Bangkok Day 3: Chatuchak Weekend Market, Wat Pho, Foods, and Farewell

Gosh I miss blogging! So it's my second week of internship, I'm currently in my new place right now in Kemang, South Jakarta, and the internet in my new place in effin' crappy! Maybe this is the reason why I should be more thankful for my internet at home in Tangerang, which I also consider crappy, but to be honest, not as crappy as here in Kemang. Anyway, I still have one more day from my last trip in Bangkok to tell you all here, so let's get to the point! I hope you'll enjoy reading this as I enjoyed writing this!

It was weekend in my third day in Bangkok and we decided to go to Chatuchak Market, a market in Bangkok that is known for opening every weekend. I searched it up on the internet to found out that Chatuchak is a really big market! It has a lot of sections from clothing, accessories, souvenirs, to street foods. We took the taxi to the market after the breakfast.

We explored the market, and found lots of interesting stuffs. We found a shop dedicated for dogs (yes, they sell apparels for dogs, or maybe, cats), and interestingly amazing shop that sells envelopes, and other various kinds of papers (I'm currently so into pen-palling. So I need loads of stationery. Note that pen-palling goods were a DEAD business in Indonesia so I couldn't find any of things sold in here in Bangkok in Indonesia).

Yes. This is the shop that sells dogs clothing.

In a nutshell, if you're looking for a cheap, affordable souvenirs, clothing, or something to be given to your relatives, this is a right place to shop. You can also bargain here (if you're into bargaining and really good at it).

We haven't taste any Bangkok street foods since our arrival, so this is the right time to do so. First, I bought sliced mangoes for some quick bites while walking around the market. The sliced mangoes were sweet and smells so good! It's totally addicting since mango is one of my favourite foods. In the other hand, my mom and my grandma were enjoying some fresh durians. How can I describe it? It smells bad and I'm sure it tastes so (I'm sorry, durian lovers!). 

Oh, please consider yourself when it comes with buying some juices on the street. I ordered mango juice and yes, it tasted perfect! But the next morning, I got sore throat and it caused me to catch some cold after I went home from Bangkok. I guess don't let your body switch from feeling the heat to cold. The transition just surprised my body and resulted to me being so sick.

For the food, I bought a portion of fried chicken and it was huge. It consists of chicken fillets and you'll get Bangkok sweet chilli sauce when you order it. The reason why I ordered this is because this is the only halal food that we can enjoy. There are plenty of others but it was majorly seafood, which I don't really fancy.

The gigantic grilled shrimp. I ordered one (not in Chatuchak) but it tasted horrible. Yes, it's just me who were not really into seafood. Double sigh.

The fried chicken. Enough for the 3 of us.

Grandma enjoying her durian. :(

Yes! This is my favourite sliced mangoes that I've told you before!

We bought like 3 big bags of stuffs from Chatuchak weekend market and proceeded to the hotel to put our shopping bags so we shouldn't carry them around while in other places. Then, we're going to Siam Museum, which I found interesting while browsing some tourist attractions in Bangkok. We took another taxi, and prepare for my long rant below:

I found it annoying that taxi drivers in Bangkok are always try to scam tourists by turning off their taxi meter. They also pretend to don't understand what we're saying when it comes to turning on their taxi meters, they even try to talk about another topic so we will forget about the taxi meter. This is totally annoying. If they happened to succeeded, they will ask us a really great amount of money in order to get there (we paid 600 Baht, equals to IDR 280 K to get us to Siam Museum which is not that far! GRRR!) . My mom and grandma appeared to don't understand about this scam and totally okay to pay in larger price. I asked them to get out the taxi because the taxi driver won't turn on the taxi meter, but they refused, saying that "it's okay dear, it's just the same price as in our home country." But still, it's such a big loss for us as the distance to get there is just so close!

Plus, I heard somewhere in the internet that taxi drivers are also trying to scam tourists by taking them to jewellery stores or fake restaurants, but thankfully that didn't happen to me! So, be careful when it comes to taxis in Bangkok! So much scam happening here in Bangkok! Learn before visiting a country, and you'll be perfectly safe! (I promise myself I won't fall into any scam when solo travelling. Mom and grandma just don't understand. I'm still constantly annoyed when I remember that moment. Ugh!)

Anyway, we're here at Siam Museum.... But it was closed due to renovation (I SWEAR TO GOD MUSEUMS ALWAYS CLOSED DUE TO RENOVATION WHEN I COME TO VISIT THEM!). Thankfully, there's an exhibition near the main building about the neighbouring country Myanmar. It was an amazing museum experience. Yes, I would love to visit Myanmar in the future!

