Travelogue: Bangkok Bound (Day 1) (11th March) Part 1
Hi, its time for a write up for my 5 days 4 nights trip to Bangkok. So excited to share with all of you although this was not the first time that I travelled out to Bangkok however, this was the first ever overseas flight with boyfriend and therefore some of the posts will be pretty long and naggy! ( I have to split my day posts into two) Oh well, I will try to summarise it as much as I can.
So yeah, I'm doing this in my office, knowing that its school holidays thus nobody will enter in and disturb me as and when they like. But praying hard that I can remember exactly what had happened during this trip.
Day 1 of the trip falls on our second years anniversary and WOW, we have been an item for 2 years without knowing and this trip came in at a right time for our celebration. It was a long way planned ahead for this trip as both of us have to work and he has to serve our nation. With a long drag, we tried our best to accommodate our schedule and the moment when my applied leave was approved, I immediately bugged him to apply his leave and a few days later, it was approved!!! And that's when all our planning began.
I scrolled and compared through different air tickets and believe me that Air asia was sold at a cheaper price but we have heard of many missing Malaysia flights and therefore we chicken up and went for Tiger airline ( which was the second cheapest). With flight tickets that cost us $230 each with 40kg Baggage, we secured our seats.
Our flight timing was especially early but both of us like how we start our morning early so that we can accomplished many things and thus we arrived at Changi Airport at 5am in the wee morning. Checking in at Tiger air was fast compared to Jetstar whereby I have to wait for hours. After collecting our tickets, we proceed on to the departure hall to have our breakfast.
It was kinda sad that most of the food outlets doesn't operate 24 hours so we were stuck with Macs and some expensive cafe which was out of our range. We had another 2 hours to kill so we decided to slow down our pace and rest our body well before the shopping battle begins.
No doubt Changi Aiport was one of the best Airport Terminal in the world because everywhere we go, there is always something that attracted us to snap a picture. And also, the environment is so clean and green which really relate well to our "clean and green'' red dot city.
Pardon of our swollen face ( our morning face with puffy eyes and cheek)
Setting off to +66 with a clear blue skies welcoming us. Touched down Bangkok at 9am (Bangkok time) and immediately we passed through the customs, collected our luggage and drifted off to get our 3G SIM card.
Don't worry if you are wondering where to get your 3G SIM card. Once you are out of the airport, there are 10 over shops lining for you to get them. As a social media user which I will always log in to my instagram and facebook, I definitely can't live without internet. What's more to stay contactable at all times via whatsapp.
My trust-able 3G vendor would be truemove, I used that during my previous trip. We bought the data SIM cards for 299 Baht and it costs like $10 - $12 SGD??? Depending on the exchange rates. The data SIM card that we bought has unlimited internet usage but will slow down after using 1GB so you need not be afraid of losing connection from the world anymore. Both Boyfriend and I got one for ourselves but at the end of the trip, Boyfriend regretted that we should only get 1 to share around because no matter what, our data limit won't exceed and we could just save that $12.
In Bangkok, everyone was revealing about how cheap the cab fare is if you want to save time travelling around Bangkok city but for me, my aim was to take their public transports and get to know how each of them travel to and fro. In other words, to blend in with the local. I always believe that even though you take cab with meter, the driver will still con you if they know that you are a tourist. So why should you get cheated by the driver whereby public transport is the safest ride to the city?
So with that, we figured out on what station to alight to our hotel. It was so easy and it acts like our MRT, followed the directions and signs and you won't get lost. Even if you do, there are nice local people or information counter hat you can approach to. They are always there to lend you a helping hand.
So we departed from Suvarnabhumi airport and took a Airport railway link to Phayathai station which I counted, its only 7 stations and from Phayathai station, we hopped over to BTS skytrain to Chitlom station which is only 3 stops away. Although the whole journey took us 45 mins. But compared to taking cab to our hotel, it would be about the same ( worst if there is a traffic jam). We saved alot of cost for travelling.
This is roughly the fare rate for our train ride. Like from Phayathai to Chitlom BTS, its costs 20 baht which is super cheap, like $0.80 SGD compared to a 500 Baht of cab ride.
The landscape of the land of smile (: Our journey began! Our first hotel was located at Shibuya Glow Hotel which was 3 mins away from the famous Platinum Mall. Glow hotel wasn't near to BTS and therefore we have to lugged our luggage and walk across 10-15 mins of journey to reach our destination., Along the way, there were some shopping malls that we discovered and had covered through.
