My Travel Blog

My friends are coming over on a 5 days trip to Bangkok. They are trying to save on flight tickets, so they will be arriving on Monday and leaving on Friday. For a free and easy trip, I think they can’t cover much of Bangkok this time. What I have in mind is

First day: Shopping at Central World or Siam Paragon upon arrival and have dinner in China Town Bangkok.

Second day: Drive to Pattaya and spend a night there.

Third day: Arrive in Bangkok in the afternoon and go for a boat ride at Chao Phya River or Safari World.

Fourth day: Shopping at Platinum Fashion Mall for the whole day! I guess the only thing they can’t get here are mens gold watches huh? LOL!

Fifth day: Nothing much to do today besides sightseeing and heading to the airport.

Gee…5 days are really too short for Bangkok huh?

There are things which I like about AirAsia, especially the cheaper air fare promotions which are surprisingly cheap and affordable so that everybody can fly. But I hate the free seating and no queue way of going on board. You can easily see lots of kiasu passengers queuing up even if it’s more than 30 minutes before the flight. But what to do? Everyone is hoping to get good seats, and the early bird always gets the worm.
I really hate it when they don’t give any priority to senior citizens and parents with young children. Just imagine how limited the expresses boarding passes are and we have to rush abroad with kids in our arms and some hand carry luggages too. Maybe so far nothing bad has happened and no one demands life insurance or compensation from them? That’s why it’s still best to fly with other airlines that provide a better service.

But still, no one can fight the lower price of AirAsia. So unless I’m rich enough to fly first class all the time, I better keep quiet and squeeze myself on board with my gal in my arms and at least 2 bags on my shoulders.

I can’t ski, so let alone a water ski. However, my BIL is very good at water ski so he brought us to TE Wake N Ski so some skiing experience. The place was pretty crowded that Sunday afternoon, so it’s not a good time for beginner to get the hang of water skiing. I didn’t try but hubby did a few attempts but in vain. Thus, he might have to do this again once we move to Bangkok, if he is serious about picking up the sports.

If you like water skiing, don’t forget to come to this lake and try out the game. I think most of the skiers are regulars as they are pretty skillful. And don’t be surprised to see some kids as young as 10 years old but skiing with great skills.

So, should I pick up the game too? Mmm….maybe not. I’ll just settle myself on the patio furniture. LOL!

I’ve just found out that MAS is running a promotion of zero air fare too, so I checked out the price of the flight tickets which are available from 1st July to 31 December between KLIA and Bangkok International Airport. It seems like the tickets are so much cheaper now, but still, it’s more affordable to fly with AirAsia. We don’t really eat on the plane, so I don’t mind flying with AirAsia.

However, the low fare tickets are only available among Asean countries. If you are flying to Outer Banks, you can’t get them at such low price with MAS. So, if you don’t want to miss this great deal, don’t forget to book for your flight tickets between 21st May to 3rd June. That’s the booking period!

Too bad I’m not sure when will I be back, if not I might just book the tickets from Bangkok.

We are flying back to Bangkok before the mid of June, but we haven’t bought the tickets yet. I found that AiaAsia has a low fare promotion again, but only to those who fly from 10 Jun 2008 to 30 Nov 2008. The air fare is only as low as RM5, so it’s worth traveling around that time. I think some of my friends will surely come and pay me a visit since they are so eager to shop for more clothes and Pedestal sinks in Bangkok! LOL!

Too bad we can’t get any low fare tickets next month, if not we would save up a lot on flight tickets. Anyway, we will be flying more often, so maybe next time.

School holiday is coming in a week, and some of my family members might make a trip to Singapore. I so wanted to go, but we are a bit tight up with moving to Bangkok, so I’m not sure if hubby is keen to make a trip there. My kids haven’t been to Singapore, and it would be nice if they have a chance to go there now.

I just hope that we can visit Singapore Flyer, the largest observation wheel in the world, if we travel to Singapore. It has just opened last month so it must be catching a lot of attention now.

There are 28 spacious and air-conditioned capsules where visitors can view over 360-degree of Singapore’s marvelous cityscape, southern part of Malaysia and Indonesia. It would be nice just to be up there with friends and family in the same capsule, besides enjoying the view too.

I would definitely get some promotional products while shopping at the flyer and it’s such a memorable moment to me to be on the biggest wheels in the world. So if you are traveling to Singapore this coming holiday, don’t miss the flyer.

You shouldn’t miss the China Town in Bangkok if you are here for a vacation. It’s situated along Yaowarat Road, and if you are here at night, you can easily find lots of stalls selling great seafood such as grilled tiger prawns.

I used to eat by the road previously, but when we were there days ago, we went to one of the Chinese seafood restaurants which are slightly more costly than the stalls. Frankly, there’s not much different in taste, so the choice is yours.

After dinner, you can take a stroll along the busy alley of Yaowarat Road. There are some shops and stalls if you feel like shopping, but I don’t think I can find any franchise chain stores or major shopping malls. Maybe I have missed it?

I didn’t get anything except some Thai durians. It’s durian season now, so it’s not to be missed as well.

Finally, I had time to shop at Siam Paragon! However, I didn’t manage to check out the whole shopping mall as the guys were too busy admiring the spoilers, wheels, models, colors and what-so-ever of these nice cars:

Ferrari

Lamborghini

We went for a drink at True Urban Park and bought lots of books from Konikuniya. As usual, I grabbed some skincare products from Boots because they are cheap. But SIL and I will come back here again next time without the men. We need to do some serious shopping for clothes, and with our men around, they are slowing us down. LOL!

Anyway, it’s a nice place for an afternoon cup of coffee, if you really don’t feel like spending much on designer brands. Remember to drop by Siam Paragon if you travel to Bangkok ya?

I really need a memory upgrade for my brain. Teaching to speak in Thai is not as easy as I thought even if I’m surrounded with people who speak Thai mostly. We had problem reading the menu once and ended up ordered an expensive fish which we thought was cheap. LOL! Besides that, I’ve just come back from a super spicy breakfast because I didn’t understand what the waitress was saying, and my tomyam ended up with more chilies than usual. See? We really need to learn Thai FAST!

So, if you ever travel to Bangkok or anywhere in Thailand, it’s best to learn some simple Thai and grab a copy of Thai dictionary with pronunciation. If you can’t pronounce the words correctly, just show the dictionary to the local Thais and most of the time, they know what you mean. I’ve been here quite often and had a few long stay, and I can tell you that most Thais are really friendly and eager to help. I look like their people, but once they know that I can’t speak Thai, they will help me out by looking for others who can speak Thai or just use my dictionary.

In short, don’t worry if you can’t speak the local language. I’m still having a lot of fun staying here in Bangkok. I just can’t wait to learn their beautiful language soon.

I love Bangkok but not the traffic jam. The traffic is quite congested in the city especially during peak hours and public holiday. We went caught in a very bad traffic yesterday and it took us more than 2 hours to move for 1km!!! Thank god I knitted in the car so I didn’t waste a minute doing nothing but staring at the streets of Bangkok.

However, something caught my attention and I quickly snapped a photo. Can you see a guy sitting “out from the window”? LOL!

Here’s a closer look…

I should have captured him in video and do some closed captioning and upload the clip to YouTube. LOL! He really sat there looking at the street while we were trapped in a crawling traffic.

But in the end, we still reached out destination in Pratu Nam.

YES! We went shopping at Platinum Fashion Mall. Yippie!