropped of at the MBK Shopping Mall for our next round of shopping.

MBK (Mah Boon Krong) is an 8-storey shopping mall packed with shops that sell everything from clothing, fashion accessories to electronics like mobile phones, DVD players and even furniture. The nearest BTS station is the National Stadium. There is a wide range of food choices in its food court and various restaurants. There is also cinema and Karaoke facilities in the mall. One can find larger sized clothing and famous-name brands here too. Like all markets, all prices here are negotiable. It is however important to take a closer look at the quality and craftsmanship of the item of choice as the bargain prices could mean that the merchandise is copy products or from questionable origin. We cruised past a few shops in MBK but did not find anything to our liking. We then decided to give our nails a nice treat instead – Pedi & Mani-cure time!

Most of the nail art shops are pretty small (able to accommodate at most 3 people). As there are 4 of us and we wanted to do it together, we approached the largest shop in the building. That shop-front can easily accommodate up to 7- 8 customers at the same time.
Upon entering the shop, albums of nail art designs piled up in front of us. We took a good 15 minutes looking through them.
Once the designs were decided, the nail artists positioned us at different corners of the shop and started working on our nails immediately. At one time, there were two nail artists attending to each of us – fingernails and toenails respectively. They were quick yet accurate.
The designs seemed to be inscribed in their mind – they hand-painted the designs swiftly, hardly even looking at the template picture.
We spent about 2 hours there and were extremely pleased with the outcome. Such professional nail-art at a quarter of the price we get at Singapore!

With our beautiful nails, we went in search of a authentic Thai restaurant recommended by Ruoting’s friend but failed to locate it. (The only instructions given to us was a Thai restaurant opposite MBK Shopping Mall with green signboard. >_<) Famished, we decided to head back to MBK for the infamous MK Restaurant.

MK Restaurant is very popular among Thai family for a weekend meal. The main highlight is the MK Steamboat – it is very similar to what we have in Singapore, just order some food, tipped them into the pot with soup and feast. The choice of dishes is pretty limited, but I love their mushroom platter – good variety. Ruoting loved their spicy dipping sauce. I find it average though. What I like better is the soup base – it’s super tasty after only the first round of cooking and most importantly, there wasn’t any MSG in it. (We did not get tingling thirsty feel which we will usually get after drinking MSG soup.)
There are quite a few raved cooked dishes from MK eg. Dimsum dishes, roasted duck and grilled pork.
We were too full to try those.

.......... Day 3

Day 1 -- Thursday, 10 December 2009

This is my 1st trip to Bangkok...yes…my 1st trip.
Everybody I told was very surprised that I have gone as far as United Kingdom but not Bangkok. =p

This trip was initiated by Lynn and her secondary school friend, Ruoting.
Lynn is the organizer for the trip as she has the most free-time on hand (she is a teacher on holidays!). Ruoting, being a frequent traveler to Bangkok, naturally became our tour guide. Joyce was appointed as the treasurer of our common fund by her newly bought itouch.

Shopping is the main aim of this trip. But since this is my 1st trip to Bangkok, Lynn has kindly incorporated some tourist attractions in the itinerary for me. =D

We arrived in Bangkok at 1215 Bangkok-time – half a day gone due to Organizer’s “good” planning. (This is her first time planning for a trip and hence did not take into consideration the importance of maximizing travel time.)

4 of us with 4 almost-empty luggage bags could not fit into the normal meter-Taxi, so we had no choice but to take a maxi-Taxi. A journey to Pullman Bangkok King Power Hotel from Suvarnabhumi Airport on the maxi-Taxi cost us 750 baht. The duration of the journey depends very much on the traffic in Bangkok city – it can take approximately 30min to 1 hour.

Pullman Bangkok King Power Hotel is not the cheapest hotel in the region but it is a relatively new hotel – 2 yrs old and reasonably priced. The daily rate for a twin room is approximately 2000 baht without breakfast. Upon check-in, the hotel receptionist offered us a top-up of 800 baht for an upgrade to a deluxe room with breakfast. 2800 baht ≈ S$60/night for a deluxe twin room in a
5-star hotel is pretty worth staying, so we accepted the offer.

Pullman Bangkok King Power Hotel however is not very strategically located. The nearest convenience stall where we can get some snacks is about 10 min walk away. A trip to the nearest BTS sky train station – Victory Monument on the hotel’s complimentary tuk-tuk (7am – 10pm) takes about 10min.

The hotel also offers shuttle van service to/from Pratunam market (near The Platinum Mall - which is where we wanted spend the rest of our day) 2 times a day but the timing is not favorable to us. (To: 11am, 3pm From: 12pm, 4pm)

We had a simple lunch at the food court at Victory Monument before leaving for Platinum. The food court uses a card system (similar to Kopitiam system). Unused funds can be refunded. With the help of the pictures on the menu and some gesturing, we managed to get our lunch. Everything in Thai is small. The food servings were small – it’s half of our usual portion; the table was small too – the 4 of us could hardly fit in.The food itself was average.

