5th Trip to Bangkok

Well, the title speak for itself. Recently I just came back from Bangkok aka my annual shopping trip despite the recent riot and protest happening in Bangkok. Before my flight, my friends, my cousins, and my parents were nagging me about me going to Bangkok as the news had just shown a few death in the recent protest. So I check up with a friend of mine who know someone in the Thai Tourism Board about the condition in Bangkok. Apparently shopping areas are hardly affected by the riot. Only the government house areas are affected. So we decided to brave out this journey despite the numerous warning from friends and relatives ;P A day before my flight is due, we got an sms from Air Asia saying that the flight is gonna be delayed but my friend somehow mis-heard the information and told me that it was cancelled. For awhile there's a tiny bit of disappointment in me cos I so wanted to go Bangkok and so I called up another gf of mine to get the whole picture of the story. Apparently it was a false alarm, the flight was in fact delayed not cancelled. Phew.... We took the last flight to Bangkok and since it was delayed, our touch down time was delayed too. I reach Bangkok about 1 am M'sia time and 12 am Bangkok time. It was a tiring trip for me maybe cos my biological clock was telling me it's my bedtime as it is 1 am M'sia time. By the time we reach the hotel, it's already about 3 am in the morning and we are all drop dead tired and totally knock out. I don't even bother to have a close look at my hotel room. The hotel we stayed in is a themed hotel, every room has got different theme. Mine was one of the Japanese wave themed. Overall the hotel room is not bad as it cost us only RM 130, it's only meant for us to sleep in and bath in cos most of the time we will be out shopping or sightseeing.

Day One : We woke up early so we can have plenty of time to shop as we are going to Cha Tu Chak the weekend market. The hotel provided us with breakfast thus everyone stuff themselves full with a heavy breakfast so we have enough energy to walk in the weekend market. It is a hot and sunny day and by the time we meet up for lunch or tea we are all burn and sweaty and of course happy with our shopping. That is only the 1st half of our shopping itinery! 2nd half is to the famous MBK shopping complex to continue our shopping! Reason we choose MBK is because we wanna be in a shopping complex with air cond as all of us are all sweaty and smelly haha. Once we are in MBK, the first place we head to is Swensen :) Surprisingly Swensen in Thai is darn cheap. Me and Steve had a chocolate fondue with ice cream for RM 14.90 only. After Swensen, everyone is recharged and continue our mission to shop :) Last stop before heading back to hotel to refresh is Burger King for a pork burger. In Thai, it's all about pork burgers haha For dinner, our friend aka the half Thai boy hehe brought us to Chinatown for a very cheap and delicious seafood dinner. We had raw oysters, fish, prawn, vege, crab, mussels, fried rice and tom yum seafood soup and drinks for only about RM 282 plus. Darn cheap. Average per person is about RM 47. Cheap right??? Sorry ah no photo for this dinner as everyone is too hungry to remember about photo. Once the food arrived we just dig in and within 5 minutes the food is gone so I have only the mess we left behind after our delicious meal hehe :p

Day Two : Second day for shopping would be the whole sale area aka Pratunam. By this day, my little thigh are swollen and my feet is very painful. Still, we continue our mission :) The guys, well only Steve and Scott, went to the food court to have their beer session while waiting for us to shop. I guess they are tired of waiting for us ladies the shopaholics hehe. We were in Platinum Mall and I find things here are consider expensive compared last year when I went there. I could not get much in Platinum thus I bring Junie to another area, which I always go during my past years of shopping in Bangkok. I guess prices drop once u go out from the shopping complex. I can get 3 short pants for RM 10 outside of the shopping mall and mind you, it's quite nice design. Junie is satisfied with the shorts. We even bought some dresses for RM 10 per piece. Although the material is not really that good but I think for RM 10 it's worth it. By the time we went back to the food court to meet up the boys they are already going on their 7th bottles of beer. Beer in Bangkok are cheap doesn't matter it's imported or not. Later that night we went to Suan Lum Bazaar for dinner and shopping again. We had a 3 litre beer tower of Paulaner for only RM 90 which I consider darn cheap compared in KL. Well, can't compare actually cos there's not much Paulaner in KL.

Day Three : By this day, everyone is almost broke from shopping. Yes, that's how surprising it is. Lucky this day it's a sightseeing day so I guess not much money will be spent except for entrance fees, food and transportations. We had a laid back morning before going to the Grand Palace. Sadly we can't go in when we reach there as they have some festival/praying session going on inside thus the staff advised us to go other places before coming back by lunch time. 6 of us grab 2 tuk tuk and off we go to another temple which apparently only open once a year and we were lucky cos that day it is open door day. For some of them, taking the tuk tuk is a once in a lifetime experience. Why? Cos the tuk tuk that we took are kinda racing on the heavy traffic roads. Yes, the driver to my tuk tuk is like driving the F1 only it's on the main roads of Bangkok. All of us are saying NO to tuk tuk now hehe. To go into Grand Palace, one have to dress decently ie the skirt or pants must be longer then knee length and the top have to have sleeve or cover your shoulder or else you will be force to rent their pareo before they allowed you to enter the Grand Palace. As this is my 2nd time to the Grand Palace, we are all well aware of this and everyone dress up accordingly before going to Grand Palace. After the Grand Palace we went back to the hotel to bath and change our clothes before going to another place. In the evening we went to Erawan Shrine for praying purposes. Later on our friend brought us to a nice place for dinner again. It's by the Chao Praya River side. This time we managed to snap photos of our food before it is gobbled up by us hehe. After dinner we went for a drinking session in Khao San Road. This is an interesting place full of mat sallehs and the things that they sell here are mostly hand made and only in limited quantity. Too bad I was very tired out that night plus it is raining thus I don't have much mood to continue shopping. I head back to the hotel once I finished my drink to pack my luggage.

Day Four : Last day in Bangkok, it's a free and easy day. The 2 shopping king and queen continued their mission and the rest of us went sightseeing. This time we went to Wat Pho which is one of the largest temple in Thai and also with a huge reclining Buddha statue in it. It is a very large compound inside this temple. After Wat Pho we went to a temple nearby our hotel before going off for our last lunch in Bangkok as we are going back to KL in the evening flight. Me and Steve managed to find a little restaurant/pub/bistro nearby our hotel for our lunch. It is actually in Patpong area. It serve good Thai food at affordable prices. Yes, it's authentic Thai food. We stuffed ourselves full before heading back to hotel to freshen up before going to the airport. Guess what, this trip I am not the shopping queen. All my friends thought it is gonna be ME but surprise surprise, it is NOT me. Overall it is a fun filled trip for everyone. We had a great time in Bangkok shopping and I'm sure everyone would love to go there once more hehehe :) Next year perhaps ?