We were there for 5days 4nights and stayed at a budgeted yet super convenient "First House Hotel" The appearance of the hotel looks old; the fact is it is an old hotel.. but they've already renovated it once. It might not be any big grand hotel with big rooms and big beds but their rooms are definitely clean and bigger than those rooms in First World Hotel. Search the net and u actually see that the hotel also has a nickname - "Haunted Hotel".. it was said that many years ago the hotel was burnt down and had quite a number of casualties. Therefore it was somehow nicknamed as the haunted hotel properly due to some netizens who had experienced some supernatural bizarreness n spreaded it through the net. Creepy huh? But so far i have been staying in that hotel quite frequently and has never experience any. *touch wood* I chose this hotel because of it's super convenient location. It is only a 5minutes walk to The Platinum Wholesale Mall, 10minutes walk to a superb massage centre, 30mins to Chaktuchak by cab, 20minutes to Suan Lom Nightmarket, 7-11 located just a few shop blocks away, and in the morning the whole stretch of street is filled with cheap yummylicious local Thai food stalls. The whole trip was meant to be a budgeted trip for we wanted to save more and spend more on shopping. Breakfast was provided by the hotel; made sure we eat until bao bao coz can tahan longer thus lunch can haf a light one (save more also) wtf! kiamsiap on the food but not on shopping! That's the way ah-ha ah-ha i like it.. ah-ha ah-ha! Usually we'd splurge more on dinner; we go around looking for the cheap yet tasty food. Few of the places we went for dinner are actually quite well-known among young tourists like us.
Since we went by Lufthansa Airline (the official airline who flew the whole Germany WC team to and back from South Africa), the first night was wasted as we arrived Bangkok near midnight. FYI Lufthansa Airline is doing a super cheap 2-way air ticket promotion to Bangkok for only RM400 and best of all; their given weight is already 20kg! Imagine how much more we need to pay if we need to upgrade our luggage weight in AirAsia. But.. a promotional thing will always has its cons; Lufthansa Airline only fly to Bangkok at a certain schedule: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday and the time fixed is departure 9.15pm and back from Bangkok 4.15pm. Promotion valid until end of August 2010, available for booking throughout the rest of the year. Terms&Conditions applied. Interested? Call Bestour: 03-21421313
Ok.. end of advertisement.. continue my shopping story.. lol! Our flight schedule was arranged to hit the weekends just so we could go to Chaktuchak the weekend market. As pre-described, the market is only open during weekends and is so far the largest market in Bangkok. They have over 6000 shops and covers not only fashion, but all kind of stuff there! Accessories, potteries, plants, furniture, antiques, old school collectibles, anything! I actually quite dulan the place; i've been there thrice! ok.. thrice! 3 times!! and still i cannot bladi find the pet section!! WTH!! I've looked through their map over and over again and even asked the locals where is the pet section. They pointed me west to east, east back to west, west to south, south go back to east.. blardi everywhere lar! And i still CANNOT find a single store that sells pets stuff..! WHY!? Anyhow walking in Chaktuchak is like the 'tong sam chong' and his monkey team walking through the 'Valley of 9 suns' - H.O.T!! P.A.N.A.S!! HOU LAN YIT AR!! You know it really takes quite an effort to make me sweat coz i'm the type of person who seldom sweats.. even when i'm in the gym (i dunno maybe i din do it right) but walking at that market for a short 30minutes works so much more than running on a treadmill for 2hours! I bladi sweated like a pig! Throughout my self-observed point of view; the fashion styles in Chaktuchak are slightly less eye-catching; they have more on decent dress, tops, funny quoted tees, and also alot of those local designers' creations. While price wise; they're also slightly more expensive than Platinum. It's nothing much of a surprise really, Chaktuchak targeted more on the foreign market;
One of the nights, we decided to go to the infamous Suan Lom nightmarket.. 3-4 years back, i followed my company's tour group there once and my flashback memories projected a shopping haven, when i went back to the same place 4 years later; it became a shopping HAVOC! I'm out of words to describe the current condition of the once-used-to-be-damn-packed nightmarket. There were basically NOTHING to shop nor see already, 50% of the shops are closed down and the remaining shops sells basically all the same things. The only lively activities they still have there are their massage centres. What we heard from the people there is; the place had deteriorated after the red shirts' riot (if u did follow the news they did camped outside the nightmarket for a short period of time) many shops were destroyed and most of the shop owners had quickly closed down their shops. Perhaps the remaining ones are the ones who are not afraid to die.. or is so rich they don't mind those red shirts people destroying it.. i dunno.. Words has it that they're all slowly moving to another new night market 10km further from the current location. Not sure how long more will the new nightmarket be complete nor know what is the name of it.
