I go to Bangkok

I vow to go to Bangkok again sometime soon. This was my first time to Thailand, and my dad thought that if he did not book us all on a tour, we would spend all our time shopping (I must say, that is truer than he could ever perceive). The touristy stuff wasn’t that bad – but you never do it more than once in a half-lifetime.

We flew Penang-Bangkok on the 8am flight, and were all zombieish – the night before being Christmas and we had all been at a Christmas party. My family tends to travel on Boxing Day, the most remembered one being the year we travelled to KL and the tsunami hit Penang. The flight is a vague memory. But I know Bangkok airport is long.

L         O         N         G.

It took forever to walk to immigration on one straight road. But the thing I liked most about the airport was how we didn’t have to queue at all to clear immigration. Unlike a certain low cost carrier terminal I know. And then we were officially in Bangkok.

I shall now let the pictures do most of the talking.

Swadeeka! I personally perceive this picture to be among the tops of my list of embarassing pictures. I only pray that you shall never use this picture against me in the future. This was taken at a temple in Bangkok along the Chao Phraya River. The most fascinating thing about these temples, to me – was how they’re not allowed to fish anywhere within the vicinity of the temples, thus with time, manymany catfish decide to reside permanently in those areas. What more, the monks and tourists feed them bread throughout the day.

One of the best things about Bangkok is the shopping. There are just too many things to buy, too little time. It comes a lot cheaper than Penang too, I find. I bought 3 shirts for RM10. Total. The only thing I’ve seen going at a price like that in Penang are earrings. Even so, I now find that expensive for earrings too, because I bought a zillion pairs of earrings in Bangkok for RM1 per pair.

This is Chatuchak market. The good thing about this place is that you find pretty much everything here from clothes to shoes, lights, cooking utensils, cutlery, decorative objects and even pets. However, I don’t think it’s the best place to shop – it’s overly crowded and hot. I’d rather reccommmend Platinum Shopping Complex to whosoever’s going to Bangkok. Fully air-conditioned, LOTS of clothes/shoes/bags etc, and omg so cheap if you know how to bargain.

Maybe you’ve heard of Thailand and the floating markets. This, is what they want you to believe it’s all about.

This is what it’s really like. This is the original Thai floating market located about 2 hours’ drive away from Bangkok. There are some people who still sell goods from their boats, but most of the shops are built on the banks, as you can see from the picture. Okay, perhaps this isin’t the originaloriginal floating market, because of the tourism they get (and also in terms of the prices of their goods), but the setting is pretty authentic.

If you are able to peek around us and see how congested the floating market is. Omg, I love it – it’s very the market feel. Instead of people cramming sidetoside, under and over each other, here the boats do that.

We toured Pattaya too. This picture was taken at an island 30 minutes off Pattaya. The beach was nice, but not impressive. Pattaya beach itself was far too small. No one does anything there except to lie down and suntan.

Other day activities to do in Pattaya included things like cultural shows, elephant/crocodile/tiger shows etc. The elephant show was entertaining to an extent, but I can’t say that I truly enjoyed any of the animal shows because I don’t think the animals are very happy to be trained, nor are they thrilled to perform. Poor things, really. I want to set them all free one day.

Pattaya is only really alive at night. The above picture shows how much my family enjoyed Pattaya nightlife. Being part of a tourgroup, we had a few options to choose from the night we were in Pattaya.

“Ah, Mr. Lim I tell you. Number 1: you can go to the ah kua show. The ah kua show best one ah, I tell you, I personally feel, some of the ah kua really more beautiful than alot of our original women. Number 2: you can go to the sexy boy show. But sexy boy show your daughter cannot go la. But if you think you are open minded, the sexy boy show is quite funny one. Number 3: There is also magic show, for kids la. They give you free ice cream.”

We went for the magic show, all 5 of us. And after our show we walked over to meet the rest of the group who were watching the ah kua show. “So that Mr. Lim – you and your family can see the beautiful ah kua from far also la.” I wouldn’t go to Pattaya again. It’s not good for shopping – and I’m not into their kind of nightlife.

We went to Bangkok after Pattaya, and went to a place called the Rose Garden. I enjoyed the entire build up of the place, and had a blast taking pictures (and having pictures taken).

Of course la, Thai food is really good too. Everything you see looks interesting, and is usually good too.

Just these pictures to satisfy the orchid lover within me.

This is the Orchid-Lover-wannabe. She doesn’t really love orchids, and so the picture just looks weird.

This is the original orchid lover. Much better photo :P

The best thing about Thailand is still the shopping. You can literally walk till you drop, and still not finish the entire stretch of shops. It didn’t help much that I was PMS-ing, and had achy muscles. But I persevered (for the sake of shopping).

Some things happened during my trip though, which I shall tell you about in my next post. Concerning a certain near kidnapping and a new found friend.

Till then (: