Bangkok Day 2

Bangkok Day 2 started a little bit early for me and Calvin as we woke up early. Plan for the day was shopping, shopping and eating. Calvin and me woke up early that day. We walked around our hotel area to explore what shops and food that is available.

 

We found this place that has halal food, which is suitable for Deane. Just next to the Muslim stall, there are other food stalls selling rice and noodle. So we decided to have our breakfast there.

 

Me and Calvin’s breakfast for the day. Calvin still not giving hope on rice yet, ordered chicken rice. I ordered seafood noodle. Mine was superb as the soup was really clear and the taste just right. There’s a big bowl of raw taugeh for those who prefer additional taugeh. As for Calvin’s rice, he said it was very dry as there’s no gravy or whatsoever at all. Apparently, Calvin was supposed to add the chilli sauce and other things given and mix everything well. That’s according to Vince and Wai Leng who went back the same stall and tried it out. The knew the way to eat it when they observed how the locals eat it. They said the rice was very nice eaten that way. Just another reason to go back to Bangkok for another trip. For the … er… chicken rice. Hehe.

 

As for my noodle, these are the condiments that I can mix into my bowl. Sugar, chilli paste, green chilli and chilli flakes (I think). Yes, the left corner is indeed a container of sugar. I guess they mix it together with the chilli paste so that it will not be too spicy. But I just love my noodle as it is.

 

Food for the rest. Beef noodle, siew yoke rice and tom yum noodle. Vince’s siew yoke rice was really good but Pui See’s tom yum noodle was a disappointment. Not spicy but just a little bit sour only. Totally different from the tom yum that we had in Malaysia. But then again, the one that we have here might be modified to suit our taste.

We head back hotel to hop on the free tuk tuk ride to the nearest train station. We wanted to go Chinatown. We were dropped off just nearby the train station and were asked to walk instead.

Deane and Vince at the front seats with the driver. Damn funny ride

 

Once we got off the tuk tuk, a driver approached us and offered to send us there for 60 to 80 baht. Since he is driving Avanza, which could fit all 6 of us, we agreed to his service. When we started the journey, the driver asked for our help to get free petrol. He will send us to a jewellery shop. All we have to do is just go down the shop to look look and see see. It is okay if we did not buy anything. Initially we don’t want to go but he begged for us to help him. Since we have some time to spare, we agreed to go along. If you do not want to do so, just tell the driver that you have been there the day before and they will not bring you there as they will not get free petrol for repeated customers. Just make sure that when the driver ask you how many days have you stay in Bangkok, your answer should be like 2 or 3 days. Hehe.

After the jewellery shop visit, the driver sent us to Chinatown.

There’s not much to see in Chinatown as we just walked from one street till the end, hop on a tuk tuk and head to MBK mall. But we saw this shop that have food items mould by sesame street. I guess is for praying purposes as we can’t really put meat on the altar. These moulds comes in chicken, octopus and even pig head. Haha. We passed by one shop selling bird nests and shark fin. We went in for a bowl of bird nests or two.

 

Here are the samples of bird nest that they have. It range from 100 baht to 1500 baht. We ordered 3 bowls to be shared in couples.

 

Our free chrysanthemum teas. Cooling, just perfect for a hot day.

 

Our bird nest. Quite yummy, for me. Not too sweet. Nothing special other than cheap. We can add preserved lotus seeds, half boiled egg and extra honey to our bird nest. I added the half boiled egg into our bird nest and it was ultra smooth. Quite yummy!! But I can’t accept the preserved lotus seeds as it was too sweet.

 

Besides bird nest, this shop sells shark fin as well. All those dried bird nest and shark fin are for sale. They are quite used to selling items to tourist as they have wrappers for Wai Leng and Pui See’s bird nest, even though we did not request for them. They wrapped the bottles nicely so that it will not break easily. When we were nearly done, they asked us if we would like to try shark fin.

 

The “sample” of shark fin. We ordered the cheapest one to be shared among all of us as we were quite full at that point.

 

the shark fin arrived. I added a lot of coriander leaves into mine and the taste was amazing. Maybe a little too much ajinomoto as after the bowl, I felt very thristy.

