1st night
Arrived Bangkok at night. After eating, went to 7-Eleven and to my surprise, their 7-Eleven is like Taiwan's where you get to eat lunch boxes, delicious sandwiches, variety of drinks and desserts... and they are all cheap! I wonder if only Malaysia has 7-Eleven that sells nothing... After that my brother and I spent most of our time figuring how to use their SIM card and call back to Malaysia as we did not know the code and everything in Thailand is in Thai, even SIM card's instruction book. Took my brother and I one and a half hour to figure it out...
2nd day
Went to Ocean World @ Siam Paragon. I haven't been into KLCC Aquaria but my sister said this one is better than KLCC's. One of the most extraordinary thing we saw was:
Wine fridge transformed into fish tank
Fridge transformed into fish tank
Car transformed into fish tank
We went for a 4D motion after that. It was not as nice as expected but I was chicken enough to sit up straight to avoid the wind blowing to my hair from behind; used my bag to block the front from spraying out water; had my glasses off whenever I sensed danger; and had my feet straight up to avoid the strings from below to tickle my legs... but it wasn't nice, so I didn't have to feel everything after all.
We had some Thai food for lunch. It was quite tasty but the spiciness was superb and I just love it. In Thai, 'mai pien ma' is a very important word for us to use as it means 'less spicy' in order to rescue our tongue. We went to a Mango Dessert Shop which I've forgotten the name that sells only Mango desserts. Nothing extraordinary except for its mango sticky rice and mangos. Awesome!
After refilling our batteries, we headed off to Platinum. To our surprise, that place is just like Taiwan's '五分铺' where they sell cheap and really nice clothes. As long as you buy more than 2 items, they will charge you as a wholesale price. So my sister and I worked together on this. There was this shop selling 200 Baht (RM20) for a set of clothes (jacket + singlet) but if you buy more than 2 sets, per set becomes 130 Baht. I bought 2 sets and my sister 1 in the end which I only paid 60 Baht for an extra set.
1 and a half hour to shop at this 5 floor building was not enough at all. We had to rush to the MRT Station to be at a restaurant for dinner. We had seafood dinner at a famous restaurant. Everyone was too hungry due to long hours' of walking and decided to order as much as possible. It was good but the price was even 'better'! 450 Baht per person! Next meal might be cup noodles?
Then we were rushing again to catch the 8pm Thai Cultural Show. It's supposed to be a must watch show for tourist as apparently the government spent millions for this stage theater. Our 700 Baht was well worth spending. It was about Thailand's culture and history. I learned that some of the Thai are Chinese and Thailand was the only Southeast Asia country that has never been colonized because of having very able rulers... The show managed to capture back our tired souls whenever we were about to doze off. There was a small river enough for boats to pass through on stage, there was water pouring down up above the stage to signify rain, there were elephants passing by just right in front of us, goats on the stage... A lot of scenes amazed me and created my curiosity on how they do it. I probably should learn more about theater arts... Anyway, the entire show not only opened our eyes but also lightened our hearts. It was indeed a must watch show!
3rd day
We continued our hectic schedule the next morning by heading to the Ancient City. It was a huge place with over hundreds of ancient Thai buildings that you have to ride on something to go through the whole place. Hence, we rented 2 bicycles and a scooter. It was a wise decision as we were tired out half way through and we needed to take turns to ride on the scooter. We hardly had anytime to explore the buildings' description and history, we just chose unique buildings, snapped some photos and left for the next. We would have gotten lost without a map for their signboards were all in Thai, even exit signs I believe. At the end of the adventure, we gained some knowledge, had some fun and also some exercise! And true enough our lunch was cup noodles.
