Bangkok Good Time 2013.09.20

Hey .... here we are again, after some times no post, I'm back with a Bangkok post on 20th until 23rd this month. This time, therwere 6 of us, as usual, chief of the trip, mastermind and the glue of the group, Wuryana, the energizer bunny turned donkey because cant sit tight and always talking, Taufiq and Wife, Mira, chef of the group who keeps us well fed and husband who always helped with the gadgetful idea, Sally and Agus, and of course there is me, the one who writes the blog.

Reached Bangkok at 12 pm, went to get SIM card immediately, bcos I wasnt in the same group as the others. Yeah, they landed in Suvarnabhumi and I was thrown further up north to Don Muang Airport. Yeah, you guess right. My flight is the low cost type. However, my starter pack is NOT !!!! I was robbed for 499 B while all of them were given free. So UNFAIR!

Well, anyway, long story short, I got it activated, I was using DTAC, line up for a cab and then show them the address. Few words I can pick up from them is "Big Money", "Baht" though I thought they said "bucks", and a girl who insisted asking me where to go when I didnt event understand a word of what she's saying. How did I get thru this? I gave them the print out of the apartment address. The taxi driver quite OK though, well at least he talked the most essential one, and said "Yours is over there" when we were reaching near the apartment.
My friends flight was much much earlier than mine, but somehow I arrived sooner than them, what a luck. We stayed at the Light House apartment, at Charoen Nakhon road, and it costed me 260 B for taxi fare, 50 is the surcharge, 110 is for the highway fare.
After relaxing for a while in the apartment, we decided to go out. After discussing this and that, decided OKAY we're taking the ferry. A bit lost at first to find the pier but lucky, we still can find it. It is located near a park.
Surprising part : there was GIGANTIC pig at the entrance gate, he's too fat he can't even move, he did move but like 1 step is ,brtaking 5 seconds :D. Unfortunately, I was too stunned to take the picture and I can only manage to capture it using my fone.

We were asked to wait before the threshold. And once the ferry arrived, they opened the threshold, and asked for the fare. It was 3.5 B per person.

This is the view of the pier from the boat.

And this is the ferry that we're taking. Wait, is the light on? Yeah, it was dusk.

This ferry was going to carry us accross this looong bridge. Hmm come to think of it, it was the unfinished agenda there, walking along the bridge.

It was busy traffic that time, so it took us almost half an hour just to cross the river where in fact, it can be done in only 10 minutes.
There were few private river cruise ships. Mostly from the hotel around us and also from The River.

But it was also very dirty :sad:

This is the dinner cruise ship. And they are more than 1.

So then, we reached the other side the river, get off the boat and up we go to the train station, it is called Saphan Taksin BTS. If I'm not mistaken BTS stands for Bangkok Train Station :D, or Sky Train Station, I dont know, you can just google it, I'm too lazy to do that right now. You see the pink board up there? There's a writing that goes Saphan Taksin. Now just a tip, if you want to find a BTS, you just eye mark a big underbrige along the road and normally they will have a big name on it.

This is a fare board and also a ticket machine. This is available in every station. In the board, you can find numbers within a circle next to the station name. That shows how much you have to pay. Bear in mind, this machine doesnt take notes, so you have to go to the money change counter to get coins. And not all coins are accpeted, only 1, 5 and 10. Nevertheless, you can still change your 2 B to 1 or 5 so that you can use those.

So, tickets all cleared, we went up to the platform and tadaaa, picture there!

The ride itself I dont think takes more than 30 minutes, but it's quite packed and even more packed when you get off the train because we get off at the interchange and was so crowded. It succeded to lose my mood all in sudden. Tell you, we intended to go to the night market, but knowing the road was sooooo full of people, we were detouring to Paragon and came across Leonardo DiCaprio. Perks of being Asian, oops sorry short, I have to tiptoe when taking pictures.

Guess what happen next? Yeah, we decided to go to the Tussauds, it was 2 buildings away from this mall, so we have to walk a little a bit. This was outside the mall.

Sweet surprise for me and Wury, we found Channel V!!

So, after this, there will only be a lot of pictures of me and the celebrities, so BEWARE!!!

With Tom Cruise

With Ghandi

With the Bhiksu

Handing out presents for Lady Diana (damn, shes tall)

Big smiles with Obama

Conspiring a coup

Mocking Einstein

Einstein and his grand children.

Playing magician and witch.

To be honest, I dont know who this guy is, but HEY, I PAY HELL A LOT OF MONEY :p, 720 B is the most expensive ticket during my trip here, SO EXCUSE ME FOR NOT KNOWING YOU but AT LEAST I have your pictures, I know you are somebody, no offense please ....

Admiring Beckham

I'm featherweight and Wury is lighter than flyweight!

Sparring with Serena Williams

Yeahhhh singing and dancing with BEYONCE, now who's hotter

Well, it turns out I got moves baby!!

I'm scared of Anthony Hopkins, help!!!!

Sigh, what to say, I'm hopelessly handsome like him (I Hope)

I think he stole it from my aunt's cat's claws.

Yeahhhhh, I dont need to be as powerful as Jet Lee, one gentle touch is enough,see

Ssst, I tried to find the pocket, but no luck.

For once in a while, I wanted to be like Oprah.

Waiting in line for Nicolas Cage.

Tea time with George Clooney

Party time with Will Smith.

Fiuhh ... quite many pictures right? Well, it better be, or else, I will feel like loser as hell. That money better pays off. Actually, there are a lot other celebrities, it just that I dont feel OK to always ask my friend for shoot. It was late, we havent had our dinner so yeah ... We're going back at about 10 PM. Again, we take the train. But this time, instead of taking the ferry, we drop off at Krung Thorn Bury, which is one station further from Siam station and then we walk back home. Fare is the same between Krung Thorn Buri and the Saphan Taksin from Siam, it was 34 B if I remember it correctly.
Reach home, some of us cant stand it and directly go to bed, while the others, watching TV, although we watch Thailand TV which we dont understand language or the writing. We chat about things, well, mostly is about our close friends. Unfortunately, I was down half way and was asked to go inside to sleep.

DAY 2

Day 2, we were soooooo lucky to have Sally and husband because she cooked for us, and not just some dish, but a REAL DISH. This is truly my favourit part of the trip. Day 2, we decided to visit some of the temples and continue to Khaosan Road. You all probably know already what is that.
So, again, same route, we take the ferry at the Pepsi pier. This time, it took muuuuuch faster to get to the other side. Our big slow friend, the piggy is also there. We read online and also the apartment is kind enough to provide us with itinerary that says if we wanted to go to the Grand Palace, we can take express boat. 1 ride is 15 B.
Cross the river, we saw there is a board that says tour boat Grand Palace, Wat Pho, etc etc. So we asked, and they said, yes yes you can. How much? 100 B per person. And I was like hmm, but okay, because I didnt see any other boat. It turned out it was a small canoe, there were 6 of us, 1 couple and 2 ladies there. And I and Wury was wondering, why is it much more expensive? Hmm, maybe it was like years ago and never updated. Or maybe we took the wrong boat. Well, anyway, rather than keep wondering, I prepare my camera and took some pictures.

This is how the pier looks like.

First destination was Wat Pho. The pier where we stop, Oh My God, was so dirty and smelly. It was like wet market. I made a promise to myself I wont come back to this pier again.
Outside the pier, there was a market and I stopped by to buy cashew nut, it costed 100 B, same as the boat fare. The others buy pineapple, mango. The fruits are fresh, and was quite cheap, like 10 15 B.

Caution : it was very hot, prepare your sunscreen, big round hat or anything to cover yourself. After finishing our food, we went inside the Wat Pho. Admission fee I cant remember how much, guess it was around 200 B.

This is the first thing you see when you walk inside the compound.

Ticket Counter

The Exit, hahaha you're probably wondering, why am I showing the exit, has the tour ended? No, it's not. It's just that it's located near the ticket counter, so it goes here first.

This is the entrance to the inside temple, we have to open our shoes.

This is the interior.

And despite the warning that this is not a place to pray, there are still people praying.

These 2 pictures below are the pictures of Reclining Budhha. I dont remember what Wat Pho is until I see this pictures. At first, I didnt know that those black things I snapped at the second picture below are the foot. I just realize it outside the building and saw the results, and my friend confirmed it to me that these are the foot. Well, I have a partner named Pho, maybe he did like to sleep or just lay down relaxing.

These are the heads part, its so damn big.

We can put in coins inside, there is service which can give you change and you can put in the coins inside though I'm not really sure what is it for.

Coming out, we get ourselves free drink, it was mineral water in a bottle, comes with the ticket, and continue around to get some spots for pictures. It was quite big compound, in fact, we're lost finding our way out.

We're using Taufiq's tripod to shoot this, and it was a small pod designed for pocket camera but apparently it can stand my camera. And it was a desk tripod, so that's why it was so low.

We was trying to setup the same tripod at this picture but was taking too long for us, so Wury decided to just take a snap for us.