After that, we headed to the end of the road and decided to leave Chinatown since there is not much for us to do and see except chinese herbs. We took tuk tuk to MBK mall. There’s nothing much that is suitable for me. Just managed to buy a clutch and bargain like mad for that. Haha. Us girls went for pedicure and Pui See did pedicure as well. Main purpose is actually to removed some of the hard skin on our foot. I am not a big fan of massage, manicure and pedicure. People who know me should notice that I have very small and square nails. This is also one of the issue for my wedding photo shoot that I have yet to find the perfect solution. Anyway, I decided to do the pedicure just so that I could get the removal of dead skin on my foot.

Here’s Pui See like she’s a queen being attended by her servants. Haha.

 

The final result. No prizes for guessing which is who, especially mine. Very obvious. Haha. After MBK, we headed to Siam Square for dinner at Som Tam. I found this place from blogs while doing Bangkok research.

 

We ordered fried chicken, fish, mango salad, minced chicken meat with basil leaf. The food was quite good but the portion is very small. They only have one size for certain dishes. The steamed fish may look very plain but it went well with the sauce. We were lucky that we went early that day. Once we stepped out of the restaurant, there was a long queue outside the restaurant. After dinner, we went to Siam Square’s night market for more shopping. The clothes there are more feminine and kind of Korean/Japan style. Quite cheap but if compared to Platinum Mall, Siam Square is slightly expensive but more feminine. Platinum Mall is more towards casual wear like shorts, skirts and shirts.

~BuHBaI~

Bangkok

I finally received my photographs from Bangkok trip. Hehe. Went to Bangkok with Wai Leng and Pui See with our respective partner on the end of February. It can be considered as shopping trip cause all we did everyday while we were in Bangkok is just shop, shop, shop and shop. We will definitely be back again for shopping but then much wiser after the first trip.

We booked our flight like 8 months prior to the trip. Our flight was like 9am in the morning. We reached LCCT early and had breakfast at Old Town.

 

Check out our exciting look. Haha. They did not pretend or pose in such way for me to take a photo. All of them were very tired as they slept very late the night before. Pui See and Deane did not sleep at all!! Haha.

 

That’s our ride to Bangkok. All of us were sleeping the whole journey to Bangkok. We woke up when they announced that we will be landing in Thailand airport soon. Hehe.

 

The airport is really big. When we got off the plane, we have to take a bus to reach the main terminal. Much more bigger than KLIA. I saw a sign there about “Airport of Smiles” but the staffs there did not smile to us at all. We have a hard time understanding their English the whole trip. They have flight information on Thai language as well. We have a hard time locating the custom counter as the sign only point out the way to transfer flight and others but none pointing towards the custom area. When we finally reached the custom, the queue on each counter was very long. We spent nearly 1 hour at the custom area. The officers did not smile or greet us. They only concentrate on our passport and only look at us from their camera with a camera attached to it. Oh well…

 

These were our starting luggage at the beginning of the trip. All were light as we did not bring much clothing as we plan to bring a bag stuffed with clothes back to KL. Hehe.

After claiming out luggage, we went to the basement where the train station is. I guess the train is the most convenient transport around Bangkok, plus we won’t get cheated and the driver cannot ask us to get off in the middle of the road. Me and Calvin experienced this before where the tuk tuk driver refused to send us to our hotel and ask us to get off the tuk tuk in the middle of the road. Being a foreigner, we do not want to argue. We paid him and quickly run back to our hotel as we need to catch a flight back to KL. This happened on our last day. Even Wai Leng and Vince is a victim of such tuk tuk driver. In my opinion, that is a very bad impression on Thailand’s tourism industry. Oh well…. we can’t do anything right?

Anyway, travelling by train is much cheaper compared to taxi. If you take a taxi, be prepared to be stuck in a jam. The traffic there is  very crazy. Traffic jam all day long. Condition is at it’s worst during the weekend. Luckily, our hotel is quite near to a train station from airport. So we took the train straight to the hotel. If I’m not mistaken, it cost around 35 baht per person. As for the tuk tuk, the price is usually much cheaper in the morning. The cost of taking a tuk tuk to the platinum mall, chatuchak market or nearby train station is around 20 baht in the morning but around 100 baht at night. So if you want to go around at night, might as well take the taxi cause the price is more or less the same. But always bargain the price with the tuk tuk and taxi driver. But if I have the choice, I would rather take the train. Seriously, me and Calvin were lucky that I could recognise the place and knew the way back to the hotel. Or else, we would be totally lost when the tuk tuk driver turn off the engine and ask us get off the tuk tuk. Damn angry at that time. But I know we were not far from our hotel, so still okay.

