Day 1
- Getting to our first Hostel!
After 23 hours of traveling we finally touched down in Bangkok, Thailand. We walked through the airport and found our way to the Bangkok Airport Link. They used to have two Airport Link trains from the airport to the city which were the blue and red train. The red train was the express train that went straight from the airport to the Makkasan station but this train has been cancelled. The only airport link train left is the blue train.
We were both impressed how clean and high-tech everything looked. The waiting area was surrounded by clear, automatic closing doors that opened when the train stopped. It was really easy to buy tickets for the train. You could either buy the ticket from the automatic machines or from the ticket booth. Once we entered the train, there were monitors on each side of each car for entertainment. The train was spotless with clearly marked stops so that you always know where you are at. There was also an intercom that reported each stop in Thai and English.
We had to switch to the MRT train system which is the underground metro system at the Makkasan station in order to get to our stop. Asok was the name of the area our hostel was in. Asok is known to be a very touristy area, and a little more expensive. We were; however, able to get a private hostel room for about $25 USD. This is way more than most hostel single bed prices, but it is really nice to be able to have your own room when travelling as a couple. Live It Up Hostel is the name of the place we stayed at. It was super convenient, being close to both subway and train stops. There were multiple large malls close by, and one in particular had a market on the top floor.
- Pier 21
Terminal 21 is the name of the mall that we loved and was a three-minute walk from our. The mall was five stories high and had really high-end priced stores to more affordable stores. Our favorite floor was the 5th floor. This was like heaven to us. This floor housed a cafeteria named Pier 21. Pier 21 has all different kinds of food at below street vendor prices which helped lure customers into the mall. The food was really clean, fresh, and super cheap. Each meal costed around $5 USD total for both of us including drinks. There were probably around 35 stalls with a few meals to choose from in each stall. Not regrettably, this is where we ate 90% of our food in Bangkok. As a first timer in Bangkok, we were a bit hesitant on where to get food because we weren’t used to the food. So finding this gem was a life-saver because the vendors were so clean and affordable.
How it works is you get a card from the counter that you can deposit money in it. Then you can go to the different vendors to get the food and all they have to do is swipe the card and give you a receipt for it.
Day 2
- Chatuchak Weekend Market
The first day that we could explore a bit, we decided to check out some of the more popular tourist attractions in Bangkok. The day was Sunday, and we were able to hit up the crazy popular Chatuchak Weekend Market. Mo Chit station was only a few minute walk to the market, and only about a 30-minute ride by train from Asok. Again, Bangkok is super easy to get around. The weekend market was huge. You can find anything you want there. Seriously, anything. And you can get lost there. Which we did, but were able to find our way out eventually. It is just stall after stall. There was supposed to be some sort of organization to the order of stalls, but it seemed like just random to me. The only thing that was consistent was the pet section, which had a crazy amount of hilarious costumes to put pets in.
- Wat Pho, Grand Palace, Khao San Road
Later, we decided to treat ourselves a little and take a taxi to the Temple of the Reclining Buddha: Wat Pho. Tickets to get in cost 100 Baht per person. This is the area that contains the giant Lying Buddha statue. People aren’t allowed to get too close to the statue, but Trang was able to get some really cool pictures showing how big the thing is. Next to Wat Pho, was the Grand Palace. When we were walking, some guy walked up to us saying the place was closed and tried to sell us some stuff. We could see that it was clearly open, and ended up going around to the main entrance anyways and was able to get in. They do charge you quite a bit to get through the next set of gates, but we could see and it didn’t look too spectacular. So we saved our money and walked to the bar scene area of Khao San Road. This would be a pretty fun place, if you are looking to get hammered and try to reenact Hangover II, but we weren’t really into it. By that time, we were beat and decided to take a tuk tuk back to the hostel. The tuk tuk is an adventure itself. Every turn feels like you are going to fly off, but it was fun as hell. Finally, we decided to go into our Pier 21 food coma and sleep.
Day 3
- Victory Monument
The next day we decided to take it a little easy and sleep in for a while. After breakfast, we wanted to go to the Victory Monument area of Bangkok. Victory monument is at the center of this huge traffic circle that is surrounded by markets and malls. Trang had heard of a special dish they made in this area called a noodle boat, and said that we could get it close to the monument. We walked around the area checking out random street vendors and malls, but we couldn’t find this noodle boat thing. We even tried asking some random people for directions, but we failed and gave up. In our excursion, we did see a monitor lizard randomly walking in the street like he owned the place. The lizard hid under a security guards station, and when we tried telling the guard he just laughed at us.
- Sukhumvit Street Market, Soi Cowboy
After we failed finding the noodle boat, we decided to check out a market in an area close to Asok. We went to Sukhumvit market. This was similar to the weekend market, but on a way smaller scale. After walking through the market for close to an hour, somehow we noticed things were getting a little more…mischievous. We were in an area called Soi Cowboy. All of the sudden some half naked ladies (or ladyboys) would show up and say hello. We passed some strip clubs. Lots of guys asking if we wanted to see ping pong shows. We did see one flyer for a muay thai fight. We asked a guy about it and he said to follow him. We ended up going further (and darker) into the red light district. He took us on what seemed like a long circle and told us to follow up some stairs. We did, but really slowly. Of course, it was some greasy strip club, and he said there was a fight there. I don’t think there was a fight there. So we took off and checked out the rest of the Sukhumvit market.
On the way back, we noticed a cat café. We had always wanted to do one of these, but figured we wouldn’t get a chance until Japan. We walked in, and the prices were a little high (around $3-$4 USD) but figured it was worth it. We came to an upstairs area, where there were around 10 cats and about 10 other people. Most cats had some kind of handicap?, but they all seemed so relaxed around people and seemed to be happy. I think this could have been the highlight of the whole trip because of how random and interesting everything was during that night.
Off to Chiang Mai, Thailand!