The exhibition name which I couldn't really understand. Hey, Myanmar glyphs are totally cool!

Then, we walked to the nearest temple nearby which is Wat Pho, or, The Temple of Reclining Buddha. What makes this temple so special is the giant reclining Buddha statue which is located inside of the temple building. The building is also decorated with religious themed murals which I found really beautiful.

One of many altars of the temple.

Prepare yourself for the gigantic reclining Buddha.

Me and the buddy.

Went outside for another shots, and I found that the outside view of the temple is just perfect! Yes, it's always hot outside, but luckily we can redeem our ticket of the temple entry for a fresh cold mineral water! Yippee!

The view #1. Please don't mind that stupid water hose.

View #2.

View #3. Wat's rooftop is my new obsession.

View #4.

View #5. Plus the author.

After quite a long time strolling around the temple, we call it a day. We got out from the temple ground, and searched a ride to the hotel. There were no taxi around the temple streets, but there's plenty tuk-tuks. So, let's do some tuk-tuk ride. I've been begging my mom to ride a tuk-tuk, and I guess that was the perfect time to do so. So, as the story goes, we rode tuk-tuk back to the hotel. Yesh! Tuk-tuks are obviously cheaper than taxis, and we can feel much air riding it, and oh, did I mention it before that we got lots space for our leg to linger?

Tuk-tuk ride, aye! I took this picture when traffic jam goes on.

We rested for some short period before decided to take another walk across the shopping malls in Bangkok, which were located near to the hotel and we could walk easily to the places. Not much documented here, but we sure enjoying our last night in Bangkok a lot! Finally managed to eat Bangkok noodle soups, and the famous mango sticky rice!!!

Pictured above: noodle soup.

We took Mith, our lovely guide while in Bangkok to the airport for a simple farewell. It's been a really nice opportunity to travel to Bangkok with you! He's such a humble and funny person! He also speaks Bahasa Indonesia perfectly! I can't wait for another time in Bangkok (or maybe many other places in Thailand?) with you!

Our last photo before leaving Bangkok!

So yes, that's a wrap for the Bangkok trip journal! It's been a great time writing my experiences in this blog! Overall, the places here are so incredible. Bangkok is culture, history, shopping, and food, all in a city! There are plenty places that I haven't seen or visit, but I WILL totally visit them in my second visit there! Ahhh... It's really nice to plan another trip.

Beautiful last view in Bangkok.

Bangkok Travel Journal

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Bangkok Day 2: Wat Traimit, Wat Arun, Madame Tussauds, and Dinner Cruise Across Chao Phraya

Hello! I'm back here for the next part of my Bangkok trip journal. For this part, I will put LOTS of photos because we visited a lot of places from early in the morning until the evening on our second day in Bangkok. I hope this post won't be too overwhelming because of it, so I guess I would love to say: Enjoy!

After we had an early breakfast on 7 AM, we and our lovely tour guide, Mith, headed to the first temple written in the itinerary: Wat Traimit a.k.a. The Temple of The Golden Buddha. It is named so because, obviously, the temple have a golden Buddha statue in it.

To get to the temple (or they call it Wat), we were passing through such interesting routes including Bangkok's Chinatown (I always love to visit every Chinatown no matter where it is), and the palace. The temple is located between some blocks of building, but I can easily differentiate it, obviously, because of its golden rooftop. Wat's rooftops are probably my obsession while visiting Thailand. I'm planning on making a series of postcards consisting of photos of Wat's rooftops!

Obligatory in front of landmarks photo. Why is that dude on the right smiling at me? :|

In order to enter the temple, we must do several procedures, for the sake of valuing other people's place for worship. First, make sure your trousers or skirts are below your knee. If not, the temple will provide some kind of fabric for us to cover our legs. Then, you may not enter the temple with your shoes, so you should remove your shoes before entering the temple. After that, make sure you remove your hat. 

And one, important thing for me (I should put this on uppercase and bold because I consider this important): MAKE SURE TO READ SOME DOS AND DON'TS WHEN YOU ENTER THE TEMPLE THAT IS LOCATED NEXT TO THE TEMPLE'S ENTRANCE! I don't understand why hordes of people don't take the time to read it and then make some violation afterwards. Faux pas is just embarrassing, just saying. :(

The interior of the temple, plus the golden Buddha. I love on how the temples here are so well-decorated. They often use murals to fill up the spaces in the wall.

You might wonder why there's no motion footage for the temple's interior. The answer is: We're not allowed to record videos in the temple (Again, writing it with bold text). The reason why is still unknown for me, but probably it's for the convenient of people who are doing their rituals so we should really respect them. So, please have some respect for the sake of the temple's main purpose, which is for Buddhists to do their rituals.

