I went to Thailand this early December with my mum. I was sooooo excited, I'd never been to Thailand before and I kept myself busy with researching about the places we were about to visit, what to prepare, what to bring, what to wear, what to eat, and so on.
Okay, first thing first, sorry for rushing. Lol. I've been waiting to finally got some free time to write about my Thai trip. The Thailand post is gonna be split separatedly into two different posts, I guess. Depends on how long it takes for me to write my journey in one day.
Let's get started! :)
So on December 1, I had to leave from home to the airport at 2am since I had a morning flight at 7am sharp. It was good. I waited a little for some quick breakfast at Starbucks. It's always better early than late, right? I departed from Soekarno Hatta International Airport (CGK) to Suvarnabhumi International Airport (BKK). It took about 3 hours of flight to get to Bangkok and we arrived quite earlier than planned, which was a good thing.
Suvarnabhumi airport is really nice, it's huge (well, of course it's an airport) and I like how they designed their roof thing or something like that. The staffs were nice. We had to have a long line for the immigration check. Just a little tips here, if you like to vlog or you just love taking pictures of things wherever and whenever, I'm gonna have to warn you that you are not allowed to use your camera for video recording or taking a picture there. You can do it AFTER the immigration check, which is the bags claim part. If you insist to take a picture there, there would be a big chance that one of their staffs would come to you and hush you away with some mumbles in the language that you would not even understand. And that would not be pretty for a start.
At the Suvarnabhumi airport, there were some immigration booths that had free sim cards for us to take. I didnt quite understand why they made it free for anyone, nor did I know how to use it (since me and my mum were Blackberry users) to activate our Blackberry Internet Service. But if you got the chance and the card, grab one.
After grabbing all of our luggages we walked to the waiting room, we waited for our car to come. Our guide was Cha Yut. I'm... not sure if that's how you write his name but yeah thats how you say it. He spoke Thai, Bahasa, and a little (poorly) bit of English. Since I can speak Bahasa and a quick learning of Thai language earlier (thank you, iPhone/iPad apps) we had no problem communicating. Our driver's name was something something in Thailand that means Blue Sapphire. Cha Yut said in bahasa that his driver's name was like a bit girly. Man, I pity my driver.
Since we came at around 12-ish, we took a lunch in a restaurant. It's famous for its Tom Yum (Tom Yum is Thai's famous cuisine)
My mum loved the Tom Yum but I was not a big fan of seafood or any other similar cuisines so yeah.. I didnt really like it. But the rest of the food was really fine. They were tasty and my tummy was happy.
After the tasty lunch, we went straight to Chatuchak weekend market. Now this market only opens on Saturday and Sunday. And I heard they were huge, so I happened to downloaded the market map on the internet earlier to avoid getting lost somewhere in there and being left behind. Hey, cant be too careful.
When I came there, "HOLY LORD OMG", was the first thing I said. Because not only they sold a lot of interesting stuff, but also THEY WERE LITERALLY HUGE. We were given 4 to 5 hours for shopping and the first 2 hours were spent only in around one area. I had the map on my iPad, I'd love to put it up here but maybe later. You can just actually google and download it though, it's everywhere on the internet :)
The first thing we bought were totebags. They were made from canvas fabric and they were sooo cheap. It was only about 150 bahts. So I bought two of them, one was american flag printed, and the other one is tribal pattern printed. Cute. After that, to move inside the market through the main entrance (the one that has a huge Chatuchak Weekend Market plank outside), we passed some crazy part of the market that sold foods. Like, LOTS of food. Food stalls? I dont even recognize any of them but from what I saw, I think they had some grilled squid, fried squid, fried chicken wings (yes, it's considered a "streetfood snack" there), fruits, hugeass bread that looks like Cakue/Odading in Indonesia, noodles and rice that are cooked in one HUGE pan, and MORE! The smell made me desperately tempted to try them one by one but due to the limited time, we headed to the market first.
There, I can tell that everything was really ridiculously cheap. They had some cute handicrafts with various designs (bags, bracelets, pouches, keychains, amulets, pillowcovers, rugs, jewelleries, etc), clothes, scarfs, animals, old books, antique stuffs, handmade things, house decorations, and many more. They even had plants and flowers there. Sofa, lamps and house furnitures were there too. It's crazy. It summoned the shopaholic side of you, I kid you not.
But thats only in 'that' particular part of the market. I went deeper through the market, and wandered around there deeper and deeper from the entrance and we found another part of the market. It's the spacier part. They were more likely focused on bags, shoes, and food (and foot spa for the tired shopaholic tourists). And the stuff offered was a lot better! I mean, I think it's quite obvious that it's the part where you want to shop for a real "good deal". I mean, with the good price (a little bit above the other part's prices) but better stuff. Because most of them were like a group of Bangkok's local boutiques or lines and so if people told you to embrace your bargaining skill in Chatuchak, I dont think this part will do well. Because they mostly do the fix-price thing, although if you had this special charm or luck I'm sure they'd give out some discount :)
Like me. Mum bought some tribal printed leggings at the first part of the market and I forgot how much they costed but I guess it wasnt more than 300 bahts for two. She also found some cute belts for only about 120 bahts. I found a really good leopard printed leather bag for 850 bahts at the antique part of the market. I also found some amulets sellers but mum didnt let me buy some :( she was probably terrified lol. But I did buy some cute little cat statues made of... i dont know it looked like gold but I believe it wasnt, for only 100 bahts for 3 pieces at the antique part of the market again.