Seafood Egg Noodle (similar to the 生面 we have in Singapore)

Seafood Rice Noodle (similar to the 'hor-fun' we have in Singapore)

Lynn & Ruoting trying to figure out what they want for lunch

Tom Yam fried rice

Seafood fried rice & Tom Yam goong

Erawan Shrine

Our first stop is to visit the famous Erawan Shrine (Thai: ศาลพระพรหม, San Phra Phrom)

Erawan Shrine is a Hindu shrine that houses a statue of Phra Phrom, the Thai representation of the Hindu creation god Brahma. A popular tourist attraction, it often features performances by resident Thai dance troupes, which are hired by worshippers in return for seeing their prayers at the shrine answered.

It is located at the Rajprasong intersection, in front of Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel, Bangkok. It is near the BTS Chitlom Station, which has an elevated walkway overlooking the shrine. A trip from BTS Victory Monument station to BTS Chit Lom station cost 25 baht.

You can offer prayers by buying some incense sticks, candles and flowers from the vendors nearby. Start in a clockwise direction from the entrance of the shrine, offering the flowers, candles and incense sticks to the 4-faced Budhha at the 4 corners.

I paid respect by just joining my palms together and prayed for world peace as I still don’t feel comfortable praying for personal gains abroad. ^_^

Washing myself with the sacred water

See the magnificent Four-faced Buddha behind me

Erawan Shrine resident dance troupe

The traffic jam in Bangkok city is worst that what we saw in Kuala Lumpur

Xmas décor at Central World Mall - Papermen band

Xmas décor at Central World Mall - White Reindeer

The Erawan Shrine & Platinum Mall are marked in yellow in the map

The Platinum Mall

The Platinum mall is 5 to 10 min walk away from BTS Chit Lom station. The Platinum mall houses a great amount of clothing and accessories over 6 floors, for both men and women. Although the stuffs sold there are not branded, they are similar quality as what we get locally. Most importantly, they are a few times cheaper – most items are below 500 baht. You can get much better prices if you are shopping wholesale.

One thing to note is that most clothing sold there are of smaller size range (Asian S, M)Though most of the clothes there are too small for me, I still spent almost 1/3 of my planned budget in that afternoon alone. =p

The shops in Platinum start closing at 7pm. We had shopped non-stop for 3 hrs by then but only managed to cover up till level 3. Tired out, we decided to take a break and have dinner at level 6 of Platinum. Our dinner for 4 at Fuji Japanese restaurant cost us about 2000 baht. Though the food is not fantastic, it is indeed cheap.

Stone...

Suan Lum Night Bazaar

After dinner, we headed to Suan Lum Night Bazaar. Along the way, we passed by many stalls and parted with some money as well ^_^

Suan Lum Night Bazaar is a night market near Lumpini Park, a short walk away from Lumpini Station. The setting is very similar to Holland Village in Singapore.

To get to Suan Lum Night Bazzar, take the Skytrain to S2 Sala Daeng Station (Silom Line). Walk about 100m and you will see Si Lom MRT station. Take the subway train to Lumpini and follow the signage , you will see Suan Lum Night Bazzar. Alternatively, just take a 15 - 30 mins walk from Sala Daeng to Suan Lum Night Bazzar.

Magnetic chips used at the Subway station - Looks plastic but it works!

The Night Bazaar is open from 5pm to midnight, with some shops open until later. It has vendors selling gifts, clothing, jewelleries, compact discs, hand-made products like tapestries and fine arts, such as paintings and sculptures. The clothes and accessories sold there are a tad more expensive than The Platinum but the designs are more unique and interesting. There are also a lot of creative home-accessories and furniture. There is a large beer garden, with an array of food available, and live entertainment. On the other side of the market there is a quieter area with many restaurants offering both inside and outside garden seating.

We did not buy much at Suan Lum Night Bazaar – guessed we are all tired out.We end the day with a foot massage at one of the foot massage palour – 250 baht for an hour of shoulder and foot massage (It could have been cheaper but we were too tired to bargain). Nevertheless, the massage is cheap and good, much better than any other I had in Singapore. Like what the rest told me, Thai foot massage is not painful at all, its actually quite comfy and its effective. The shoulder massage is damn painful though; my poor shoulders must have been overworked over the last few months.

Oohlala!

We got into a tuk-tuk waiting at the roundabout in Suan Lum Night Bazaar and headed back to Pullman King Power Hotel for 200 baht (We found out later that we have been overcharged, ~ 100 baht is more reasonable. We were caught in a traffic jam on a metered-Taxi for about an hour and it cost us only close to 100 baht.)

Taking a tuk-tuk is a “great” experience, especially when there are 4 of us, balancing a few bags each and rushing through the empty roads in the cool Bangkok air. We arrived at the hotel cold and with messy hair.

The tuk-tuk which 'flew' us back to the hotel

.......... Day 2