Bangkok Day 1: Arrival & Asiatique Night Market

สวัสดี! Another Sawasdee!

As you expect, I'll be writing another journal as I hinted it out in my previous post. So, this time, the trio (my grandmother, my mother, and I) decided to take a short little break to the capital city of Thailand, Bangkok for the weekend. Yes, Another weekend getaway it is! Our main purpose visiting this city is because we want to do some little (kind of) shopping weekend. Well, not really my purpose actually, as I looking forward to explore the culture and the history (and the food) of Bangkok.

Long time no see since Malaysia, my dear passport!

So, let's start from the beginning of my departure from Jakarta. For this trip, we somehow ended up going to the airport late and had so little time to do some things before boarding to the plane (from check-ins to immigration). Thankfully, we board right on time. We had the morning flight around 9 AM and the flight took us 3 hours to get to Bangkok.

This trip reading companion was Jostein Gaarder's The Magic Library. I've been doing Jostein Gaarder marathon since the last weeks and I really enjoy reading every single of his works!

And... Long time no see, arrival card!

The outskirt of Bangkok from the heights! I'm excited!

We arrived safely at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport and it was a bright, sunny day. Bangkok was totally scorching hot, compared to rainy Jakarta I encountered earlier that day. After leaving the plane, we took the baggages and headed out the airport to meet our guide for the next two days, Mith. Mith is a friendly, funny-looking Thai man that are so fluent in Bahasa Indonesia! I am pretty amazed on how he could easily talk in Indonesian and pronounce particular Indonesian word fluently.

The next essential thing I always do when travelling is: changing my phone SIM card into the current country's card provider. In Bangkok, I bought a 7-days data packet for 1.5 GB and I'm TOTALLY SURE I can use all of the data by the next 3 days due to googling, maps, and preparing for the worst scenario, no wi-fi in the hotel purposes. Oh, it costed me 300 Baht (around IDR 115,000, which was around the same cost to get 1.5 GB data in Indonesia).

Then Mith took us to our hotel, which was located in Pathum Wan, the heart of Bangkok, a district of shopping malls and night markets (which explains why there are massive traffic jams happening around here). After checked-in, we headed to The Tivoli, a restaurant located in another hotel (my mom recommend this place) to have an early buffet dinner.

A look.

Is it okay to show a lot of face here? :'

After the dinner, we decided to pay a visit to Asiatique Night Market, which is, obviously, a night market that sells a lot of goods, and good foods and drinks to dig in. In order to get there, we got stuck in traffic jams (that doesn't seem to be as stressful as Jakarta's traffic jam). 

Quite the same. But not really, actually.

It's actually getting darker when we arrived at the market. Asiatique Night Market for me was quite nice place to stroll in after the day end! Beside foods, drinks, and souvenir shops, there are some other attractions that give Asiatique some other plus points such as traditional live music performances, mime performances, and they even had their own ferris wheel!

Posing in front of the main entrance. No, I'm not doing any endorsement (I hate that cardboard next to me. Seriously, I hate it).

Asiatique Night Market is divided into several parts, making it easier for us to explore. There are several blocks of (somekind of) warehouses that has a lot of smaller shops for us to look out and they sold some interesting, affordable souvenirs for us to buy! From clothing, bags, postcards, stationeries, and many else!

Some view of the market.

Some affordable key-chains and purse you can buy for your friends and relatives!

One thing that I love about Thailand's products is the bright, vibrant colours.

Some other view of the market.

Another view of the market. Notice on the crowds that were busy buying Thai snacks. Most of them are durians. I hate durians. :(

Elephants, an animal usually associated with the country.

Yeah! This is the ferris wheel I've told you before!

Another face revealing photo. Yes, I bought that hat because it's quite stylish. Hehe.

Interesting event while being here: A group of Malaysians asked me if they can take some photos with me. It's somehow flattering when someone did that to you, but scary at the same time. I ran after they finished taking photos with me. Gasp!

It was 31º C that day and I call it gelato night! I bought this for 75 Baht (around IDR 30,000). It's good and it's so affordable!

After a quite tiring night, we decided to head back to the hotel and had a little rest before some big day tomorrow! When I write about sleep in blog posts, it's time for me too to call it a day in this post. Spending a day in Bangkok gave me some thoughts and insights about this city, and even Thailand as a whole country. Here are some of them which could be useful the next time I visiting this country again:

• Around 95% of Thais are Buddhist, while 3% of them are Muslims, and the rest of it is Christians/Catholics, and others. So the majority of foods here are considered non-halal for the majority of Indonesians which are Muslims. It's essential to ask whether the food consists of pork or not. The Thai for pork is "Muu", so you can ask with simple English or gesture: waving your hand or making an X sign while saying "No Muu?".

• Everything is incredibly affordable here. ATMs are easy to find in tourist attractions and markets.

• DON'T YOU EVER DARE TO BRING DURIANS TO YOUR HOTEL ROOM. Thailand may known for its durians, but please don't. If you ever caught smuggling durians to the hotel room, you'll be charged twice your hotel room. You rather find a safe place outside to eat those darn durians.

• Don't be afraid to bargain while shopping. If you can't communicate perfectly, you can use the seller's calculator to communicate (just show them the price you want to bargain). Everything else is basically the same strategy like bargaining in Indonesia. Hahaha.

See you on the next part of the journal for some more other my excitements in Bangkok! See you!