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Sights, shopping and massage in Bangkok – Day 1

Aug 01, 11

Bangkok is one of the most popular holiday destination for a Singaporean. Largely because there is so much to do! There’s cheap food, cheap massage, great sights, reasonable tailoring, diverse range of shopping options, and even an amusement park (which nearly nobody knows about!)

I have went to Bangkok once before last year, and the plan for this trip is not to repeat destinations.

So the plan this time is
Day 1

Chatuchak weekend market
Siam Paragon

Day 2

Tailor shirts
Platinum mall (yes, the only repeat, because it is unavoidable when you go to Bangkok)
Chinatown (for seafood)

Day 3

Siam Park City (Apparently one of the largest amusement park in South East Asia)
Baan Khanitha (Some Thai style fine dining restaurant)
Soi Cowboy

Day 4

Mall bangkapi
Tawanna Square (the supposed substitute for Suan Lum night market after it was closed)

Day 5

Baiyoke Sky Hotel (For the Bangkok Sky Restaurant buffet lunch)

Quite a different experience from the previous round, since the previous round was more sight seeing of the temples, and all. We ate a lot, we shopped a lot, we spent a lot.

As usual, I flown in on Jetstar on the early morning flight. The good thing is that there is now the Suvarnabhumi Airport Rail Link that takes you from the airport to the city in 30 minutes for just 35 baht. Definitely no reason for travellers to take taxis! And this is probably where the BKK train system is more practical than the Singapore’s system.

Their MRT and Airport Link system uses a non-card contactless system. That means, you buy a token from the ticketing machine, tap the chip on the entry like how you would in Singapore, and at the exit point, you drop it into the exit gantry. So, you don’t have to take your single trip EZlink card to the ticketing machine to get back your deposit. Which also means, you don’t have to pay for deposit in the first place! Why isn’t the Singapore system this way?

But then, here’s where Singapore excels. All the transport systems are closely linked! You can change lines at Dhoby Ghaut without even thinking about which operator runs which lines. In Bangkok, you have to get off the Airport Link (at Makkasan in my case), walk 200 meters in the sun, get onto the MRT (at Phetchaburi MRT) and get off 1 stop later at Sukhumvit MRT. And if you had to transit to the BTS, you would have walked 100 meters at Sukhumvit MRT to Asoke BTS, which is literally on top of each other, but are not connected.

The previous time, I stayed at I-Style Trend Hotel (or now known as Citrus Sukhumvit 22). My plan was never to stay in the same hotel, simply because of the abundance of choices in Bangkok, so I stayed in Tai-Pan Hotel this time around.

It’s one of the older hotels, but decent sized room, decent aircon, decent bed, decent toilet and decent location. Nothing to complain for the price. I also wanted something along the BTS and MRT line, so the Sukhumvit-Asoke interchange was definitely a better choice that the Pratunam area hotels.

First stop after dropping off the luggage was the Chatuchak Weekend Market!

As the name says, it is only opened during the weekends. The easiest way to get to Chatuchak is to take the MRT to Kamphaengphet station which is right at the market itself. Alternatively, you can take the BTS to Mo Chit BTS, but it will be a 5 minutes walk away.

Chatuchak weekend market is definitely one of those ‘must go’ places for the new tourist, but to be honest, I didn’t find a lot to buy. Perhaps it is good for the atmosphere, the sights and the quirky people.

Siam Paragon was the next destination, but we didn’t spend much time there. It’s so amazing that I have been to MBK, Central World, Gaysorn, but I haven’t been to Siam discovery/center/paragon.