Stomach My Travel Gossipz!: 21 Sept 2011

Am sure everyone will jump just like I did whenever they go for a holiday!

This is my first time to Bangkok..and so I selected Citin Pratunam Hotel after reading many good reviews about it on Tripadvisor. Location: Not the best but not too bad either. Not the best, because you can easily miss the lane(or Soi) where it's located at . Thank god for a local (we asked about 4 locals, and they gave conflicting directions!) who showed us the right way. And the area here, is kind of small, nothing much to explore. Pretty near Ratchaprarop station (airport rail link), so you can actually come here straight from the airport without needing to take a taxi. And it's just 60 baht, i think.

We reached about 2.15pm at the hotel. Citin Pratunam has 2 blocks. The first block you'll encounter is the block with the reception counter. Upon registration, we were told to wait for 15 minutes for our room as it was not ready. So we left our bags, thought we can probably go out and familiarise ourselves with the place. Came back about 20 - 25 minutes later, hmm..room STILL not ready. Were told to wait for another 20 minutes. "Super"! Not what I expected seriously. Am really so tired, and just needed to rest my legs. So in total we actually waited for close to one hour for our room!

Finally we got our room!

Our room is located at the next block, with the restaurant. The restaurant is a vegetarian restaurant, definitely a plus for Indians. Didn’t try the food there as I prefer to get out and have some meat! And there were really many Indians and Indian shops at this area. I would recommend this place for my Indian friends for sure. There’s even a place called Namaste something, “Namaste” is a normal Indian greeting and lots of Indian restaurants.

So what do I think of Bangkok?

CHAOTIC! I didn’t expect it to be so modernised! The MRT/BTS/Airport Rail Link system is very well structured, and it’s seamless getting from one place to another. J Throughout our 4-day stay, we relied very much on the public transport, only took a taxi and tuk tuk once!

On our first day, our plan to go to Chatuchak kind of backfired due to the room delay. Realising that we may only have 1 hour at Chatuchak should we stick to plan, so decided to go MBK instead. One big mistake, we didn’t know that Platinum is just streets away from our hotel.

Not sure whether it’s just me but both myself and partner didn’t enjoy MBK.

Did they say that you can bargain and slash prices at MBK? I tried (to bargain reasonably of course) but got rejected so many times! But what is good about this place is that all floors are categorised to the things they sell. So that is more organised in a way, less confusing for travellers like me. Then we went to Siam Discovery Centre. Other than the usual branded stuffs, there really nothing much here. Legs got way too tired, and decided to ‘surrender’ for the night. Went for a foot massage at Pratunam, at 160 baht. Probably the cheapest I’ve discovered so far. The place is called Health Room Thai Traditional Massage. Had dinner at a side lane street-food place near the hotel, which is abit pricey..

Green Curry Chicken!

Sweet & Sour Fish!

Shrimp roll!

All the above cost about 800 baht..which is around S$35.

2^nd day in Bangkok was spent at Chatuchak Market! It was crazy! We don’t even know where we were going as we explored lanes and lanes of shops, selling so many different things at pretty cheap prices!

Madness starts at the bridge towards Chatuchak Market!

Had a quick lunch along the streets near Chatuchak Market for just 140 baht before we roamed the lines of shops!

Spent 4 hours at Chatuchak Market, hardly covered half of them! By 2pm, I was so shagged and decided to head back to the hotel. We reached hotel by about 3pm, had lunch at the same place again near our hotel. Had rice with basil leave beef, tom yam. Boyfriend had fried rice with salted fish..total damage: 400 baht! Ireally thought it was way too expensive for only 2 main dishes..

Then we had a full body massage at Citin Spa, pretty nice, peaceful and rejuvenating massage. When night comes, we decided to head for Khao San Road. We asked a taxi driver if he can switch on his meter. He refused and quoted us 550 baht instead! Finally we managed to get a cab who willingly switched on his meter. Guess how much it cost?? Just 75baht! wow..that is alot of difference!

Dinner at Khao Sand Road cost us only about 200baht. Loving the place, so much relaxed, not as noisy as Pratunam. Line-ups of bars, not strip bars like those at Patpong. Pretty cool! Went to this place called Lucky Beer, where we had some drinks. Went back to our hotel around midnight, taxi fare cost about 65 baht.

3^rd day in Bangkok:

Damnoensaduak Floating Market! Started the day very early at 6.45am, a van picked us up to head to the market. Our first stop was at an Elephant attraction! We had no idea about it! As usual, they tried to entice you to feed the poor monkeys with bananas for 100baht, or hop on the elephant for 600baht or simply enjoy coffee for 20baht. We chose coffee, that’s what we really needed in the morning! Upon reaching the pier, we boarded a long tail boat to our desired destination.. :)

Everyone, including the sellers were all in high spirits, adding to the exciting atmosphere at Damnoensaduak Floating Market!

After floating market, we were brought to the Cobra Show! Another surprise! Decided to skip it and do our own activity instead..cam-whoring!

At the entrance of Cobra Show

After the cobra show, we went to a furniture shop. Pretty impressed with their wooden scuptjures. Definitely alot of hard work!

This elephant is one of their amazing works of the artists!

3D wooden carving!

Oh did I mention that the staffs at our hotel were really mediocre. Really nothing great to shout about. We used the free tuk tuk after our floating market tour, to proceed to Platinum Shopping Mall. The tuk tuk operates every half an hour. The hotel is pretty near to Platinum. So we decided to walk back to the hotel after shopping. It’s just about 2 – 3 streets away, about 10mins walk.