The only con about Bangkok is the taxi drivers! In this trip, we got conned by 2 different taxi drivers. The first one was when we wanted to go to the weekend market. The usual rate according to their meter, from our hotel is 80-100baht. Then this taxi driver came up to us and said he can take us there for only 40baht.. waddha hell it's like 50% off the cheapest meter rate! We asked alot of times if it's really 40baht and he said yes yes yes, so we got in his cab lor.. halfway there he started telling us to get this dunno what voucher and dunno what chop in order to get that 40baht rate. And he also said something about gas station, so we assumed that he's going to drop us at some gas station to get this voucher and chop but we were wrong! He drove us to this gem factory and asked us to go down. We were all like wtf are we doing here?! and we saw him parking one side already. There were these hostess at the front door who kept on saying "Welcome! Go in see see" After a long duck and chicken conversation only we found out that we just need to go in and walk walk, pretend to be interested in those gem jewelries (wtf do we look like rich people who can afford those bladi gems?!), come out and get back into our cab and continue our journey to our destination. Just because that bladi taxi driver can get a chop out of each customers he conned there and i think they earn some commissions out of it too. He was still tolerable since we don't need to fork out a single cent; we just assumed we've visited another tourist spot in Bangkok. The one we met later in the night one was totally intolerable! Really felt like slapping him and smashing his head on the windscreen! At night, we wanted to go to Central World for some tomyam and salted grill fish. This idiot taxi driver who was sitting outside our hotel entrance asked us where we're going and we said we wanted to go Central World. Then he said "Central World no more! Fire no more!" So we said "No.. we want go there eat" He still insisted "Central World no more.. what you want to eat? Chinese food? Japanese? Thai? Seafood?" We were like "NO NO we want go there eat tomyam!" He nodded as if he understood, gave us a reasonable price, so we got in to the car in which we later found out it doesn't belongs to him! From that moment we had a feeling we went up the wrong cab again. He was friendly and was talking to us throughout the way, soon we realised the road was not the usual route we used to take to Central World. He suddenly signalled wanting to turn into this seafood restaurant and YY started panicking. She was like "This is the restaurant where we got leok-ed!! Die lor.. don't go down!" Of course we won't go down! WTF we wanted to go CENTRAL WORLD not some stupid seafood restaurant! The stupid taxi driver stopped us at the restaurant's entrance and said "Here seafood very nice" and then this person opened our door with the welcome shit again. To hell with them! We just sat inside the cab refused to get down and demand that taxi driver to drive us to our actual destination. He then kept quiet, face turned sour and starting speeding. We were still so naive to think that he'd actually drive us to the mall but we were wrong again! I found out that he actually tried to drive us back TO OUR HOTEL!! Upon seeing a Mcd in front, i quickly asked him to stop us there, bladi hell have to pay 50baht for no bladi reason, and quickly get out of the car. That jabroni even scolded us when we went down! He said "Next time want eat Mcdonald don't say tomyam" WTF! Seriously if it's back here in kl i bladi wing chun kao him adi lor! As if it's our fault he drove a big round for nothing! It's a good thing we paid u u idiot taxi driver! After all the hassles we finally made it to our destination on a meter-running cab. Moral of the story is: NEVER go on a cab who negotiate the price with you. Walk further and get a meter-running cab! For your own safety sake.. and also, if the taxi driver seems a little too friendly-beware also! Friendly taxi drivers are no good thing! Those who are quite good in english are actually those who are out there ready to con tourists like you all, and us! But overall, Thai people are friendly people and Bangkok is still the superb place to shop!
First up! i would like to introduce u to our small comfortable room.. =)
The cheapo yummylicious food:
This is the food stall next to Central World where we had such a hard time trying to get there. It is well known for its tomyam and salted grill fish. There are actually 3 food stalls in a row selling the same thing so u need to know which one is the best - the second stall! Their tomyam is dha best!
Yea.. although MCD is so commercialized but i only want and will introduce 1 particular burger from the menu. Samurai Pork Burger!! Super delicious max i can eat 2 if i wan! Even more delicious than any pork burger u can find in those HK-style cafes. And their chili sauces are not the normal type of sauce we have here; they have their own Thai chilli sauce! The type you can find in KFC but 10times yummier!
Super cheap pork noodles found at a food stall opposite 7-11 in the Baiyoke Night Market. It's only RM2 per-bowl.. i think it's the soup that made it so yummy.
Black Canyon's Thai Ice Tea - not bad.. i'm sure i could find a cheaper nicer Thai ice tea but Black Canyon is the only place where i can chill out after shopping in Platinum.
Seed Coffee - the most aromatic coffee i've ever drank in my entire life so far! And it's cheap! Only RM3 for a regular size cup. They use roasted coffee beans and the owner will personally blend the beans for you when you order. F.R.E.S.H! I visited his stall everytime i'm there and he can recognize me already; he even said "Oh.. you cut your hair!" when he saw me. lol! Above pic is the boss; super friendly person
Some places i went:
The infamous four face Buddha located in Erawan.. i took the initiative to pray there everytime i go visit but this time due to my aunty visit i can only go see see look look..
A huge bearbrick outside Erawan's entrance.. actually the real reason i was there was because of the shop on the left.. but it was close.. =(
Suan Lom Night Market.. Oh yea i also found a pet shop there.. selling quite alot of good quality pet clothes. I bought a few for my babies and inside the shop they have 2 yorkshire terriers:
The girl girl... and
the boy boy.. wanna know why he looks so comfortable lying on my bag?
because he was secretly biting my mr.pooky!!! wth!! Yet he was so adorable i never bother and continue let him bite.. lol!
The girls i went with:
Xeing and YY.. both i heart so muchie!
and my lovely saviour sis..! double the love!
Our one and only group photo was taken at the airport.. XD
again i love my sis!!
My fruitful shopping goodies:
Last but not least...
managed to take some pics before the plane took off.. i always love those white cotton candy clouds.. =)
Getting comfortable during the 2hours flight back to KL.. can't sleep coz too happy can see my dear already.. =p
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