Bangkok Getaway
Bangkok, Thailand. The ultimate shopping haven for the ladies. With just a few of us, we embarked on a 4D 3N journey to the capital of Thailand, to re-discover its great food and cheap bargains.
Onboard the Airbus 320-200, I was pretty amazed by this narrow body aircraft, which is a descendant of Airbus 319. Looking out the tiny window, it may seem that the sunset is more beautiful and closer than ever, as if you could almost reach it. Smooth ride all the way, despite a bit of turbulence here and there.
Suvarnabhumi Airport, the capital’s new airport is an incredible architectural structure. Simple design yet magnificent combination of steel, cement and glass.
Desperately in need of food, we had dinner at the nearest mall. Later that evening, we took the ‘Tuk-Tuk’ to Suan Lum Night Bazaar for some warm-up, before the real shopping begins. ‘Tuk-Tuk’ could be a real rip off should you not bargain for the fare. Some may unbelievably increase the fare as high as 100 Baht for a short distance.
All of us were exhausted from the Suan Lum Bazaar late night shopping, yet we tried so hard to wake up as early as we could for breakfast.
The girls eventually informed us that there isn’t a minute to waste. Of course they meant to spend more time at the next destination. It was a weekend, so Chatuchak Weekend Market was the best place to explore.
Chatuchak Weekend Market is about 30 minutes by cab from Siam Paragon. The market is huge itself and it would be best to navigate with a map. Chatuchak offer tourists fairly reasonable prices compared with Suan Lum Night Bazaar. It’s unreasonably hot and stuffy inside the market. Non-alcoholic wet wipes would come in handy in a place like this. When you’re tired, you find yourself a good spot to chill. One of the best desserts to order is mango with sticky rice. The price to pay is about 25 Baht to 50 Baht. A day trip shopping at Chatuchak, you can barely walk straight end of the day.
So the next best thing to do is to freshen up and go get a good traditional Thai foot massage. If 250 Baht is too much to pay for, you could just exercise some simple leg stretching in your hotel room.
Siam Paragon, an exclusive shopping mall with all the famous expensive branded apparels, is just 15 minutes walk from our hotel. If you deduct the VAT Tax Refund for tourists, still you are likely to pay a bit more than anywhere else in the region.
We weren’t interested in shopping at Siam Paragon, but we did enjoyed taking photos there.
Creative poses were simply limitless. As weird it may seemed, they actually pretended to look like dumb lost tourists. Eventually a security guard had to prohibit us from carrying on.
One of the many things you could try while in Bangkok is dropping by to one of the hair salons for a hair wash.
Getting a hair wash here cost about 250 Baht or less. It was reasonable priced that even Sam went to the extent of getting his hair rebonded for 2,000 Baht. He added that it was good experience, even though it ended looking as if he was wearing a wig.
The whole trip was even more memorable when we decided to celebrated Sam’s birthday at local Thai cuisine restaurant. Fancy Thai restaurants do not come cheap either.
To summarize the whole trip, we really had lots of FUN. Speaking in Thai attempts, shopping sprees, cheap bargain huntings and hell lots more would definitely motivate us for the next return to this wonderful city.
