Weather: Clear, Rain occasionally
No of participant: 2
Accomodation: Asia Hotel Bangkok
Day 1
Arrived at 1130am BANGKOK TIME. Took a taxi from the airport that cost us 400 baht. I'm still thinking whether we were cheated or not. Nevermind, it was an Avanza, so we had a comfortable ride to the hotel. Checked in. Think Pei Jet made the booking too long, even the reception guy couldn't find her booking information at first. So after all the hooha, we got our Deluxe room which was at RM200 pernite. Quite pricey for an old place like that. But the most convenient would be the direct access to the skytrain station. We grabbbed some maps and got our lonely planet to plan for the rest of the days that we're there. Kinda planned our itenary for the next day. After waiting for PJ's colleagues from Thailand,we got to lunch...in a Chinese restaurant. We had dim sum which was only 19 baht perbasket, which is like really cheap and they have it in a set - 10 baskets. They ordered a noodle too, too bad no pictures on food..coz I thot it would be rude to ask them to wait for me to take pic since everyone was hungry. PJ's friends were kind enough to buy us lunch~! Next, we were off to Catuchak market,I think that should be the way to spell that place. It was Sunday and time was limited to go over the whole place. This place have anything you can think of..REALLY. Don't think 2 days is enough also for the weekend market. Look at the crowd~!!
This is one of the few stalls I captured with my camera. Fresh juice. Intersting...behind this stall is where I found an interesting snack.
Can you guess what is it? It's sweet coz the filing is green bean paste. Something like the Chinese "ang ku kueh" filing, but the outer layer is like konyaku jelly.
We were just walking around and I only bought 2 tops from the market. Wished I had more time there. One of PJ's colleague came with her bf, so when it was close to 5pm, we were on our way back in his car. Saw a lot of the new Vios on the road. Looks kinda nice.
When we got back to the hotel, we waited for PJ's another colleague to meet up with us for dinner. He came and brought his family, what an adorable family. He and his wife were wearing the same clothes and their daughter is just toooooo cute~!! Can't help it, had to take a pic!
This is Hua. So cute, I think she's only about 3 years old. With limited English,can't really communicate with her. Just ask her the basics. "hi","how are you?" ...you know..those "kids" language. Again I did not take pictures of our dinner, I seriously felt impolite and weird, so I kept my camera. But we had some authentic Thai cuisine. The "tomyam kung" was excellent.They kept on feeding us with whatever that's on the table. They ordered stuff that we don't know. To be polite, we just much down whatever that's in front of us. :p The best was the durian ice-cream~!! Heavenly~~!!
After dinner, we thought of visiting Chinatown. PJ's colleague was nice enough to give us a ride around chinatown. It was raining and there's really nothing much we can do. Then we went to Riverpoint thinking that we would get to hunt for the Adidas jacket that PJ eyed on here, but kena tipu la. So we walked for a while and took the taxi back to the hotel.
Day 2
Woke up to an early day, breakfast at the hotel. Bacons~ and Siew Yuk~!!(Roasted pork). Been sometime since I saw pork served in a hotel breakfast spread. :P So we got to the train station and purchased the one-day pass. 120 Baht. Got to the end,and took the Chao Phraya Boatride. Bought another one-day pass. 100 Baht. And off we go to the Grand Palace...
This is like one of the tourist boats that was taking all the tourist.
Temple of Dawn, we didn't visit this place. Just thought it looked nice and took a pic of it when we're on our boat ride.
On the boat, we met a couple from California and another older couple from UK. Quite friendly people. So we got to the palace after about 20 minutes of boat ride? One thing we didn't expect was....it was Monday and it's prayers day~! So no entry to the palace till after lunch. We're like...huh?? And since we're also lost in translation in this place, not knowing what to do, there was this guy at the guard post that told us, we could go to the surrounding temples to sight-see first before returning to the Grand Palace.
Stranger#1: Oh, you can go to see temples over here and here(Pointing at a few temples up north from where we are in our map)Take the tuk-tuk and maybe you can go to the Thai Centre. Shopping, now got sales. Only 30 Baht.
Oh, whaddaya know, there was a tuk-tuk driver on the right and waving his hands at us. Considering that we can't go anywhere dy, mind as well we kill time that way la...further more, only 30 Baht to that few places. Sounded okay to us, and I was so looking forward to a tuk-tuk ride...so we took it and had our share of the polluted air of Bangkok. First off was one of the temples..sigh, don't ask me the names..I only know it's Wat something.. :P Boring..nothing much there. When we got out, our tuk-tuk driver wanted to take a leak. So we were there and waited for him and another stranger was talking to us. Thais are friendly people I guess.
Stranger#2: Oh, you two are not from here.
PJ: Yes.
Stranger#2: Where are you from?
Me: Malaysia
Stranger#2: Oh, Kuala Lumpur? Nice place. I am reporter with Bangkok Times. Today is prayers day, I bring my mother here for prayers. Where are you going after this?
PJ: To the Thai Centre
Stranger#2: Ohh, good. Now they have sales. It's good. You go there and buy. It's for your mother. Very good investment. You buy now and give your mother and after she passed on, you get it back. So good investment.
(PJ and I were looking at each other after he said that and started laughing...not sure what kind of message he was trying to convey though...)
Okay, after that short conversation, we got to the Thai centre. It was a jewelry place. This guy was promoting their red ruby and yellow sapphire to us. With lifetime gurantee and cost much lesser compared to back home. True enough, but then our main purpose was not to get any jewellery, so we just walked a round and got out.
Our tuk-tuk driver was curious whether we got anything, we said no. Then he brought us to another place. Although we didn't want to go, he was close to begging coz he said he just wanted a coupon. SO since we're such good hearted people(:P), we agreed. He brought us to another jewellery place. And came out with nothing either. Next was supposedly our last temple before we return to the Grand Palace. Ok, this temple I remember coz it was translated to English :P The Golden Mount. It's a temple on top of a hill and you get a view of that part of Bangkok from the top.
Something to see on our way up.
This is our tuk-tuk driver...There's a lot to remember about this guy...why?? Because he left us there at that Golden Mount temple~!!! Can you believe it. We're quite some distance from the Grand Palace and we haven't even pay him. Maybe the 30 Baht he can do without. I'm thinking he was pissed off with us for not purchasing anything from the places he brought us to.
So let's stop for here now... will continue blogging with bangkok part 2. :)
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