8 Places to Visit in Bangkok

Bangkok has two sides. Both of which I was able to see and experience on separate trips. This blog should have been written earlier as this is about the first trip to Bangkok and how I got to see the "hustle-bustle" of the city.

1. Sukhumvit Road

Bangkok is girl's paradise being well known for its numerous stores of fashionable and cheap clothing, shoes and accessories.  Sukhumvit Road is where you would want to be for air-conditioned shopping. Malls are lined up waiting to be explored. And because of the nearing Christmas holiday then, most of the big malls were embroidered with elaborate decorations which I found more cheerful at night when they are all lit up. Some of these malls are Siam Center, MBK, and Amarin.

2. Chao Phraya River

If you want to see Bangkok from another angle, you can do this by a boat ride. The Chao Phraya River almost flows within the center of the city. Aside from the good view, it's also a way to get some wind blowing in your face. Ticket costs 150 baht. (Back in 2011)

3. Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha

Was not able to get in because of the pricey entrance fees (500 baht for the grand palace and 150 for the Emerald Buddha) but they say you should not miss these. The Grand Palace was built in the 1700s and known for its grand architecture. The Emerald Buddha is also one to behold with its garments made of gold.

4. Wat Pho Temple (Temple of the Reclining Buddha)

Very unusual to see a Buddha reclining but this gold plated statue is also engraved with mother-of-pearl. One of the memorable items here are the bronze bowls opposite the statue. You can pay for a handful of special coins that if you have enough to drop in all the bowls (one each) will give you good fortune.

gold-plated buddhas

 

5. Dusit Zoo

Famous for their white Tigers, the Zoo also has other charming animals such as the dwarf horse and the naughty elephants who are the ones I saw was not in cages but can freely walk around (with a trainer of course!) At one place near the elephant show area, the elephants are fenced in by a low metals bars which they can easily cross over. But because they were trained, they kept within the quarters just walking around and waiting for people to feed them. Nearby is a counter where you can buy food for the elephant such as a basket of bread or banana and you can feed them yourselves. We wanted to feed the small ones but one of the big elephants keep getting the food we held out. We were even caught off guard when he/she took the whole basket while we were concentrating on the smaller elephant. But we did saw the big elephant give some of the food to the small one. So he/she wasn't so greedy after all.

looks like Burnham Lake :)

that's the naughty elephant

white tigers who are camera-shy

6. Chatuchak Weekend Market

Opens only on weekends, this place has a diverse wares for sale. This was the only place we got to visit on our second trip. To read more about that adventure, see First Stop: A Day in Bangkok.

7. Platinum Fashion Mall

This mall gets special mention as this has one of the cheapest clothes on sale. It is an indoor version of the Chatuchak market with 7 floors of numerous stalls. Their shirts and blouses cost from US$2.3 to $3.00. One day is not enough to go thru all the stalls.

8. Night market

When we were walking around the malls in Sukhumvit, we asked one vendor where the night market was. He just laughed and pointed to the street. "At night, all of these becomes the night market. "
He was right. You will be greeted by makeshift clothes stalls in the streets once you step out from the malls at night. And it's even far more cheaper than the ones sold inside the malls. But there are "permanent" night markets such as one found in On Nut, Patpong and many others.

On Nut Night Market

As a side note, we stayed at this clean and cozy place called Madee Hostel. It was not exactly at the city center but Ben, the friendly owner, would drive us in his golf cart to the Lotus Tesco near On Nut station everyday whenever we needed to.

And there were one surprising find which I wish was in the Phils.. egg tart as a side dish for KFC!

First stop: A day in Bangkok

The entry point of our semi-Indochina trip was Thailand. This is because of two reasons, one, it was the cheapest fare at that time and two, we wanted to do a bit of shopping (which we thought we would be able to do). :)

We arrived at the Suavarnabhumi airport via Cebu Pacific airlines at 8:00 am. It was pronounced as "Suwanaphum" which I found amusing when I first heard of it from the taxi driver. My sister booked us at this place called the Cozy Hostel and it was pretty much what it was when we got there.

Cozy hostel reception area

Just like the usual hostels, they require you to take your shoes off before going up the rooms at the upper floors. The reception area was very spacious with a computer in the middle and lots of chairs to hangout. Just further in is the kitchen where you can cook and some tables for eating. Plus, they have overflowing free coffee and tea. 

Cozy hostel near the Hua Lamphong 

It was located in Hua Lamphong within a residential area with very narrow streets and with some small-time businesses lined up in between. It was pretty much like a compound with a "sari-sari" store at one corner and a small eatery/coffee shop at another corner. Some were washing their cars in preparation for Monday's work. I saw a completely different type of Bangkok from my previous visit. The last time, we were at the city center where we saw the big shopping malls and the hurry and flurry of the city life. This side of Bangkok was more relaxed and less extravagant. It was a neighborhood of a typical middle-class Thai. 

We only can spend one day in Bangkok so we chose Chatuchak to be our destination. (It was Sunday and we were just in time for the Weekend market) We rode the train from Hua Lamphong all the way to Chatuchak Park. We emerged from the train to see the huge park adjoining the Chatuchak market. The park had a lake in the middle, a children's playground, a clock tower and of course, lots of grass. There were a lot of people then, (again it was Sunday) and you can find some vendors selling sitting mats to spread on the grass. 

Clock tower at the Chatuchak park

We were looking for the entrance to the Chatuchak market which was way across the park where we were. When we got there, we got hungry so we searched for an eatery (which was not hard to find) along the entrance of the market. The first food we saw was spring rolls! Spring rolls was 40 baht (6 rolls) and we definitely had to have some of that. Lunch for me was the Pad thai (noodles with egg, shrimp, mongo sprouts, some vegetables and nuts and other spices). And it was delicious! It was a mix of sweet and salty (which I like) plus it was not very oily. It is similar to pancit but with an added sweet taste. It costs 100 baht. 

Tasty spring rolls!

Pad thai rhymes with must try :)

Outside the market was lined with different kinds of enticing street food. We definitely had to taste some of them.

We got in the market after that and bought some souvenirs. We couldn't stay there very long since we had to go to the Bangkok Bus Terminal to get tickets to Phnom Penh. And we had to find our way to get there. You can read more of how to cross borders here. 

After the ticket-buying, we got back to Chatuchak to catch the train back to Hua Lamphong. Of course, we had to explore a bit more in the market before heading back to our hostel. 

While we were walking along, a loud song suddenly started and everybody, and I mean everybody, just stopped short in their tracks. Everyone got quiet too. If I remember correctly, it was around 6pm. The song apparently was their National Anthem. There weren't much people singing along but even foreigners stopped too. Of course, we weren't exempted from stopping then. The song ended and we all went back to our own business.

Everyone stopped when the National Anthem began

There was a lot to see at the night market, especially food! We tried the thai original dessert which was comprised of ice and sago and some sweet syrup. Sort of like a simple halo-halo. There were clothes, and decors and bowls and a whole lot of stuff. 

Care for some lemonead?		The original thai dessert
	muang thai boxers
food, food and more food!		the chatuchak train station

We had to get back to our hostel at some point to get ready for tomorrow. We almost got lost getting back. Luckily there was a nice taxi driver who sketched us a map from the train station to the hostel. It was just walking distance and we didn't want to spend a lot for taxi. We got to our hostel and started getting ready again for our early trip the next day. 

First leg accomplished. :)