Day 4 and Day 5, Bangkok

Day 4

Cheryl and I took a bus to Pattaya from Mo Chit Bus terminal. You can take a sky train to Mo Chit Station and then take a taxi to the bus terminal. (the bus fare to Pattaya was 128 baht) It’s a 2 ½ bus ride to Pattaya.


This is our mandatory bus photo. We have taken many bus photos together over the years. Many of the bus photos are on the way to Singapore. We just had to take another one for old times sake.

I knew that the beaches at Pattaya were not fantastic as compared to places like Phi Phi and Krabi. But since we are already in Bangkok and we've heard so much about Pattaya, we decided to head there anyway.


Taking the tuk tuk


Pattaya during the day. We saw lots of young girls working behind the bars. I just shudder at the thought of what they do when the sun sets. In Pattaya, there are lots of white men with receding hairline and a potbelly walking around hand-in-hand with young Thai girls. Cheryl and I relayed our Pattaya experience to a friend back in the hostel. He replied, 'Maybe they are really in love.' We crooked an eyebrow and said, 'Yeah, he is in love with her body and she is in love with his money.'


Aside from dodgy old men, we saw the beach and the sea. We didnt manage to make it to the beautiful island (forgot the name) off Pataya. It was a long, long story. Basically, this horrible, conniving lady boss of the speedboat we were on, tried to scam us of our money and would have left us stranded in the island had we not tell the boatman to send us back to Pattaya. We made threats to call the police and we found out that the tourism board at Pattaya was corrupted and was collaborating with the lady boss. Sigh. Anything is possible in Thailand. Here I was thinking that Malaysia was bad.


After the messy affair, we roamed the streets of Pattaya, had lunch and then laze around by the beach


There were hundreds of red deck chairs complete with big blue umbrellas




Being silly

After our day at Pattaya, we headed back to Bangkok.


Day 5

Day 5 was meant to be a full day of shopping as it was our last day. But Cheryl who is my alarm clock did not set her alarm clock (see how I like to play the blame game? Kidding :P I'm too dependent on her sometimes) So I woke up at 10 am, stared at my phone, shouted at Cheryl to get out of bed, panicked, quickly packed our stuff and rushed out of there.


Headed to Siam Paragon first. Siam Paragon is an upper-class shopping mall. They have many zen design shops and other modern looking shops. Cheryl loves those kinda places.




We headed to Central World after. This is Keith. We met him in the hostel as well. He was our shopping buddy for the day.


An open-concept shop.


Hm...who knows what we were doing?


Another art exhibition


I love this painting. Element of seduction yet innocence. Perhaps its about the red light district in Thailand? Well that's my interpretation anyway.


Nice 3-d effect


I think it was someone's piece of art? I helped them modify it a little :P


By the way, this is a night shot of Central World.

Note of advice: If youre only planning to visit two main shopping centres, visit Central World and Siam Paragon. They both remind me of Pavillion in KL actually. They are both pretty.


Here's our sad story about Chinatown. After the shopping centres, we headed to Chinatown but there wasn't anything much there. The little roadside stalls were not up yet. No little titbits to try. Sob. Two days before, we wanted to head to Chinatown at night. We told a tuk tuk driver to bring us there but he told us, 'Why go Chinatown now? Chinatown is empty. Only stray cats.' Not having been to Chinatown and because we didnt ask anyone else for advice, we asked him on places we could go instead. Guess we ended up? He brought us to this expensive seafood restaurant which we refused to patron upon seeing the place. Obviously, he receives a commission from the restaurant.

Only stray cats! Hmph. I'll always remember that. It feels like everyone in Thailand was out to squeeze us of our money. Sometimes we were careful and sometimes, we weren't as careful. But I guess all these misadventures are part of the fun of travelling. There won't be any interesting stories to tell without any misadventures.

That basically ended our Bangkok trip.