At the other part of the market, real good deal. I bought two super adorable rings (my favourite fashion item, come on) for only about 250 bahts or something. The shop owner was a young guy, a bit older than me, and he was VERY NICE. He heard me and mum speaking in bahasa a little and he asked me if I was a Malaysian. I laughed for a second and I said "no, I'm probably more like an Indonesian". He nodded and shared that he learned Melayu back then and it was really hard for him to memorize. He was really friendly. I told him I love his shop and he gave me a quite big discount for my rings. I definitely would want to recommend you guys his shop but unfortunately I couldnt recall the name :(
Also, there were a lot of shoe stores and they have the quirkiest and cutest shoes you would ever find. I bought two suede flats, one in red and one in coffee-brown and they were only around 300 bahts! After wandering around for hours, mum, who loves coconuts, stopped and bought this coconut ice cream on a coconut shell with corns and a tiny flag of thailand. Plus a cold glass of coconut water. They were 30 or 50 bahts. It was heaven. Mostly, almost everything there is around 100-100something bahts. Shoes, shirts, dressess, belts, rings, pouches, a bag of keychains... just everything.
I found this place who sold some shoes too, my wild guess is they're a quite famous local brand because the shop was quite full of people. The brand was called Walking in My Shoes. They had some good shoes with cute designs that slightly looked just the same as others with cheaper price. But turned out, it's different. Their material is different. I bought two shoes for about... I dont know 700 or 800 bahts maybe? And the owner gave me some discount :) I bought a shirt from another local brand too, it was a simple pink striped shirt with white pocket in one side for about 150 bahts.
My tips, Chatuchak is good if you want to have a good deal for shopping. I'm not joking if I said they have a lot of good stuff that you probably wont find in any other shopping places there (MBK, Siam Paragon, Platinum or so forth). So, when you feel like buying it, buy it. Because I learned that if you keep holding yourself back from buying by thinking that you'll get back to that store later, you know what? You wont. Either you wont have enough time for that, or you wont have enough energy for that.
Oh and have I mentioned you about the books part of the market? Well, before I left, I'd been planning on hunting some good books there, but such a bit of a dissapointment, they mostly had books in Thai, which I wouldnt understand because they were in Thai characters :(
After wandering around and shopping here and there, we finally got ourselves out of the market and took a rest at the JJ mall next to Chatuchak. There, we came again across the food stalls. Getting confused of what to get, I decided to get this with my mum..
And they offered us some takoyaki too. Although we all know that Tako is Japanese cuisine but why not try the Thai version of Takoyaki? So for two snacks, it was only 50 bahts and they were delish!
We headed straight to our hotel to unpack our stuffs and take some rest. That's for the first day in Thailand, I'll keep writing on this space for the other days.
See ya! :)
Okay, first thing first, sorry for rushing. Lol. I've been waiting to finally got some free time to write about my Thai trip. The Thailand post is gonna be split separatedly into two different posts, I guess. Depends on how long it takes for me to write my journey in one day.
Let's get started! :)
So on December 1, I had to leave from home to the airport at 2am since I had a morning flight at 7am sharp. It was good. I waited a little for some quick breakfast at Starbucks. It's always better early than late, right? I departed from Soekarno Hatta International Airport (CGK) to Suvarnabhumi International Airport (BKK). It took about 3 hours of flight to get to Bangkok and we arrived quite earlier than planned, which was a good thing.
At the Suvarnabhumi airport, there were some immigration booths that had free sim cards for us to take. I didnt quite understand why they made it free for anyone, nor did I know how to use it (since me and my mum were Blackberry users) to activate our Blackberry Internet Service. But if you got the chance and the card, grab one.
After grabbing all of our luggages we walked to the waiting room, we waited for our car to come. Our guide was Cha Yut. I'm... not sure if that's how you write his name but yeah thats how you say it. He spoke Thai, Bahasa, and a little (poorly) bit of English. Since I can speak Bahasa and a quick learning of Thai language earlier (thank you, iPhone/iPad apps) we had no problem communicating. Our driver's name was something something in Thailand that means Blue Sapphire. Cha Yut said in bahasa that his driver's name was like a bit girly. Man, I pity my driver.
Since we came at around 12-ish, we took a lunch in a restaurant. It's famous for its Tom Yum (Tom Yum is Thai's famous cuisine)
After the tasty lunch, we went straight to Chatuchak weekend market. Now this market only opens on Saturday and Sunday. And I heard they were huge, so I happened to downloaded the market map on the internet earlier to avoid getting lost somewhere in there and being left behind. Hey, cant be too careful.