It was the same taxi driver who took us here, bringing us back to Bangkok. He tried to talk to us but we were clueless as he was speaking in Thai and not at all in English. We struggled at first, all we did was smile, smile and sometimes 'ok'. We found a few useful Thai words with explanation in our guide book. All thanks to this taxi driver that we were forced to learn Thai. We used words like 'ti nai' (where), 'tao rai' (how much), 'ma pien rai' (never mind) etc with lots of sign language. I suddenly realized that communication can be actually funny. We didn't know if he got the right message and so did we, but we just communicate like that all the way and he managed to drop us at our desired destination and we were happy... it wasn't that difficult communicating with people in different language I supposed... we were actually kind of addicted to speak in Thai! especially my brother... he's gonna become a Thai soon...
We went for Thai dinner again. After that, flea market nearby which all sell DIY stuffs. I learned how to make successful bargain after spending quite some time shopping in Bangkok. Their prices are usually hiked up to double and you can attempt to cut down into half the price. I came to this stall which sells DIY cards, when you open it, a pop-up shape will appear such as love shape, christmas tree etc. Since my aunt was buying, so I thought of bargaining a cheaper price if we were to buy two. The lady gave me a calculator instead and without further question, I pressed the amount I wanted. She gave a doubtful face but in the end also nodded her head. I happily gave her the money and when I was about to leave, a guy came to her and used his hands to show 'how much'. I turned around and asked my aunt, "Are they dumb?" My aunt replied, "Obviously. You didn't know about that?" After that, the guilt haunted me for a while until my brother came to me and showed interest in the card. I was so delightful to bring him over to the place and he bought another card. All thanks to me, they made a small board with prices saying that 1 card = 80 Baht, 2 cards = 150 Baht, 3 cards = 210 Baht so that they will use this board to reject bargains. To my relieve, if three of our cards combined, we paid exactly 210 Baht. My brother was my saviour!
Ever since then, I dare not simply bargain anymore, especially with calculators. Even when we arrived at their night market next, I lost my appetite in bargaining. Probably also because of a rough tuk-tuk (Thai's taxi bike) ride that I swear I will never ever take tuk-tuk anymore. If you wish to have some excitement in life, then you should go for it.
After buying some really cool clothes and happily getting lost around, it was time for our first foot massage. My aunt was sitting next to me, yelled whenever the guy put a tiny bit of strength on her foot. I believe the guy did the lightest massage ever and felt tortured and bored throughout the session and he gave weird looks to my aunt.
4th day
A foot massage gave us more energy to our feet to walk further the next day. We went to the morning market near where we stayed and bought a lot of unique food such as egg with its yolk on the outer bottom of the egg etc. It was our last day so we ate a lot.
Next was Jatuchak, a place as large as 16 football fields with thousands of small stalls selling many different categories of things such as handicrafts, accessories, furnitures, antiques, DIY stuffs, clothes and lots more. Given only 2 hours to spend, we dare not walk far and spent 2 hours of going round about near the entrance, we were lost... we wonder why too... but we still bought some little stuffs and food for ourselves. And for me, it was even more amazing as I spent RM0! Unbelievable?
Our last destination will be definitely back to our most favorite spot- Platinum. My brother satisfyingly bought his desired two pairs of jeans despite being forced to wear a skirt for changing purposes. They looked good on him, at least his butt looked smaller, haha. After a quick shopping, we were to rush back to our hotel, pack and leave for airport.
It was indeed an exhausting trip but still we didn't get enough of Bangkok and Thailand. The best thing about this trip is not about shopping, not about the massage, the spa, not about the things we explored, not about the food (definitely Malaysian food can compare with theirs!), not about their culture, not about their people... It's about the happy moments I spent with my siblings especially with my sister. It was one of 'the' moment I had with them. I'm also happy that more photos of us are now added into our photo album as our very sweet memories...
We just love Thai, don't we? And not to forget my wonderful and genius HuaLing gugu who made this dream came true for all of us. She was like our mother and tour guide who did research for this trip for months and also provided us everything we need, seriously, EVERYTHING!! I asked her to open a travel agency since she was so efficient... If she were to own one, I will be her first customer, hahaha... Anyway, thanks a bunch!
Domo arigato~!
T-H-A-I *love*
p.s. If you wish to see more photos, do visit my facebook. Thank you!
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