At the previous picture it was Taufiq who took quite a long time to shoot, in this picture it was me, because I was trying to compensate the sky, I want the dramatic view of it, but it was too bright. If I go with it, the foreground looks very dark.

This is just in front of the previous picture. This time, the camera moved to Wury because you can see me in the picture. Yeay!

There were pigeons there at that time, but it wasnt captured unfortunately.

We went out and wanted to go to Grand Palace, but before that, there is a green field, which I cant resist to take picture there.

Walking from Wat Pho to Grand Palace, we walked by the flea market. Was very crowded street and we walk quite long, and in the heat. Before going out, Wury has warned us that there will be some people who'd pretend to help us but then later will rob us by saying we have to pay this we have to pay that. It was true, there was men who said that the entrace is that way but we keep on walking and insisted to find the entrace ourselves. You know what, once arrive at the entrance, there was public announcement which warned people to not believe those who will pretend to guide you and ask you to pay. Grand Palace was very crowded and it was 11 PM, can you imagine how hot is that? That sun heat and the packs did give us some extra miles in temperatures.
While we were waiting for Taufiq to pay the admission fee, I went around to shoot some pictures.

Right before the entrance, there was this coins museum, camera wasnt allowed so I cant show you how it looked like. Nice to be inside, it has air cond so it can relieve our heats from outside. It was located on your right, exactly before the entrance, you're probably gonna miss it if you havent looked very closely.
Once inside, we sit under the shade for a moment. While they were taking rest, I overheard one tour guide who said that there are meanings to the statue color. I heard him say, if you want to take a picture, take the green one, I'll tell you why, but that's what the tour guide said :D, I never knew why because I went to the other side. Nonetheless, I snap the green statue picture.

In front of this picture there are offering and people also pray here.

If you'd like to know how packed is this, we cant even get a clean shot :sad:

But I gotta give it to Taufiq. If you look at the last picture, his leg is a bit bent, I think he wanted to relieve some pain. He got it when doing body rafting before went to Thailand and now he's a bit limp but still, good picture doesnt show any pain at all.

Looking at this picture, it reminded me that actually David Beckham was carved as one of the statue exactly like my pose but it was in different temple. One trick to do this kind of picture is you have to play with the perspective, because if you stand right in front of the statue then you wont get the effect.

After a while, we stop at one of the shade, and it was drizzling too. We wait a while in order to get inside one of the temple. This is the front side of the temple.

Again, we have to open our shoes before getting inside.

And I managed to get the pictures of some of the monks.

This picture is actually them preparing to snap some pictures :)

It was cloudy, even it starts to rain, but then it paused and we started to move. But amidst of being in a hurry, I'm still loyal to my camera.

Then, outside the temple,there is a palace with a guard, so we took turn to take a picture with the guard.

Walk a bit further to the right, you'll see one huge building, like those castles found in Downton Abbey with very large front yard. My picture here wont do justice, because you cant see how wide it is.

And this is one of my fave picture, taken very accidentally.

So, we walk out and come across this textile museum which contains all the traditional dresses. Camera was prohibited, but I tried to sneak once and get caught and the guard asked me to delete. Ups.
Well, we walked back to the green place to have lunch and then we'll go directly to Khaosan Rd. Unfortunately, the ferry was not immediately arrived so we switch destination. We headed to Wat Arun, taking the ferry to cross the river. Once there, we saw that the temple is WOW, quite high and some dont want to climb up. So, only 3 of us climb.
Admission fee is RM 50. I went to the toilet and it was clean, so keep it up.

This is the cafe beside the entrance.

Once inside, at the gate, there is this statue, in gold color,, and it was BIG.

After we get closer to the temple, it turned out that the temple is not as high as we thought, it's that it is steep, even I cant get it in frame. Check the pictures below.

This is the stairs down.

Some ornaments that I managed to shoot.

And how it looks like up there.

It was not more than 30 minutes climbing up and down, beside it was because it wasnt that high, the place also quite small, so that we have to make space for everyone else. Once down, we were doing our prayer, and then we took off to Khaosan road. Of course we need to cross the river in order to get the Chaya express boat. Again, let me post some of the river pictures.

