I just came back from a week long holiday to Thailand and it seems that a week away from Singapore is still not enough, because just two days after coming back, I feel so mentally exhausted that I wished I was on a hammock in a white beach somewhere with a ice cold drink with tiny umbrella in my right hand.
But that shall happen somewhere after Hari Raya. I should be patient.
On Saturday, right after Yat's night shift and a short nap, he met me at my place and we took a cab to the airport. You see, we were supposed to take the straight bus to the airport from my place but hmm... *stares at Yat*
I do not understand Taxi Drivers who take a long route and says it is a shorter route or a short cut and I also do not understand passengers who let them and then complains about it later on her blog. Hahaha.
Anywayyyyyyyyy.
We checked in, got our boarding pass and went for a quick brunch in the departure hall.
Anyway, why are airport stuffs so expensive? Like their food and I don't know, just about everything? Tsk. It should not be. It should be the same price everywhere. We need to make a petition about this some other day lol.
Here is our satisfied face after stuffing our face with food.
Anyway, we had time to kill before our flight and we decided to walk around and see what Changi Airport has to offer, what with it being the best airport in the world and all.
We managed to see the Sunflower Garden at Terminal 2!
We then board our Scoot Flight and loved the fact that we got the "couple seat" in the plane. You know how usually a plane have 3 seats at the sides? Scoot has 3 seaters and also 2 seaters and I was beaming when I was walking towards our seats hehe.
It was our first time on Scoot AND WE LOVED IT. The leg space was hugeeeee that it still has space in between the seat in front of me and my humongous knees hehe.
The seats were comfy too! And recliner seats unlike those you get in Jetstar or AirAsia or Tiger! These are legit airplane seats you get in SIA or Cathay Pacific!!!
The aircraft was huge by the way. (I feel really jakun for saying all these ahahaha)
Anyway, it was time to go and before we switched off our devices, there was a short time for mandatory traveling pictures like these.
We reach Don Mueang Airpot (DMK) at 3.15 Thailand's time.
Immigration took about 30 minutes or so because of the queue, and after which, we went straight to True Mobile's kiosk to purchase 1 local sim card. I needed the data plan to be able to use the internet to check for maps and basically, not to get lost in a foreign city haha. What they offered was good though; it was 399THB for 7 days unlimited 3G, which means if you are with a group of friend, just have one person buying the sim card, and the rest can use your hotspot because.... UNLIMITED.
That is what we did anyway. Yat just tapped on my internet the whole trip.
We then queued for a Taxi and we were shocked that the queue was so long! I definitely did not see that coming because when I was researching which airport was the most efficient, reviews online said that DMK was a better choice than Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) because there are less people, hence less traffic.
If this was less people in DMK, I do not want to know what it is like in BKK.
We finally got a cab at 4.45pm, after waiting about 30 minutes in the queue for a taxi. All the taxis in the airport SHOULD be running a meter, so you do not have to worry about being cheated on by the cab drivers. Just make sure that the cab driver know your destination before you hop into their cab. You will have to inform the counter staff where you are heading and they will give you this piece of paper that you are supposed to keep; in case of any emergency.
All tolls were paid by us; we paid 70THB in total. 25THB for the first toll and 55THB for the second toll. The total cab fare should be about 200-250THB in to head to the heart of Bangkok.
We checked in to our first hotel at 5.30PM, which was Cacha Hotel located at 156/5-9 Petchburi Road, Ratchathewi, Bangkok 10400.
I booked a Deluxe Room with them, which was shown as this in their website :
But we got upgraded to Deluxe Room with Balcony courtesy of the really friendly Front Desk Officer. :)
The room was really huge and hipsterish. Something only Yat will appreciate hahahaha.
After settling down, we walked to Platinum Mall, which was about 15-20 minutes walk away from our hotel.
After walking around Platinum Mall, we took a Tuk Tuk to MBK for 100THB (obviously getting cheated on by the driver lol). If you want to take a Tuk Tuk, make sure you know how far is your destination. If you think it is less than 35THB away (if you take a taxi), and can get a good deal with with the Tuk Tuk driver, go for it. If not, take the train, grab a meter cab or walk.
We had a really good dinner somewhere around MBK, at the small adhoc stores outside it. They were serving halal food and it looks good, so we went for it.
Yat really, really liked this "Spicy Fried Wanton" meal he had for dinner at that Halal Stall.
And I really, really like this Thai Milk Tea that I bought twice from a stall opposite the Halal food stall mentioned above. If you are looking for it, it's the only stall that is selling something that looks like a mini prata with condensed milk so just look around for it. Pretty small area.
After dinner, we decided to (again) take a Tuk Tuk instead of a metered taxi to Khao San Road for their night market. We managed to negotiate to 125THB before getting in and of course, that was a high price to pay for a short distance. Please just take a metered taxi next time. Seriously.
Also, we discovered that the massage in Bangkok is slightly pricier than when I was in Phuket. It cost us 250THB each for 1 hour of leg massage which I feel is really expensive as that is about SGD10 for 1 hour.
We took a metered taxi from Khao San Road back to our Hotel and only paid 90THB (LOL). Obviously rubbing our face with the fact that we got cheated on by Tuk Tuk drivers twice.
DAY TWO:
We woke up at 7am, planning to head to the Floating Market, but at the last minute decided to postpone it to the next day for some reason. We packed our stuffs and checked out from Cacha Hotel and took a cab to Baiyoke Sky Hotel.
We were too early to check in as we reached the hotel at about 9am, but was granted early check in at 12noon. We left our baggage at the concierge and took a cab to Chatucak Market.