Some mishaps happened. I brought boyfriend to the wrong hotel which we supposed to stay in on Friday. So confidently passed my hotel voucher to the receptionist and she exclaimed very loudly that it was the wrong check in date. I was embarrassed for a moment but laughed along with her. The receptionist was worried that we do not have a room to stay and offered a room for us but I declined and told her that I have another hotel to go.
Lucky both Glow and Centre Point hotel was just a 2 mins walk, side my side so we do not have to travel far away! It was kinda cool that Glow hotel was connected to a shopping mall and therefore we have to head up 7th storey to check in our luggage.
Our check in time is at 2pm and we checked our watch that we were 4 hours away and we were famished and dying for food. Thus. we requested to leave our luggage with the bellboy and come back to retrieve it after our lunch. The staff there were all very nice, super friendly and try all their means to give you their best service. Sadly that, I didn't tips one of the bellboy who helped us with the luggage.
Anyway, while checking in, we were given a cup of welcome drink from the staff. It tastes like Green Tea or maybe it is a Chrysanthemum Tea. Quite cooling and best for soothing our throat before all the feasting began.
Our first stop will definitely head down to our nearest neighborhood which is platinum mall for lunch. I have always want to try their food court and was attracted on the pay by card system as they don't accept straight cash from customer. So we headed over to the booth to top up 200 baht into our card and got ourselves a plate of chicken macaroni (60 baht) and char siew + roasted pig rice (60 baht). I guess we were to hungry because such simple dishes could satisfied us and we finished it fast!
There were too many food outlets at Platinum food court but with only two tummies we have, we do not have the ability to try all the food from the stalls and therefore we went for their small snacks which was situated in the middle of the food court.
We had this maple waffles which was so delicious. Can you believe its only 19 baht for one of it? I even went back to get one more on the last day.
Saw this twirling stick shaped corn snack with ice cream which was so popular over at Korea while on the way to Big C to shop for our groceries. We were surprised that the owner is a Caucasian and he sells Kebab Chicken roll too!
Whenever I travel, I make it a point to visit the drugstores, local traditional markets and supermarkets in the country. Its not that I really need to shop for their groceries but I am curious on what items they have in store? Some had its lowest price and basically you will have the tendency to buy everything from the shelves.
This is a must drink beverage for me and I need it almost everyday. Yogurt drink which is similar to Yakult that helped me with my digestion and clearing of bowel. This is really effective and make my stomach calling for more food so those who faced constipation, do purchase this from any convenience store and hypermarket!
My friend always tell me to get instant noodles for them whenever I travel but I choose not to bring back those as the noodles will be crashed into smaller pieces when I am back, Although I'm not a big fan of instant noodles, I still saw many tourists crowding around the aisle where instant noodles were displayed and got themselves a box of different instant noodles flavours. Very exaggerating!!
In the end, we only got our toiletries that could last us for 5 days and walked over to Central world which is just opposite Big C mall.
There's nothing much at Central world and I don't think one would want to get your apparel from this mall. Local designer fashion can be found here and each piece marked up to 1000- 5000 Baht. Typical and cheapskate shopper like me will strike out this mall to shop. Of course fashion wise, I would say that their material and quality is better off than Platinum mall.
Not forgetting to give our prayers a good blessing before we returned back to our hotel to wash up (:
We walked past this vintage motorbike while on the way to our hotel and the ice cream that they sold attracted me the most! It came in different designs and made it hard for me to decide. I was rather shocked about the price. 80 Baht for one which is equivalent to $4 but to close one eye, I BOUGHT IT! Since im here for a holiday, I shouldn't be bothered about the price. Anyway, its just an ice cream. Let say that I paid more for the appearance and taste!
Here our dog paw ice cream for you. Its white chocolate coated with Vanilla ice cream. Its creative on how they insert a cap holder below to prevent the melted ice cream to drip and dirty our hand.
I would strongly recommend one to stay in Glow. Oh not to forget, I paid $60 for a night for this room from agoda. I heard this amount is the lowest compared to the rest of the day. If not, the hotel can cost up to $70-$80 per night.
Alright, done with the first part of the trip! Second part will be up tomorrow!
Till then.
