Xue Xue's diary: June 2013

I know I have not been blogging for a long time *giggle* *guilty*

So now I'm going to blog about my Bangkok trip in April with Sijie and Charlene.

Following up I will blog about my cruise outing, nature walks, SEA aquarium etc.

A 5D4N Bangkok trip (my first time to Bangkok)

On 26th morning, B came to my house and sent me downstairs with my mum to board the taxi Sj and Char were in. We checked in our luggage upon reaching T1 and had lunch before we shopped around in the duty-free shops.

The plane departed punctually and we reached Bangkok DMK airport before the expected time. We got our luggage and went to look for the hotel Limo service driver (booked before hand via email by Char). We boarded the Toyota Camry and off we go to Glow Pratunam Hotel where we will be staying in the 4 nights.

There was a slight jam as it was knock off time for the people there and the hotel called the driver to check why we haven't reach the hotel. When they know we will be reaching soon, they sent like 4 bellboys to standby outside the hotel where the limo will be stopped to help us carry our luggage and 开路 for us. For a moment, we felt that we are like celebrities. Hee!

We settled our check in details and took wifi passwords at the recept lobby while the bellboys sent our luggages up for us. We were given a cup of welcome drink each and it's nice!

Our room is on level 20 the highest level :)

Cosy and new corridor

Glow Hotel lobby is at level 7 of the building ( Shibuya shopping mall)

We have to scan our door access card in the hotel lift before they can operate and bring you up to the hotel rooms storey

Our room!

About 6 bottles of water was replenished after every make-up-room service
We were quite satisfied with the room as they are newly furnished

Settled down, report arrival to our love ones and out we go.

For the first night we went to Platinum Mall which is just opposite to have our dinner at the food court, shopped at night market outside Platinum Mall and explored the areas in our hotel.

My Seafood Phad Thai while Sj had original Phad Thai and Char had the chicken one

This is the place we had our daily morning breakfast as we had breakfast included in our hotel package

The dishes are different everyday and we can place order for eggs of our choice and sides/ ingredients

So this is a few of my orders

The view outside

Swimming pool

Our shopping started with taking the BTS to Chatuchak. We went on the sat and sun

We got most of our buys from there because it's cheap and the place is HUGE!

Pics below were taken at Chatuchak on both days

Mango sticky rice which was good!

Choconana which is frozen banana in dip of your choice

Coconut ice cream!

Roti krob which is prata with condensed milk and sugar.
Very cheap only and I like it because it's sweet

A & W

MacDonalds- which is about the same price but the drink and fries are in large size

Room Service

Went for the limo tour service provided by the hotel on our 2nd last day for sight-seeing since our buys were almost done and I do not have much money left. Haha

Comfy Toyota Camry

We went to the floating market. Heard it's a good experience so we went for it since we are already in Thailand. The car journey took about one hour from our hotel though the road journey was very smooth.

We paid about S$50 for the ride. About an hour + ride. Indeed a good experience. Had at least tried once because we always see it on television or some attractions advertisement.

The boat can go quite fast if there's no other boat in front.

I did video it down

This video shows that there are also many tourists and the boats can get v v close to each other when moving

Zroommm zroom motor sound

Char n Sj in front of me

While the driver is behind me

Stopped and buy some stuffs

Our driver coming back to fetch us while we went down to explore some temples (included in the ride)

This area is more crowded

Done with floating market and we went to Yaorawat Temple (famous) to take a look
Very grand

Had bird nest at Chinatown

Did shoulder and leg massage, and went to Siam paragon to shop before we head back to hotel

The day before, we went to Central World's Naraya to get pressies for our friends and it was crowded. Many people would buy in bulk there. You can see the guys waiting at one side while the girls do the shopping. For me, I got my stuffs quite fast so I joined the other men in waiting and stoning at one corner too to rest my aching shoulder. Lol!

Things which are different from here/ to share in my opinion:

- There are bike taxi and tuk tuk which are the cheaper mode of transport for them. The bike taxi can even fetch 2 persons on it (total 3 people on the motorbike including the driver)

- There are people doing sales on the road. When there's red light, we saw one incident where there are 2 men standing in between the cars and demonstrating how to play those bubble fan, attracting people/ rather kids to buy.

- The people in our hotel, Glow, are all very friendly in helping us. They will guide you on the directions, warn you of pickpocket or theft and asked us to take care of our belongings well, greet you politely when you see them etc. One small bad point is the limo driver who brought us on tour is not very good in English so he brought us 1 big round. However, I guess I will go back to Glow Pratunam Hotel if I were to go to BKK again since it's a new hotel and alot of people around me visit it and I'm happy with their overall service :D

Goodbye to BKK! I will be back again for more buys! Haha