From Wat Pho to Khaosan road, it passed thru 3 piers. And it cost 40 B per person. Unlike the ferry, we paid on the boat. The crew was actually a woman. Forgot to tell you, I think I blend quite ok with the crowd because it was like 3 times they asked me for direction, lol.
Out from the pier, we took a walk, but not so sure which direction. Being tired and all, we decided to take a break for a while. We sat down in the park, having an ice then chit chat, just wait for it to get dark. Next to us, there was a port, it's just that we dont have anymore interest to take pictures, just want to rest after long day of walking.
Then we went to wait for dark near the shore. There were also couple of people waiting over there, but some moved away and we can get a clear shot of the bridge. It's a bit tricky because we didnt bring tripod, so we stack our bags and here is the result. Just to note, this is the best that we can get. Actually, we took a couple of shots, however, because the camera was put under the bench above the stack of bags, it is not really obvious that we are taking pictures, and there was a guy just walk in, while the rest of his group did actually stopped and waited. Then we laugh together :p.

This is when the guy was walking by.

After this shoot, we walked to Khaosan Rd. It wasnt that far, just few turns. I picture this area like Legian in Bali. We arrived at Khaosan Rd. And it was a road full of food shops, and Wury said that it was famous for its Banana Pancake. So we just walk to the roads, looking at what is sold and bought the Banana Pancake and chao.

Banana Pancake Stall, just dont expect me to take a picture of the food because normally, I just eat it.

From this place, we wanted to go back to the Apartment, however, we werent sure which way to go, and ferry wasnt an option because their last ferry will be at 8 pm and it was 8 something. So we asked the banana guy, he asked us to walk to something road no. 15, it's just that we cant get the place. So we asked whether we can go by bus, he said he doesnt know. While we were discussing, this taxi driver approaches us and offers a flat fee. He wanted 400 B, and from previous experience where we were charged 100 B instead of 40 B, we asked him for 150 B and he walked away. So our only option is to take bus. We headed to the way we walked before, but it was too far, so I asked one of the motor biker, however he sugggested me to take Tuk Tuk, which we wont. So we relied back to Google Maps and waiting for the bus there. And it was right, after wait for 20 minutes, the bus arrives, and we turned on our GPS in order to get which stop we have to take. Luckily, we arrived safely. And it was cheap, 12 B per person. Well maybe, we'll use bus for next day :).

Okay, next day. Day 3, we were planing to go to Vivanmek Museum and Chatuchak Market. Hmm, I read that Chatuchak is wet market and also easily flood if it was raining. So I decided to wear sandals instead of shoes, even though I wanted to wear shoes to protect my feet from the sun.
As planned, we're taking bus to Vivanmek Mansion.

Arrived at Vivanmek, huft, no camera allowed, from the ticket gate we have to walk inside. And there is dress code here, you have to wear at least knee length for girl, ankle length for boy, no sleeveless, no patches, no ripped-style. And we have to leave all our belongings in the locker, we have to pay 30 B for the locker so that all of our bags can fit in. Only wallet is allowed.
We walked up and was asked to go back down again to remove our shoes and sandals ... hmmmm. So, back up, we were lost of what should we do, we're not admirer of history, and no photo allowed, so it was pretty fast :D. Because it was hot, we stopped to but some popsicles, I had salacca, Wury had mango, some had durians. Then we walked back out, intending to take the free shuttle to the other part of the mansion. But before that ...

The shuttle waiting area is near the ticket gate, so we have to get back to the initial position. Not long after, a golf car came in, and we took a ride in it. It manages to wow us because the compound is very big, and the building is classic, but still IT WAS SUPER HOT!.

This is in front of Ananta.

Finish in this place, again, we took bus to Cathuchak, luckily, the bus stop is not very far. But you know what, instead of taking us to Chatuchak, this bus stop half way, and asked us to get off the bus. So, then we have to take train. It was from Victory Monument. Considering lunch time, we then have our lunch in the park.

From here on, I didnt snap any picture at all. But some of my friends are actually succeding in having good deal buying some things. They bought tees, slippers, key chains, magnet fridge, all souvenir stuff.
At about 5 pm, we took bus back to our apartment and prepare to pack for tomorrow.
This last day, I woke a bit earlier, thanks to my early sleep.

This day we only have Terminal 21 to visit. I bought some t-shirt there. No picture at all lol, too bad because I didnt bring my camera, huft.

And this is in the apartment.

We separate our way, they left to BKK, and I headed to DMK. Still a long waiting time in DMK. And I warned you, DMK tends to have a long queue even for the Baggage Drop, too bad.

This is in DMK.

And while waiting, I bought these 3 snacks, which I found, only the seaweed is nice.

Seaweed Crispy

Crispy Banana with Tamarind Jam

Mangosteen Wafer

Well, that's it for my HAVING A GREAT TIME with my friends. See you in next trip.