When I came there, "HOLY LORD OMG", was the first thing I said. Because not only they sold a lot of interesting stuff, but also THEY WERE LITERALLY HUGE. We were given 4 to 5 hours for shopping and the first 2 hours were spent only in around one area. I had the map on my iPad, I'd love to put it up here but maybe later. You can just actually google and download it though, it's everywhere on the internet :)
The first thing we bought were totebags. They were made from canvas fabric and they were sooo cheap. It was only about 150 bahts. So I bought two of them, one was american flag printed, and the other one is tribal pattern printed. Cute. After that, to move inside the market through the main entrance (the one that has a huge Chatuchak Weekend Market plank outside), we passed some crazy part of the market that sold foods. Like, LOTS of food. Food stalls? I dont even recognize any of them but from what I saw, I think they had some grilled squid, fried squid, fried chicken wings (yes, it's considered a "streetfood snack" there), fruits, hugeass bread that looks like Cakue/Odading in Indonesia, noodles and rice that are cooked in one HUGE pan, and MORE! The smell made me desperately tempted to try them one by one but due to the limited time, we headed to the market first.
There, I can tell that everything was really ridiculously cheap. They had some cute handicrafts with various designs (bags, bracelets, pouches, keychains, amulets, pillowcovers, rugs, jewelleries, etc), clothes, scarfs, animals, old books, antique stuffs, handmade things, house decorations, and many more. They even had plants and flowers there. Sofa, lamps and house furnitures were there too. It's crazy. It summoned the shopaholic side of you, I kid you not.
But thats only in 'that' particular part of the market. I went deeper through the market, and wandered around there deeper and deeper from the entrance and we found another part of the market. It's the spacier part. They were more likely focused on bags, shoes, and food (and foot spa for the tired shopaholic tourists). And the stuff offered was a lot better! I mean, I think it's quite obvious that it's the part where you want to shop for a real "good deal". I mean, with the good price (a little bit above the other part's prices) but better stuff. Because most of them were like a group of Bangkok's local boutiques or lines and so if people told you to embrace your bargaining skill in Chatuchak, I dont think this part will do well. Because they mostly do the fix-price thing, although if you had this special charm or luck I'm sure they'd give out some discount :)
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| the pups at the market <3 p=""> |
At the other part of the market, real good deal. I bought two super adorable rings (my favourite fashion item, come on) for only about 250 bahts or something. The shop owner was a young guy, a bit older than me, and he was VERY NICE. He heard me and mum speaking in bahasa a little and he asked me if I was a Malaysian. I laughed for a second and I said "no, I'm probably more like an Indonesian". He nodded and shared that he learned Melayu back then and it was really hard for him to memorize. He was really friendly. I told him I love his shop and he gave me a quite big discount for my rings. I definitely would want to recommend you guys his shop but unfortunately I couldnt recall the name :(
Also, there were a lot of shoe stores and they have the quirkiest and cutest shoes you would ever find. I bought two suede flats, one in red and one in coffee-brown and they were only around 300 bahts! After wandering around for hours, mum, who loves coconuts, stopped and bought this coconut ice cream on a coconut shell with corns and a tiny flag of thailand. Plus a cold glass of coconut water. They were 30 or 50 bahts. It was heaven. Mostly, almost everything there is around 100-100something bahts. Shoes, shirts, dressess, belts, rings, pouches, a bag of keychains... just everything.
I found this place who sold some shoes too, my wild guess is they're a quite famous local brand because the shop was quite full of people. The brand was called Walking in My Shoes. They had some good shoes with cute designs that slightly looked just the same as others with cheaper price. But turned out, it's different. Their material is different. I bought two shoes for about... I dont know 700 or 800 bahts maybe? And the owner gave me some discount :) I bought a shirt from another local brand too, it was a simple pink striped shirt with white pocket in one side for about 150 bahts.
My tips, Chatuchak is good if you want to have a good deal for shopping. I'm not joking if I said they have a lot of good stuff that you probably wont find in any other shopping places there (MBK, Siam Paragon, Platinum or so forth). So, when you feel like buying it, buy it. Because I learned that if you keep holding yourself back from buying by thinking that you'll get back to that store later, you know what? You wont. Either you wont have enough time for that, or you wont have enough energy for that.
Oh and have I mentioned you about the books part of the market? Well, before I left, I'd been planning on hunting some good books there, but such a bit of a dissapointment, they mostly had books in Thai, which I wouldnt understand because they were in Thai characters :(
After wandering around and shopping here and there, we finally got ourselves out of the market and took a rest at the JJ mall next to Chatuchak. There, we came again across the food stalls. Getting confused of what to get, I decided to get this with my mum..
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| Fanta in Thailand |
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| this is only 30 bahts! TASTY |
We headed straight to our hotel to unpack our stuffs and take some rest. That's for the first day in Thailand, I'll keep writing on this space for the other days.
See ya! :)