Anyway, if you are staying around Baiyoke Sky Hotel and is around during the weekend, check out their market around that area. They sell almost all the things you can find at Chatuchak Market, and sometimes even with a lower opening seling price. You should also check out the under-rated malls around this area for damn cheap stuffs that you can find at Chatuchak at better deals! I swear I wished we had known about this earlier, not on the last day of our Bangkok trip.
There are a lot of Halal food places around Baiyoke Sky Hotel too if you must know! So walk around!
Baiyoke Sky Hotel to Chatuchak is about 20-30 minutes away by cab and it cost us 85THB for the cab fare. (this is why we should all stick to metered cabs, instead of Tuk Tuk for a distance of more than 2km).
We walked around and I realized I do not really enjoy shopping as a girl and that Yat is more of a girl than I am when it comes to shopping.
We then took a cab back to our hotel, this time costing us about 90THB because he had to make detour as some of the roads back to our hotel were closed for some reason.
We were able to check in to our room by this time and the view from up in our room was fantastic.
Changed and then head back down to grab a taxi to Siam Park City.
After Siam Park City, we cabbed back to our hotel and quickly showered and change to fresh clothes before making our way to the lobby for our Dinner Cruise pick up at 6pm.
I actually chanced upon this Chao Phraya Dinner Cruise on Groupon one day when I checked my email, and purchased it as a surprise for Yat for the trip. It was $85 for two pax. Before purchasing it, I actually Googled about it to know what is the usual price for the dinner cruise for one pax, and it was actually 1400THB per pax, which is about SGD56/pax. So SGD85 for 2 pax was worth it.
Our pick up was at 6pm, and for some reason, I panicked. You see, when I made the booking, I actually gave my Singapore contact number, but while I was in Thailand, I was using a Thailand sim card, which makes me nervous when I did not see our driver showing our name on a placard at our lobby at 6pm. I was so frantic, until Yat suggested using the hotel's phone to call them.
Why is it they charged so expensive for a phone call? 10THB for less than 1 minute phone call. That is about 40 cents a call hahahaha.
Anyway, I managed to call the agent and he gave me a description of our driver and informed us that the drive will be slightly late due to the Bangkok's traffic, which calmed me down. Hee.
After picking up another few guest at another hotel and what seems like a 45 minutes to an hour ride, we reached River City Shopping Complex located at 23 Si Phaya Pier Soi Trok Rongnamkhaeng, Yota Rd, Samphanthawong, Bangkok, 10100, Thailand.
We got our tickets...
... and was told to wait till 7.50pm to head to the pier.
Here I thought the cruise starts at 7pm and ends at 9pm. -.-
I did not manage to take a good look at the itinerary before booking so here it is:
So we waited.... and waited... and took selfies...
At about 7.40pm, we went to the pier and it was jam packed. They were currently embarking guest for the White Orchid River Cruise, which was a cruise before ours.
Then it was our turn to board our cruise, and you can see how chaotic it was in the picture below. There was no queue system, people were pushing each other to get on board, hoping to get good seats without knowing that tables has been assigned when they got their tickets.
It was a really nice boat, with nice ambience. Clean and very well maintained, with air conditioned toilet. Hehe.
I know it looks like we are smiling but we were actually hungry as hell and could not wait to jump in on the buffet line once they gave the green light.
All those glorious food. They have a variety of food which consist of rice, pasta, fries, sushi, pad thai. chicken drumlets, sweet sour fish and I can go on and on about the food and the cakes. Coffee, tea and water is complimentary but other drinks are chargeable. We ordered watermelon juice, which cost us 90THB, which is almost SGD4 for one little, tiny glass hahahahaha.
Ahh, now you can see me smiling because I have food in front of me.
The view was amazing by the way. Felt like buying one of the houses by the river just because it was pretty. They have a few hotels, houses, restaurants and bars along the river, which was something like Clarke Quay or Boat Quay back in Singapore. Except Singapore does not have dinner cruise as cheap as this and if Singapore has it, I am pretty sure it is going to cost a bomb.
The whole cruise ended about 10pm, which was about 2hrs cruise with good food, good entertainment, fantastic view and amazing ambience (and of course, wonderful companion of mine hehe). It was SGD85 well spent, definitely.
You can check out this page if Groupon no longer offers the package. There are different boats, with different itinerary and different menu, so be sure to do your research before booking for the best deal: DINNER CRUISE
We reached our hotel about 11 at night, which was a free return transfer when I booked the river cruise.
The first thing we did was going all the way up to Baiyoke Sky Hotel's rooftop to look at the amazing view of Bangkok. All those city lights - it was breathtaking. It took me back to when I was in Seoul, Korea and went up the N Seoul Tower and looked at the city lights and it was equally mesmerizing.
DAY THREE:
We did not manage to wake up early to head to the floating market, because we were tired from a whole day of activity the day before. We woke up about 9am, showered and change and headed for breakfast at 82nd floor at their Crystal Grill Restaurant. We actually have a choice of having our breakfast at the 82nd floor or the 78th floor.
The amazing day view of Bangkok.
Our try at artsy fartsy shots.
Baiyoke Sky Hotel's Fitness Center. Their gym have free weights too, but mostly light weights. They have a Spa (which we did not have a chance to visit) and a pool. The pool is not recommended because it is small and ugly and really not attractive with no view hahahahaha.
Another try at a hipster shot of Bangkok's streets before we jump into a cab and head to Don Mueang Airport for our flight to Krabi.
Anddddd...... we are off to Krabi!
Check out my next post on next Tuesday for my 5D4N trip to Krabi. :)
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