Here's a picture of us in the plane with my flowers in the background =)

Places that I have missed and would like to do in my next Bangkok trip:
- Go for a Thai boxing match (Apparently, getting a VIP seat for 2000 baht is worth it)
- Head to Chinatown at night

Bangkok - Day 3

Chatuchak market

Any trip to Bangkok must always coincide with the Weekend Chatuchak market. With over 5000 stalls, shopping is endless. Stuff is so cheap that you think they have misquoted the price. Nonetheless, always try to strike a bargain. Normally, a 300 baht dress can be slashed to about 200 baht. I found that you can slash down to about 65 percent of the original price. Of course, buy a few items and you're in for a better deal.

A note of advice: If you like an item and its at a reasonable price, do not deliberate, just grab it! Chances are, you might not come across the item again.



Chatuchak equals art haven. I like.




Only 80 cents aus/RM 2 for a pouch. Cheap.


They sell interesting clothes...


I bought flowers to decorate my apartment in Melbourne. Girls were flocking the stall. It was as if we were stereotyping women.




Chatuchak is packed. Wear comfortable clothes, preferable shorts or a short dress/skirt. And definitely wear comfortable shoes. My feet were soooo sore at the end of the day.


I'm icing myself. Sooooo hot...


Guess who I met there?


Chatuchak sells a variety of food too


Big juicy prawns!


Hey, they imported a teh tarik guy from Malaysia!


I bought beads for my mum. She is into jewellery making.


There's a pet section in the market. This is such an adorable snapshot. A cat and rabbits living in harmony.


And a puppy joined in!


I whispered to Cheryl, 'Omg, I think...they genetically mutated this animal. It's a pig-dog. Seriously, they do anything in Thailand.' Cheryl turned to me and said, 'its a legitimate breed. In fact it's my favourite breed.'

Oh.



Our lunch is yum.


I noticed that Thais love their deep-fried food


This is my favourite cafe there. The staff are so funky. I had this awesome ice cofee. They played soft hm...jazz music/R&B (i forgot) in the background.


Check out the bar stools. It's covered with funky cow skins. We chilled in this cafe for a good 2 hours, took tons of pictures and briefly mingle with an Australian couple from Brisbane who were going to the full moon party. I think being relaxed sometimes makes us more sociable.

Massage at Suam Lum night market
After Chatuchak, we headed back to Suam Lum night market with some friends we made at the hostel for a foot massage. That's Cheryl, Ann and I.




For some reason, I always attract mosquitoes. I was the only one in the entire room that was bitten by mosquitoes. Who said life was fair huh? Eugene is holding this electric insect zapper.

RCA
After the massage, we all headed to RCA. RCA is an area filled with a variety of clubs. It actually reminds me of St James Power House in Singapore. The place is huge. And the best part is that it's free entry! We spent the night club-hopping. My favourite clubs were Route 66 and Flux. Route 66 has three rooms to it with three different genres of music - trance, live music and R&B. I like RCA because it was a good mix of locals and foreigners. Unlike Bed Supperclub or other expat clubs where there are sleasy expats trying to get laid, the crowd here is pretty decent. Okay, let's discount the fact that I saw some really hot prostitutes in RCA.


Outside a club. I love the screen.


This is the entrance of Route 66. The DJ is playing house music.


Live band. We didnt stay too long here because it was Thai music.


We checked out the washrooms


This is the women's washroom! It's not just a place to do your number 1 & 2 but a place to chill.


They have a band in the toilet! I kid you not. A band...My jaw dropped when I entered. I checked the sign twice to ensure that I entered the washroom and not another lounge.


THe management is so considerate. Another plus point (for me at least) about RCA is that its smoke-free. There's a smoking room for the smokers.


One thing I definitely noticed about Thai girls is that most of them are gorgeous. They have great features, they have perfect make-up and hair. And they are slim to boot. But they sure are vain. Seriously, this girl was taking self-portraits for about 10 minutes. And she sure knows how to pose.


Management even provide free internet access. Unheard of. Btw, don't mind me. My first time clubbing without any make up on and wearing flats. Never too late to try something new =)


R&B room in Route 66


Behind the beaded curtains


R&B room in Flux

A note of advice: Be sure to head in early (about 10 am) because clubs in Bangkok close by 2 am.