back from Bangkok
I am back from Bangkok.
I stayed at the Baiyoke Sky Hotel, which is the tallest building in Thailand. They have a revolving platform on the highest floor, which lets you view all of Bangkok without having to move your feet.
Sunset, as viewed from said revolving platform.
The room was huge! More than twice the size of my room in Tokyo, and more than thrice the size for the bathroom. The service was thoughtful and friendly: porters are stationed at the lift lobbies at all times to hold the lift doors open while guests mill in and out; little gifts with tags saying “good night!” are left on the pillows after the room has been made up; the chef at the Japanese station of the breakfast buffet struck up a conversation with me; the waiters at the cafe applauded Sister once she managed to fold her napkin into a crane with some success.
The only drawback to this hotel is its location. It’s near Pratunam market, the fashion wholesale mall, and Pantip Plaza (the only electronics mall in Bangkok), but I couldn’t find anything to buy in that area, save for a set of fake katana XD The nearest Skytrain station is a 15-20 minute walk away. I wish we’d stayed in the Siam area.
Shopping-wise, it was quite a fruitful trip for me, more so than for the rest of my family. What I bought:
From Pratunam: 1 set of fake katana (3 of ‘em)
From MBK: 1 pair of boots, 1 shirt-dress, 1 pair of short pants, 1 necklace
From Siam Square: 1 pair of boots, 2 pairs of shoes, 1 ankh pendant
From Suan Lum: 1 pair of ankh earrings, 1 belt, 2 T-shirts
I got most of my things at MBK and Siam Square. The markets, though cheaper and bursting with local flavour, didn’t really have anything that I wanted to buy.
One thing I like about shopping in Thailand is the quantity and variety. In Siam Square, there are shoe shops everywhere you turn! And the shoes that one shop sells are different from the next, because it’s one brand per shop. Clothes wise, the nice stuff in individual labels was expensive, so I didn’t get any.
Suan Lum is a pretty night market, with covered streets running between thousands of
shops selling fashion, handicrafts, furniture and massage services. It’s rather reminiscent of Bugis Village, but on a much larger scale. There’s a ferris wheel; and a big field surrounded by eateries, with a stage at one end. We chatted with a young shopowner, who spoke in a perfect American accent. She had lovely goods, belts made by her sister and accessories by herself. She thought I was just 2 years older than Sister. *smirk*
Sister also dragged took us to a photo studio in Siam Square. There, you get a choice of 4 studios, all decorated such that only 14-year-olds would be excited to pose in them, and a photographer who’ll take 20+ shots and give you some directions on posing. No makeover included. After that, you choose which photos you want to develop in which sizes, paying 12baht per sheet. It comes up to much cheaper than taking puri. The place is REALLY popular. Youngsters and families took up every spare bit of standing place when we returned to get the photos after lunch.
Pratunam market, near our hotel.
A street hawker selling grilled prawns at Pratunam market.
A row of street hawkers at Pratunam market.
On to the food. It’s really sad to be in Thailand and not try the local food, but because of Mother’s palate, we ended up eating Chinese food. Like the almost unpalatable dim sum buffet at our hotel for lunch on Sunday. Sunday’s dinner was okay, at some sharks fin cafe at MBK. The birds nest soup was generously laden with birds nest, so no complaints there either.
Lunch on the 2nd day was at Crystal Jade -_-;;; I mean, I fully enjoyed the dim sum, but we’re in Thailand! Anyway, the dimsum there costs more than in Singapore, but the portions are larger. Dinner was at the hotel because we were too tired (more on that later). The cafe was a bao-ga-liao one serving Thai, Japanese, Chinese, American, European etc food. I got the seafood bento, which for S$10 is pretty value-for-money.
Brother got pad thai, which is the only time ever that we got Thai food during our stay here. Of course the pad thai was wonderful.
The only other time that I tried Thai food was off a grill in a night market. Aaaah.
The traffic in Bangkok is abominable. I don’t see a point in having zebra crossings since no motorist acknowledges their existence. Ditto for lane markings. The jams are terrible. And I think they could do with some T-junction traffic lights. Still, it’s amazing how they take it in stride. It’s not a bad thing. It just is. The taxi drivers are amazing, they swerve from lane to lane, and still manage to signal! If they have to stop suddenly when another vehicle cuts in front, some drivers actually turn on the hazard light at the same time. Over there, the taxi drivers either take you for a flat fee of 100baht per trip, or turn on their meters at a starting fee of 35baht. The former is the more lucrative alternative if you’re traveling short physical distances like we were, thus a few drivers rejected us initially. Still, to make live easier for tourists, hotels and shopping centres employ staff at taxi queues to holler “XXX location, meter?” at each taxi coming in. There is never a shortage of taxis.
The tuk tuk drivers are also shameless in soliciting passengers. They’ll gesture at ang moh tourists waiting at the back of a taxi queue to jump queue; and they’ll yell “I take you MBK! NO walk!” as you’re walking out of your hotel, as if being on your own two legs is an insult to their existence. Anyway, I’d never want to take a tuk tuk when I could be in an air-conditioned cab, shut away from the polluted air.
Despite taxis being so cheap and our hotel being in the middle of nowhere, Father was amazingly reluctant to take them. We walked all the way from our hotel to the nearest Skytrain station to take 2 stops to Siam.
A skytrain station.
We walked from Silom station to Suan Lum in the hot sun and bad air. (I’m now sunburnt and my face’s peeling.) Only to find that Suan Lum wasn’t quite open yet. Mother was ready to kill someone then.