Bangkok, Venice of the East
Trip dates: December 2, 2016 - December 9, 2016
Leaving from Koh Lipe, we flew from Hat Yai airport and arrived at Bangkok's domestic airport, Don Muang or DMK. Crazy taxi queue at first sight, but it only took 20 min and was relatively orderly.
taxi queue at DMK
We ended up booking an Airbnb in the Sukhumvit area, since we were there for a week. We chose this area (around Soi 15) because it's close to the BTS Skytrain to get around and pretty centrally located. Another big benefit was that we had a washing machine for our clothes! No dryer, but with the heat of Bangkok and the A/C units blowing exhaust air out, the clothes always dried very quickly.
The Sukhumvit area is also rife with shopping malls, which provide bastions of A/C as well as lots of different food options. There are nice restaurants that are a little more expensive to a lotta more expensive, but there are also lots of food courts with tons of options at cheap prices. Terminal 21 was right next to our Airbnb and it’s a very nice mall, and the food court had food options that only cost 50-100 THB ($2-3 USD). T21 had some of the nicest bathrooms we've seen in SE Asia; they even won some awards for it! Siam Paragon was another nice mall a few BTS stops away that we went to but the food court was much more expensive and not as good as Terminal 21.
We arrived on the weekend, so we were able to check out the weekend Chatuchak market, which is a massive market right by the Mo Chit BTS station at the end of the line. When we went to visit, it was hot hot hot and there wasn't a lot of shade when walking around the outskirts of the stalls. It was important to stay hydrated and wander around the inner stalls, many of which had fans, and some also had air conditioning!
There were so many shops of every good imaginable, but you need to haggle a fair amount if you want to buy anything. There were actually a number of stands that had prices listed but in retrospect, we probably should have bartered. Oh well, lost out on like $1 USD! We ended up getting some clothes and other small items here but saw folks buying enough to fill the giant suitcases they brought with them.
After seeing the big market, we also wanted to check out a floating market. We didn't want to spend the $$ or time to visit the most famous and touristy floating market, but came across a lesser-known market that was more focused on food called Khlong Lat Mayom. In particular, we read Mark Wien's post and were sold based on his solid food recommendations. It was only a bit outside of Bangkok proper and cost ~120 THB to get there from our Airbnb (around $4 USD). It was not touristy but we did see a good number of tourists here, so it is definitely gaining in popularity.
Some of the food specialties we got here were:
- Pla pao - salt crusted, then grilled snakehead fish. This also came with a buffet of fresh veggies and herbs, although after I found a bug in the lettuce, we stuck to some of the herbs and the delicious spicy, tangy sauce that came with the fish.
- Goong ob woon sen - a baked shrimp with mung bean noodles with black pepper, garlic, and ginger. This had the longest line and was the best version we had while in Thailand!
- We also got some freshly made som tum (papaya salad) and grilled pork (looked better than it tasted).
There was also a short river boat ride for only 20 THB each person where they would tour the area. Unfortunately, the driver only spoke Thai and everyone else in the boat was Thai, but we just soaked in the views and enjoyed seeing the peaceful village.
Funny story - we were going to go visit the Grand Palace the next day and saw it was "Father's Day". Not really thinking much of this, we thought it was just weird that it was celebrated differently than in the states. However, as soon as we got to the Grand Palace (BTS to the pier, then a boat ferry ride up the Chao Praya River to the palace) we saw huge crowds of people dressed in black and we also had to show our passports. This was when we figured out that a) the Grand Palace was closed for visitation that day; b) Father's Day was meant to serve as an annual celebration of the King (Father); and c) we had inadvertently walked into one of the biggest festivals of the year at a time when the nation was still in mourning over the recent passing of the King, who had been the longest serving monarch in the world and was greatly loved by the Thai people.
Everyone there was very nice to us and we were able to partake in a variety of snacks, drinks, and just walk around soaking in the environment. We didn't get to see the Grand Palace but it was a still worthwhile experience to see the locals celebrate King Rama IV. We did end up going to see a couple of other famous temples in the area, Wat Pho, famous for the reclining gold covered Buddha, and Wat Arun, which is across the river from the palace. Unfortunately, Wat Arun was under repairs and had heavy scaffolding covering it and we couldn't climb up to the top.
That evening, we went to Khao San road which is popular as being the hostel/backpacker's paradise. It's full of cheap street food, hostels, massage parlors, and spectacles in general. I had a fish massage here for the first time (Lishan's had it done before) and it was so ticklish! But my feet did come up feeling very clean. Also, since Lishan dared me to, I ate a fried scorpion! It was crispy and relatively tasteless, though the body was a bit softer and chalky and not so enjoyable.
Since we had a bunch of time here, we also spent a day on personal care towards the end of our time in Bangkok. We did massages and body scrubs at a highly rated massage parlor and it was amazing (and very reasonably priced). It was a little more expensive than the well-known Healthland Spas but completely worth it - check out Baan Sabai spa if you're ever in Bangkok! We also got our hairs cut, which for me had been almost 2 months since my last cut and I was getting pretty shaggy. Good thing my hair cut isn't too complicated because they didn't really speak much English at the hair salon we popped into!
On our last day, we did a cooking class that was located near On Nut BTS stop. This stop was further east from the main Sukhumvit area and was cool to see a lot more local flavor. We went to a market there with the class teacher just to check out how the locals shop, followed by a cook-by-numbers class on making green curry paste, green curry with chicken, pad thai, som tum, and mango sticky rice - all of Lishan's favorite things!
We wished the class spent more time talking about the ingredients and sharing more local stories or flair, but it was a pretty simple affair of telling us to cut up veggies, mash things, then throw them in the wok. The food still tasted pretty good and we have a better idea of how to make this stuff back at home now!
And here's a bunch of additional assorted food pics with comments attached to the photos. Enjoy!
