Feeling: Bored
Listening: Old Chinese songs!
I'm back from Bangkok!!! The shopping is really awesome! I'm writing this to summarise what we learned and experienced, because my girlfriends and I pestered a lot of people before our Bangkok trip to find more about the place, and because there's just so many random snippets of information here and there that's really confusing. We also read blogs summarising their experiences but some of those bloggers are rich and not budget by us, so here's my take!
Shopping
Pratunam Market
This is the BEST market ever. It's located opposite Platinum Mall and stretches quite far. We got fake Raybans there for 100 baht ($4) as well as fake havaianas for 140 baht ($6). I also bought some nice polo tees there for 200 baht.
There's also those alleys that's kinda like Bugis Street with clothes selling for as low as 100 baht, which is super cheap as compared to Platinum Market whose clothes are averaged at 250 baht. I don't know if that's Pratunam Market though.
Platinum Mall
Second best shopping place, and we saw a lot of stalls selling blogshop clothes. There's one piece price and wholesale prices, which is great because I went with my girlfriends. Hehehe. But the shoes there all not as cheap as I thought, costing from 200baht ($8) onwards. The bags are also very bugis-street style so I didnt buy any. :(
Night Market
I don't know what the market is called, but it stretches from Indra Square to Baiyoke Sky to our hotel, Budacco. The shoes there were extremely cheap and I bought 2 flats at 100baht each ($4). The flats are really really soft and comfortable! Also bought 3 pairs of sandals for 100 baht each. Ultra happy! There's also cheap polo tees for guys. Woohoo.
MBK
Extremely disappointing because there's really nothing much except overpriced stuff there. But I heard from Camilia that we gotta haggle a lot a lot, which we didn't. iPhone covers are averaged at 350baht ($13), what the!!
In MBK there's also Naraya, this brand that sells a lot of bags and pouches with pretty prints. It's located inside Tokyu, this departmental store that's similar to Isetan.
Central World
We didn't really buy anything much there, except for BRAS!! The Warcoal bra is really cheap, priced at around 450baht, which is $18! Other than that Central World is like Orchard, and we were on budget so we didn't go.
We took a tuktuk there because it was quite far away from our hotel.
Chatuchak Market
We didn't go cause we went from Mon-Thurs, and it opens only on weekends.
Other Stuff
Getting Around
We relied a lot on our feet because in the evening there's always traffic jams and the taxis refused to on the meter and quoted exorbitant prices for short distances. We did get around a lot on tuktuks though, because it's kinda fun. But we gotta haggle quite a lot with them. When taking a cab, do remember to request that they switch on the meter. Cabs have a starting price of 35 baht.
Also it'll be great if you get data plan sim card so you can check google maps and follow the directions given. It really helped us a whole lot especially when travelling to MBK/Central World/Chinatown because they're quite far away from our hotel.
Accomodation
We stayed at Budacco, a small boutique hotel located near Baiyoke Sky. It's located at one of the alleys and extremely ulu, and I was quite disappointed about it because it's just so ulu. However, my impression of Budacco quickly changed because their service is really extremely good!!! They're very very sincere and you feel so at home.
Also, there's the night market (as mentioned above) below the hotel that has great shopping! :)
Massage
When researching, we came across this massage called
Citin Spa, located at Citin Pratunam. The oil massage is around 400 baht ($16). However it opens at 2pm and we reached at 10am. Haha joke.
We then walked around and came across this massage place called The Green Spa. The massage was 450baht and it was really good! No idea where it's located at though. And they also massage your boobs OMG SO PAISEH.
Chinatown
We took a lot of tries to get to this place, and I gotta say,
PLEASE TAKE TRAIN THERE!! We took a train from Rajchaprarop to Makkasan, and from there we took the subway to Hua Lampong. From there, we walked quite a distance to Chinatown, relying on Google maps. We went to T&K Seafood for a decent meal. There's a menu with prices stated on it which is good cause we were scared that we'd get cheated.
If you want to take a taxi, it's really pretty hard because those idiot taxi drivers refuses to switch on the meters and want to bring us to nonsense seafood places where they can earn commission. In the end we relied on ourselves and took train! Yes, go us!
That's about it!! Will be blogging about Bangkok in detail after I upload the photos. I'm just so bored!!!!
Labels: Bangkok
