Sunday, May 12, 2013

BKK: Land of smiles Day 2!

Sawadee Krup! Rise and shine in the land of smiles! Woke up rather early before our half day tour for the complimentary breakfast by the hotel (which we only had once throughout the 4 days) Very basic buffet breakfast plus it's always crowded so we rather search for our own breakfast outside for the next few days. It's now day 2 in BKK! :D photo IMG_3421.jpg
Orange Juice, egg, ham, sausages, cornflakes and toast bread. Very standard, not very appealing.
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Waited at our hotel lobby for the bus to come fetch us for the half day tour. Decided to wear singlet for Day 2 and it was the best decision i ever made!!!! The weather was super hot plus we visited Chatuchak in the noon! Phew.
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Yes, i dyed my hair red for this trip if you have been wondering. LOL
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This half day tour is part of the so called package that we bought from the groupon deal. We can choose to go for it or not, but since it's my first time to Bangkok, we decided to just go for it. Basically it gives you an idea of the floating market (cheat our feelings one lor), visit the Wat Arun temple across the river, and also the 4 faced Buddha.
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4 of us all ready for our Day 2 in BKK!
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Went on the river cruise boat which brings us around...
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One of the AYG "I'm-on-board-the-boat-and-here's-my-side-view" pose. LOLOLOLOL
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Wat Arun, the temple of dawn which we alighted to visit the place.
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But before that, here's a glimpse of how the "floating market" would be like. FOL
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The guide on board told about these sacred fishes that lived along the river and how they brought luck to the locals blah blah blah and invited us to feed them at 100 baht for a loaf of bread. Just feed lor, the fishes are REALLY REALLY HUGE though. Must be tourists like us feeding them every day. that's why can grow until so big. Confirm.
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Alighted at Wat Arun. Was given about half hour to explore the place and for those interested to climb up the steps for the view and to pray, but we didn't. Chose to stay outside, walk around and take photos, HAHA
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Bought this flower band (hanging around my neck) for some cause. It's like to support this family who handmade these band to sell for a living. Something like that... everyone on the boat got one. Think it's 100baht also, LOL
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Bought mangoes and coconut juice to quench our thirst. The mango is really different, like guava kind.
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Headed back to mainland where we board the bus to visit the 4 faced Buddha. Even before coming to BKK, i have heard a lot about the 4 faced Buddha and i always thought it's like a temple or something. Little did i expect to be out in the open, outside a hotel. The tour guide gave us a brief intro on how the Erawan Shrine came about and what the different faces meant, and how we should go about praying. It was really quite interesting knowing all these history...
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I heard that if what you wished for came true, you should come back to this place to hire the dance troupe to "return the favor" to the gods and looking at the queue, it seem like this place is really popular for worshipers to visit.
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Came across this random painting and decided to act like i'm holding on to the balloons :D
"Sawadee Krup. Welcome to Thailand. the land of smiles."
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Decided to have McDonald for lunch before heading over to Chatuchak! (ignore the woman behind.)
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Took a cab over to Chatuchak weekend market! This is the place to visit over the weekends! Weather is super hot that day that's why i'm so glad to be wearing a singlet and the best buy among all the things that i bought that day was definitely the hand weave fan which i bought for only 100 baht! Every where you go there's food, drinks, apparels and more. Basically if you look at the map of Chatuchak, you will be able to see an overview of what they are selling.
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Food and drinks stalls are everywhere in Chatuchak. You go thirsty very easily because of the weather and i ended buying fruit juices and mineral water every now and then to hydrate myself. Try their famous coconut ice cream!
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There's this portion of the market that sells animals in general! The dogs are SUPER CUTE. All sorts of breeds and sizes.
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Even snakes and porcupines are on sale. So exotic.
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Met up in the evening with the rest and martin passed me this bag of fried insects -__-
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Took a tuk tuk from Chatuchak and headed over to BKK's Chinatown for dinner!
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With all these neon signage and such, no wonder this place is known as BKK's Chinatown - famous for their seafood, shark fins and bird's nest at cheap prices! Everywhere you go you will see stalls offering bird nest and shark's fin.
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Decided to settled down at this seafood place which seem rather popular for our dinner.
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Without looking at the price, we just ordered like a king! We ordered Sotong, one whole fish, Big prawns, fried chicken, Veggies, omelette and not forgetting a bowl of shark's fin for the 4 of us to share! A lot of food for 4 right!
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Everyone was super full at the end of the meal!
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Not forgetting to have bird nest too, we headed to the store right beside our dinner place and ordered a bowl.
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Bird nest which cost about SGD$8 a bowl i think. It was very refreshing when served chilled. Yum yum.
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Took a tuk tuk all the way back to our hotel. Even though we get to choose between 2 modes of transport (don't talk about train or bus) either taxi or tuk tuk, i would still choose tuk tuk because of the experience, plus it's quite cheap because the fare is divided between the 4 of us. This is something you can never experience in Singapore!
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That's all for Day 2!

I think the 2nd day in BKK was the most tiring out of the 4 days because we had to wake up early for the tour (not forgetting we slept late the day before), after which we went to Chatuchak and spend the day under the hot weather, at the end Chinatown for dinner. Nevertheless, it was fun fun fun and we made full use of our day in BKK!

BKK Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4