BKK trip (Jan 2013)

Before I went for our Taiwan trip, I went to Bangkok with another group of friends. We travelled from 17th to 20th January 2013, so I had about 2 days of rest before I flew to Taiwan. Travelling to Bangkok was quite an experience! 

We took a late afternoon flight, so we arrived at our hotel at around 11pm. We stayed in Grand Diamond Suites Hotel, which we chose because it is located right next to Platinum Mall. But in hindsight, we should have paid more to stay at the newer Glow Pratunam Hotel. Grand Diamond is a little old and creepy, we noticed that there was a strange hairbrush lying on the floor on our last day there. Thinking about the room gives me the creeps again!

(Photos were taken by my iPhone, sorry for the lower quality!) 

BKK's night scene

Our first day was spent shopping at Pratunum Market and Platinum Mall, the highlight of the day for was definitely the food court at Platinum mall. Even though the price of the food there is pricier than BKK's average food stall, they are extremely worth it. Before ordering our food, we had to purchase a stored value card, very much like our ezlink card but for food. 

Very good food at Platinum Mall!

We ordered Pad Thai, glass noodles, oyster omelette. green curry and mango sticky rice. They were all soooo good! The oyster omelette was the crispy kind, with more eggs than starch, which I prefer. The green curry wasn't mind-blowing, but the noodles we had were definitely more than satisfactory. I think that a good Pad Thai lies in the sauce - too dry and it won't be flavourful enough, too wet and the whole dish will be thrown off. The Pad Thai there was really balanced, with the right amount of sweetness and heat. 

My favourite dish has to be the mango sticky rice. The mangos were very sweet and fresh. What was surprising was that the rice served wasn't just the usual glutinous white rice, there were a mix of yellow, green and red rice/grains that provided various textures to the mix. It was definitely a very good meal for a shopping mall food court.

A roadside tailor (you can even see the car behind!)

Our second day was spent at MBK (Mahboonkrong) Center, Siam Center and Siam Square. MBK was disappointing; unless you are looking for knock off electronic goods and durian chips, it is alright to give this place a miss. The shopping malls and shops from the Siam group are better options. Siam Paragon carries more luxury brands while the stalls at Siam Center are more affordable. Siam Square is my favourite among the lot, the area is made up of rows of small boutique stalls selling items and clothing that are differentiated and of a better quality.

Lulcchub, 100 baht for a box.

I'm glad that we managed to get a box of Lulcchub at MBK though. Lulcchub is a fruit-shaped dessert with green bean paste filling and a jelly coating. My friends have never tried it, so they were a little apprehensive at first, but they really liked it in the end! We quickly finished the whole box and even considered turning back to get another, but we were too far along by then. Lulcchub is a definite must try in Thailand.

Really cool graffiti art at Siam Square

Not sure if this is a display or a functional tuk tuk.

Bangkok jam!

The jam at Bangkok during the peak hours is quite bad, the journey will be twice as long and the cab drivers will refuse to charge by the meter and they will inflate the price. I have to share our cab experiences though, they are hilarious and so weird at the same time. Our first strange experience was when the cab driver (who seems to be younger than us) shouted "I love you!" when we were alighting the cab. I was sitting in the passenger seat and so I quickly responded with a thank you and got the hell out. 

The second strange encounter with our cab driver was when we were heading back from Chatuchuk Market and we were stuck in an hour long jam. The cab driver was extremely overly friendly and chatty! He asked us where we are from, our age and all that usual friendly questions. (I was sitting at the front seat again.) But things quickly got weird when he started calling me 'Baby' (as in infant), and touching my hair. It got stranger when he found a white hair and then plucked it out and went "Baby, you old". That was probably the strangest point of the whole incident, it is creepy enough to have an old man in his 50s calling you baby and telling you about his son and life. It is a whole lot worse when the said stranger is stroking and playing with your hair. We spent the rest of the journey sitting awkwardly in the cab while the driver blasted club music and danced along to it. It is funny to think about it now, but it was traumatising and uncomfortable for all of us at that point of time.

Anyway, moving on! We went to Chatuchuk Market on our last day. And it was HOT. So of course, we got ice cream, twice in fact.

The store keeper scooping out our coconut ice cream.

Very cheap and satisfying Coconut Ice Cream, only 30 baht!

Thai Milk Tea Ice Cream and Coconut Ice Cream (75 baht I think).

Maybe it was because of the heat, but we thoroughly enjoyed our ice cream. The ice cream was sweet and refreshing and the store keepers are so generous with the toppings. Plus, it is so ridiculously cheap! If only I had the stomach for a third round.. 

Overall, I enjoyed Chatuchuk Market more than I thought I would, we shopped, squeezed with the crowd and ate non-stop. Halfway through, we got kind of tired from all the shopping and we ended up spending half an hour stroking and playing with puppies at one of the pet stalls. My favourite section of the market is definitely the Art Section (Section 8), it is quite interesting to see some of the local works in the small little shops and I bought 3 art works. 

And because it was scorching. We stopped for a drink at a tiny cute drinks stall. It is amazing how they are able to run a store in such a cramped place.

The store is only about 3 meters wide.

We headed back to our hotel to squeeze our buys back in our luggage and then it was goodbye BKK! But before we could actually leave Bangkok, we were stranded in the airport for more than 4 hours because there were some flight issues and we had to wait for another airplane to arrive.

Bangkok on the whole is a really fun and interesting place to visit, I will definitely want to go back next time and check out other places like the floating market or the vintage night market. The locals are friendly and nice, considering that the masseurs were smiling at me even while massaging my feet, that is some serious professionalism! Hopefully we will have better luck with the cab drivers next time though!