One more thing, if you take taxi or tuk tuk in the morning or afternoon, the driver might ask you for help to get free petrol for him. He will take you to a big jewelry shop. Every time the driver brings tourist to visit the shop, he will get free 5 liters worth of petrol. Which is really a lot if one day he could bring like 5 or 6 batch of tourists there. At first, we don’t mind but then on the last day, the tuk tuk driver begged us for help. We have no choice but waste 30 minutes looking at jewelries. Really a waste of time. So if you are in a hurry and don’t wish to go to the jewelry shop, just tell the driver that you have been there previously. They will not bring you there again because the people from the shop will recognize us and the driver will not get free petrol. It is not that we are cruel or bad people but seriously, it’s really a waste of time. But if you have time to spare like us, you can help the driver out for the free petrol.

 

The train ride was quite comfortable. The coach is very spacious, which is good as most passenger has a luggage with them. We reached Ratcharaprop station in like 30 minutes. Really worth the money and time saving to travel from and to airport. I’m sure you do not want to be stuck in a jam and miss your flight back home right? Hehe.

 

The curious tourists looking out the window. I guess at this point, they were admiring the bungalow houses. Hehe.

We stayed at Citin Pratunam, which is really awesome. There are a lot of food stalls just outside our hotel and it’s within walking distance to Platinum Mall. Awesome!!

 

The room is bigger than our Hong Kong hotel room. Oh, it has my favourite shower thingy as well. Happy happy. Hehe. The room is very clean, way better than my expectation. Wai Leng’s room is slightly bigger than mine because there’s two bed in the room. After settling down, we head straight to Platinum Mall. Since it was already late afternoon, we decided to grab some food before starting to shop. There is one food court on the 6th floor of the mall.

 

We have to purchase a card with stored value in it for us to purchase food. Whatever left in the card can be refunded at the counter.

 

This is the place for us to take our cutleries. At the end of the compartment is a bowl of hot water for us to wash our forks and spoons in it. Great for those who are hygienic when it comes to food. I guess food courts around KL should have such facilities as well to reduce the amount of food poisoning cases around town.

 

Our food for the day. I ordered the duck noodle, which was really good. The soup was very clear. I noticed that their dishes does not have much oil in them, which explains all those skinny girls walking around the mall. It is very hard to find a fat girl in the shopping mall. I’m serious!! Calvin was very hungry so he ordered the rice with pork, which is not nice. But he still finished the whole plate of rice all by himself. The power of hunger. Hehe. Pui see bought a bowl of bird nest and a plate of Thai char kueh teow. When we’re done with lunch, we start our shopping spree. We were disappointed when the shops started to close one by one at around 7pm. We decided to walk back to our hotel and purchase dinner along the way from the food stalls.

 

Our dinner for the night!!! First stop was actually the pork satay, which was really yummy. Each of us had like 1 to 2 sticks. We purchased chicken wings to be eaten in our hotel room. After that, we bought fried chicken, fried chicken skin, padthai and others for dinner. In general, the food in Thailand are quite cheap but if you don’t like sweet food like us, please ask the vendor/chef not to put sugar into your food. Even our padthai, a.k.a. Thai char kueh teow, was sweet because the guy put sugar in it. Kind of yucky after a few mouthful of it. I guess the winner of the night will be the pork satay and some fried keropok ikan. Others were only so so.

 

Deane bought like more than 10 t shirt and the designs are really nice. Plus they are really cheap since he bought like a lot. I guess one is around 80baht? The clothes on the second photograph are all mine. I bought 3 skirts for work, one dress and 3 tops. I really love the sailor/sea style at the moment. I always come out from the toilet with my new clothes and saying “I look like a sailor”. Haha. They are quite cheap too. The skirt is like 200 baht and they come in sizes. Although you cannot try them but the sale assistant will measure your waist and butt area and they will tell you which size that you can fit. The blouse is like 150 baht each and the dress is around 200 baht. Really cheap!!

That’s all for the first day. Second day will be uploaded soon. Hehe.

~BuHBaI~