Sights, shopping and massage in Bangkok – Day 3

Aug 03, 11 Sights, shopping and massage in Bangkok – Day 3

Day 3 of the Bangkok trip was something different.

Not many people know that Bangkok is the home to one of the largest amusement and water park in South East Asia; Siam Park City. That said, even the locals don’t know what it was!

I got onto a cab, and told the driver Siam Park City. He looked a bit confused and I told him Suan Siam, which is suppose to be the Thai name for the place. He still looked a bit confused but he wanted business, so he moved off. A minute later, he turned to ask, “Siam center, shopping?” He thought that we wanted to go to Siam Center/Discovery/Paragon area, which is right in the center of the shopping district. We replied negatively and he still act confused. We eventually went up to a hotel to get a bellboy to translate. It seemed like the bellboy knew where we wanted to go, but the driver certainly didn’t. He responded that he knew though.

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So he sent us to Siam Paragon. Gah.

Being nice people, we still paid him, for wasting a good 30 minutes of my time, and driving me further away from the amusement park. I asked 2 other cabs, and they both didn’t know where or what it was! Finally I found a tourist booth, managed to get a map with the address of the place. But seriously, how helpful can it be when the address of Siam Park City is “1 Siam Park Avenue”? No matter, we flagged a cab, got into it, showed the driver the map with the location. Even with that, he had to call his friend over the phone to get directions on how to get there.

Luckily though, we managed to get there before it was night time. Ugh.

We started the day with the hotel’s buffet breakfast. Since we booked the hotel rooms using Agoda, it was a room only booking with no breakfast included. However, the reception gave us a 1-use-only voucher for the buffet breakfast for only 177 baht.

Given the long day ahead, a buffet breakfast was definitely a very good idea! Usually I would prefer taking native food during overseas trips, but a western styled breakfast would have to do!

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On our way out to the main road to flag our first cab, we saw an interesting sight!

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Essentially there were these motorbikes with riders wearing a bright orange vest ferrying pillions that seemed much better dressed than the riders. Walking further up the road, we found a queue of such motorbikers. Apparently how it works is that they wait in queue at the exit of the MRT station. People would  just walk out and hop onto the back without wearing a helmet and the biker with speed off. What I later found out was that this is a form of ‘individual taxi’ since most of the time you only need to ferry yourself and having an entire taxi for 1 passenger is a waste of money in their opinion. I would definitely love to try this sometime!

Back to the highlight of the day! After the big saga I mentioned above, we finally reached Siam Park City, and boy was it huge! Most of the rides were fairly spaced out, with lots of resting pavilions and benches. Fortunately the weather wasn’t hot and humid though. There weren’t that many rides though. For example, there were only 2 exciting water rides at the water park area, although there was the usual lazy river and wave pools. The amusement park area had more rides, but definitely not Universal Studio standards. For the price of entry at 900bahts, it’s probably still value for money.

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At the amusement park side, just 2 rides would probably make it worth your while. The vortex, which is pretty similar to Universal Studio Singapore’s Battlestar Galactica Cylon, and the boomerang, which is eh.. fun.

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When we finally decided to leave, we realised we forgot about a big problem: Traffic congestion. Sukhumvit Road and the surrounding roads is probably the most jam packed area in the whole of Bangkok. It took us almost 90 minutes to get back to the hotel, and it took around 40 minutes to drive a 500meter stretch of road near the hotel. So, be warned.

Being tired and grumpy, a good fine dining type dinner was in order!

Baan Khanitha is one of those traditional looking authentic Thai restaurants with a few outlets around Bangkok. Since there was 1 within walking distance from the hotel, we decided on a quick shower before heading out for a late relaxing dinner there.

One interesting dish we tried was a leaf wrap thing-a-ma-jig. I still have no idea what is the name of it. So anybody who knows, please comment below! Basically you are given a tray of ingredients and leaves. You take a leaf, place all the ingredients in it and wrap it up. Then, you pop the entire piece into your mouth. I have to say, it’s definitely more delicious than it looks!

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With a full stomach, its time to rest for the day 4 of activities!

 

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  1. Fergus on the Go » Blog Archive » Sights, shopping and massage in Bangkok – Day 1 - [...] Chinatown (for seafood) Day 3 [...]
  2. Sights, shopping and massage in Bangkok – Day 2 - Fergus Tan | Fergus Tan - […] Day 3 would be the highlight of the entire trip! Siam Park City! […]
  3. Sights, shopping and massage in Bangkok - Day 1 - Fergus Tan | Fergus Tan - […] Day 3 […]

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