The overall view of the temple. Yup, the temple's open from early in the morning (8 AM) to the late afternoon (5 PM). And yup, the golden Buddha is located in the biggest building in the middle, and we must climb in order to get there. Boy, we sure love to move our body!

Time to move to the next place, and the next place is: Wat Arun a.k.a The Temple of the Dawn. We don't get to the temple by car, but in a more interesting way. By a boat; crossing the famous Chao Phraya river. 

Bangkok is such an interesting place and one of many way to travel the city is by a boat. There's a public boat you can ride and it has some routes and stops, just like having a usual bus, or train ride. I think it's a great opportunity to finally feel how it's like to travel (or commute) by boat!

One of the pier, located behind River City, a shopping mall.

Look, mom! I rode a boat!

One of many interesting activities we could do in Chao Phraya river is feeding the fishes with bread. It is known for Thais that feeding fishes in Chao Phraya might brings us good luck and prosperity. So I should really take a try on it (although I'm a bit sceptical with this kind of thing).

Wishes: Magang lancar, TA lancar, lulus kuliah, dapat pacar.

It's amazing to find some interesting buildings from the river.

It doesn't take so long for the boat the get us to the next destination. The boat docked to the pier next to the temple, and that means it's time to explore Wat Arun! By the way, Mith told us that the name Arun was derived from the Hindu God, Aruna. And... I read that Aruna is often personified as the radiations of the rising sun. Well, that explained a lot why it's often called The Temple of the Dawn!

The entrance's view. Too bad the biggest Wat building was under maintenance.

I realised that every temple in Bangkok has some kind of banner that are located in every entrance that told us that the figure of Buddha is considered as sacred and it's totally wrong to use the figure as any form of decorations. I think this is important as many people consider Buddha as "an exotic figure that the Asians have" and they usually use the figure in some incorrect ways. Besides, Buddhist totally want their central figure, their role model, to remain sacred, isn't it?

Maaaajestic!

Hi!

Sorry I keep posing in pictures because I will look extremely fat if I don't pull up my body a bit. Sigh.

Yeah, yeah.

This is my current favourite photo. Yay for new profile picture!

So freakin' tall.

I climbed some quite amount of stairs to get this view.

I just love this wall reliefs, that were made of ceramics and stuffs.

We proceeded to have some lunch at a halal restaurant in a hotel near the temple. Then, it's time to snap LOTS of pictures because it's time for Madame Tussauds Bangkok! Even though they have less wax statues than in Hong Kong or anywhere else, it's still worth to visit because they include some important figures that came from South East Asia, including the first president of Indonesia, Soekarno, and my favourite political leader of Myanmar, Au San Suu Kyi.

No, I don't upload all of my snaps in Madame Tussauds because it will bore you to death. Seriously. Okay. Hehe.

Have I told you I'm the new queen of the England? Ahhh, UK you never cease to amaze me.

This is such a cute photo because I happened to be wearing similar trouser as Picasso's.

Trying to act like a maestro but ended up looking like a magician.

Watch out, directioners! No, I'm not a fan.

Thank you master Bruce Lee for the amazing training days we spent together. Now I'm strong enough to break almost everything (?).

My favourite anime until this very second!

Me in my bath robe. With Jackie Chan. Weird (and slightly wrong) combination.

We booked a dinner cruise across the Chao Phraya river prior leaving to Bangkok, and I guess it was a wonderful thing to experience in Bangkok. We went to the pier that I went to in order to get to Wat Arun, and boarded to the ship 7 PM sharp, previously greeted by some Thai girls wearing the traditional Thai attire. The dinner was buffet-styled, and there were probably hundreds of famished people just like us and you know what happened. Madness.

I waited until most of the people get their foods and then went to the buffet table afterward. I didn't eat much because I can't stand seafood (I just had a lot foods that I don't eat). Overall, there was nothing special about the food served in this dinner cruise. Maybe people keep coming to the dinner cruise because of the experience they want to encounter. 

Indeed, cruising through the Chao Phraya river is an amazing opportunity. You'll see city lights, Wats are super beautiful by the night time, and it'll be SUPER ROMANTIC if you have this dinner with your special ones. Talking about having one, hahaha.

These two were the only photos I took while having the dinner cruise (my camera battery went out, actually). 

The cruise ended on 9.30 PM, and that means time to get back to the hotel. It was an amazing day we had in our second day in Bangkok! We'll be having some authentic Thai souvenirs shopping, and another Wat to visit. Stay tuned! I hope you'll enjoy reading this post as I enjoy writing this! Have a pleasant day.

Bangkok Travel Journal

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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.