The snapshot on the left summed up best our activities for the day: Window Shopping. Despite Bangkok’s frailties with air pollution, noise pollution (yeah…the notorious tuk-tuk’s rapid succession coughy-sounding engine made Jeremy’s blood boils!), overdevelopment, to name a few, shopping is king! From the squeaky clean up-market shopping malls to umbrella/tarpaulin shaded markets, choices are plenty for the bargain hunters as well as well-heeled shoppers! We were mostly perambulating in up-market shopping centers between Siam Paragon, Siam Center and Central World Plaza (formerly World Trade Center), which are next to one another! Central World Plaza might claim to be the largest mall in South East Asia!Informal markets offer remarkable bargains of mostly assortment of plastic toys, household goods, polyester clothes, knock-off designer watches and bags. Best place to go for this is Chatuchak Market, just in front of Moh Chit Skytrain station. This is the mother of all markets consisting over 15,000 stalls. Everything is sold here: live chickens, snakes, dogs, cats, handicrafts, antiques, clothes, handbags etc… Chatuchak Market is held on weekends only so plan your itenerary accordingly.
Since Jeremy and I woke up early, we decided to experience the Skytrain, sightseeing from the comfort inside the coach! Beforehand, we left a note for Andy and Neal that we would be back by 9.00 AM for breakfast. Andy and Neal are late pattern adolescents so we left them to sleep more! The ultra-modern elevated BTS Skytrain offer a better alternative to tuk-tuk, taxi and bus to beat the Bangkok jams. Travelling on Skytrain was easy and the views were simply amazing! Fares vary from B10 – B50 but we purchased stored-value ticket (B100) that was good for one whole day (trains run from 6am – midnight) with unlimited rides!
Not an exhibition for cars! Rather office/government staff parking their cars in front of one of the Skytrain’s stations and take the trains to go to work.
Commuters patiently wait and queue to allow the incoming passengers to go out first before they board in! We rarely see this simple consideration in our own backyard! Big screen plasma television like this one on rooftop entertains commuters while waiting for trains to arrive.
Having covered all the stations, we went back to our hotel. Andy and Neal were ready and waiting. We went for breakfast at the hawker food stalls. Right picture shows row and row of stalls in a semi-circular layout. I didn’t count but the stalls must have easily passed more than 50!
Large or small, these wats or shrines/temples are a common sight in front of big buildings. Usually, the bigger and taller the building is, the bigger the shrine is. It was said there were about 300 such wats in Bangkok alone, rivalled only by Chiang Mai’s 300+ wats.
Not, not a traffic jam. Just the usual scenario on Bangkok roads!
Central World Plaza - a very big big mall. Just recently launched and obviously very few active shops and lots of empty lots waiting for prospective tenants. Business should pick up and run full steam by Christmas! Right pix: Andy dwarfed by the vastness of Central World to his left.
Jeremy and I are soccer aficionados and fans of Manchester United. Yet, I have not seen any shops that sell exclusively United’s paraphernalia. More often than not, we would chance upon red-themed shops catering to Liverpool fans and drool out the like of Pinolobu and FishingChilli!
Don: Jeremy, wahhh…why so many Liverpool shops ah?
Jeremy: Simple explanation mah. We Malaysians are mostly pro-Manchester Utd. People here are Liverpools fans.
Don: Thanks goodness…at least I can save some money…
Behind Central World Plaza, we were fascinated by this biggest TV screen we ever saw to date!
Lunch at the posh Blue Planet Restaurant with reasonable hawker-like price!
Nicely laid out and look very appetizing - a bit deviation from the usual hawker fires!
Musical water fountain beside Siam Paragon, an upscale shopping complex. Water danced in the air in response to musical rhythmic notes. Siam Paragon has an aquaria at the basement (B450 entrance fee). Saw the latest Samsung 60-inch HDTV sold here with an arm and a leg price of B699,000 (for this price, can buy a medium cost apartment in KK!). Just sat there (sofa provided!) for 30 minutes watching a DVD movie (Star War: Return of the Seth)! Wow… the experience indescribable… 3D-like and felt like part of the action!
While at Central World Plaza, we were given a ticket stub inviting us to visit King Power Duty Free Shop on the 11th Floor of Central World. The catch: Free gift and free welcome drink for any visitors without the obligation to buy! Huh… what the heck… just look and see what they have and free gift and drink somemore! “Sawadeeka”, the ladies greeted us at the front door. Things sold there: cigarette of all brands, brandy, dried foodstuff, handbags, etc did not fancy us.
Its food counter and their pretty chicks did attract us by the way. We had our dinner there as it was past 8 PM already.
Tom Yam Goong (according to the menu) with a strong lemon grass flavour. As usual, our bowls were ‘emptied!
Appreciative waitresses grinned as we sweated with their hot concoctions!
to be continued...
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