Here are the photos from the last day of the trip. We visited the National Museum in the morning and Chinatown in the afternoon, before heading to the airport for our flight back home.
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After 7 eventful days, we have reached our last night in Thailand. We will be flying back tomorrow on the 1850 flight from Suvranabhumi Airport.

Today was shopping day, and we went to Mah Boon Krong Shopping Mall, Siam Discovery Centre and Siam Paragon, in that order today. The places became more and more upscale as we trekked along the entire shopping belt in the Siam Square Area, and in my personal opinion MBK was the best place to shop, in terms of prices and items on sale. They were more catered towards the youthful crowd (ie us) and the prices were much lower. Siam Discovery Centre and Siam Paragon offered more boutique and high class retail outlets which we not entirely interested in and did not have the cash to purchase items in.

MBK was a great maze with 7 levels, each offering their own shops and having their own layouts. Some floors were cramped with many individual shops hawking arts and crafts to imitation shirts and bags, while some levels were more spacious and catered to specific items like furniture etc. We took our breakfast in the food court before exploring the place.

Siam Discovery Centre and Siam Paragon were much grander in built and “higher-class”, with more stylish interior decor and even more stylish prices for their items. They had more of the usual shops you would find in an average mall in Singapore, like Bossini and U2, on top of boutique shops like Armani. Siam Paragon in particular housed many high class shops, like Jimmy Choo, and its much larger than the rest of the malls we visited. It easily dwarfs Vivocity, and the layout and decor of the place is much nicer. There is even an oceanarium in the basement, and the basement food area is filled with so many food shops. As you might have guessed, we were there mostly to take a look, instead of buy stuff, since the prices were out of our range. However, we did enjoy ice cream at the Swensen’s outlet in the basement. The ice cream sundaes were heavenly and absolutely sinful (must exercise more after the trip!) and they cost less than in Singapore.

 Tomorrow we will be visiting Chinatown, Little India and the National Museum (it was close from Monday to Tuesday). Language should not be much of a problem tomorrow at Chinatown. Hopefully we will be able to find the food items we plan to buy back in the places we visit tomorrow.

Today we woke up exceptionally late, since we had a late night the day before, sleeping at around 1.30am. Not that it mattered too much, since we had a rather light and easy itinerary today. We went to the historical Ko Rattanakosin area of Bangkok and visited the Royal Palace and various wats around the area. I must say we did it pretty much due to our tourist obligations but nevertheless the places we visited offered pretty sights with much cultural value and plenty of opportunities to take photos, even though its a bit too touristy and made up for my liking.

That said, the grandeur of places like the Royal Palace with its emerald buddha and
Wat Pho was undeniable and despite the throngs of camera button-happy tourists walking around, the trip was enjoyable and interesting. Roger will be providing much of the details of our trip through his photographs.

After finishing with the historical sites, we went for an afternoon movie at Mah Boon Krong (100 baht per person only! About less than 5 SGD per ticket, which is pretty cheap considering the quality of the theatre), watching The Banquet (yes I know we are a bit late). We went to the Patpong area after the movie to observe the nightlife there with its night bazaar, night clubs and of course, sex shows. Note that we went to observe, not participate, so keep those dirty thoughts away. For every 10 metres we walked down the street, we would be accostered by at least one guy holding a menu of lewd sex shows doing his best to persuade us to enter the night clubs.

Thats about it for today, we should be going to the Siam Square area tomorrow for what Singaporeans do best: visit shopping centres and look for good buys.Time for a bath now.

Photo time!!! But not so many this time since I’m really quite tired and most of the photos that I took today were of wats and ruins that look quite the same. So I’ll just show you some of the more interesting ones.

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I have actually typed the same title for this post three times already. Today is our second day in Bangkok proper and we spent most of it in the ruins of Ayutthaya. Chun Wee will be writing about today while I will do a bit of reminiscing about the last two days.

Friday was our first day (more like night actually, since we arrived at the hotel in the evening) and things did not go as planned right from the moment we stepped out of the taxi at the Khao San Road area. The hotel that we had reserved was only able to release the room to us tomorrow (we have arrived in Bangkok earlier than planned) and hence we are once again caught stranded in an unfamiliar place without a place to stay. The crucial difference between that first night in Sukhothai and our first night in Bangkok was that we were at the place earlier in Bangkok, and hence finding another hotel was a relatively easy task. Upon checking in for the night, we decided to loiter around the neighbourhood in order to get acquainted with the area.

Khao San Road is, to put it mildly, a crazy place overflowing with glaring lights and gaudy colours, a kaleidoscopic, claustrophic mishmash of rows and rows of shops and street stalls hawking a whole array of merchandise and services from imitation shirts and Bob Marley paraphenalia to trips for “tiger shows” and used books. Surprisingly (at least to the uninitiated like us), this place is flooded with Caucasians, most of them probably traveling on a shoestring budget, and at night, many if not most of them flock to the watering holes along the road, lounging on seats drinking beer with Thai beer ladies tending to their needs in their short skirts and figure-hugging blouses. We walked along the narrow streets and alleys for quite some time, absorbing the sights and getting used to the spirit of the area.

The next day was our first full day in Bangkok. First thing in the morning we checked out of our hotel and walked down the street to the hotel that has our reservation. After that we took a cab to the Chatuchack Weekend Market.

As usual, things did not quite went as well as we might have expected it to go. As our taxi tried to manoveure its way to the kerb of the road, the taxi just beside us tried to go the opposite direction as it has just dropped off a passenger. Our taxi went left while the other taxi went right and the other taxi’s bumper kissed the front passenger seat door, where Chun Wee happened to be sitting at. In the end Chun Wee had to squeeze his way out of the taxi and we quickly paid our fare before the drivers met and confronted each other.

If Khao San Road was packed, the Chatuchack Weekend Market was much worst. Our first instinct was to locate a map, and when we did we tried to find where we were and even took pictures of the map with our cameras. That did not help much since the moment we starting exploring the market, we got lost almost immediately. We decided to just randomly walk around and find the stuff we wanted to buy.

The first impression I got of the market was the oppressive heat. The strong sunlight made browsing the countless stalls a thoroughly sweaty affair. The simmering heat and narrow, cramped walkways, coupled with the throngs of people squeezing past each other combined to create an extremely claustrophic environment. Not that we cared, because once we got our momentum going, we were focused on finding the bargains and stuff we wanted and soon got used to the heat. We broke for lunch at a shop serving rice with braised pork trotters and noodle soup where the boss actually speaks Hokkien. We returned to our hotel at early evening with our wallets much lightened and our backpacks filled with purchases.

Tomorrow we will be going to the historical area of Bangkok, namely the wats in the Ko Rattanakosin area. It will probably be another great day for phototaking but I think the underlying consensus is that we have gotten a bit sick of taking photos of wats, after visiting Sukhothai and Ayutthaya. Speaking of which, I have to charge my camera batteries. Hopefully we will post again tomorrow.