Adventurous Bangkok 2011

Woo hoo !! just came back from Bangkok a few days ago

and now i am already blogging about it...

well this time the trip was hell lot more Adventurous then my previous trip...

so stay tuned for the cover up of the story...

well here how it goes....

this i went with a bunch of animals from the zoo solely as our team is called the "zoo frenz"

we stayed in the Pratunam area again which is in the Ratchaprasong Shopping District...

that means Shopping, shopping and shopping is the main idea...

Pratunam Area

shopping in Bangkok, visiting Platinum Mall is a MUST of course...

platinum provides the latest Fashion following trends from Korea, Taiwan and Japan with the cheapest price in retail form...

t-shirts priced from 60 baht - 110 baht per piece if bought 3 piece and above

bags as cheaps as 199 baht

Platinum is so fun it has accesories, clothes for both men and women, under garments, shoes, arts and crafts, and many many more...

too make things worse ... Platinum Mall now have a new wing....

3 Cheers for it "hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray"

means more choices ...

this time around we decided to be more adventurous as it might be our last trip together as a team before we graduate.

we took the train from Bangkok's Hua Lam Phong station back to Penang's Butterworth station, Malaysia

Hua Lam Phong station

its a 1 day 1 night train ride... its bumpy and crazy...

my 1st time ever i experience such awkwardness as i drank too much cultured milk Betagen so i end with up nature calling in the train...

the train toilet bowl is so disgusting as they dispose your shit right in to the train tracks....

i was so awkward to have shit there !!! when it stops in a station i had to hold my shit back because i was afraid my you know what will be smelly in the railway station...

Going there was by plane reached then we took the public bus...

was very different from Malaysia's as they charge for air condition and non air condition differently... but our budgeted journey has resulted for us to take the non air conditioned bus

May happily taking pictures of Gacky and Boon

Bus ticket

we checked in to Citin Pratunam Hotel this time...

happily posing in front of the hotel

comfortable with better TV station as not every station is in Thai...

got nice bed... cool room service thingy and we a free thuk thuk service out to the main road

but the only thing that i am not very happy with is the shower....

the water keep changing from super hot to icy cold at random...

Thuk thuk ride was fun as we had to cramped 8 people into one thuk thuk...

funny... dangerous... yet adventurous....

super adventurous ride on an over cramped thuk thuk

We went to Bangkok's famous Erawan Shrine...

this Shrine is famous until famous celebrities from around the world travel here to pay homage to Lord Erawan....

its located in the Chitlom area nearby Gaysorn and Central World

Lord Erawan resides here

Central World (after the riot and the bombing or burning, they rebuilt it but it don't as nice as before already but partially of the mall is yet to be rebuilt)

Gaysorn with branded goods inside....

Chatuchak weekend market is not forgotten in this trip...

Chatuchak is filled tonnes of things to shop... anything you can think of can be found here....

getting to chatuchak won't be difficult if you take the BTS and stop at Mo Chit station...

you can see Chatuchak right out from the window of the sky train on the left hand side....

Chatuchak weekend market

BTS Sky train

Tickets to Mo Chit

but this time our visit to Chatuchak was not a very happy trip....

my dear friend Jean Cui got pick-pocketed from stupid low-life damn....

her money, her ID, passport everything and even my other friend Chili's passport which was being guarded by her got stolen by that good for nothing thief....

after the incident we rush to the nearest police department which end up to be a Tourist Police (PS: a tourist police that don't speak English... so does that help the tourist ?)

with my mere shallow Thai they directed us to another station just right outside the market...

but to no avail its close...

so we ask for directions to the nearest Police station... they directed us to another small police station which turns out to be a traffic police monitoring station ...

so they can't do anything so they directed us to the Bang Sue district police station...

but what the hell ?

i ask the police he said it was not far but the truth is the stupid station is freaking far....

its in another freaking district for crying out loud....

our legs almost fell off apart...

Due to the weekends... we have to wait until monday for the Malaysian Embassy to be open...

so we got no time to waste but to continue shopping....

but on the sunday we were "lucky" the red shirt protest started around 5pm Malaysian time...

making a massive havoc in the traffic...

causing the whole road to be congested... malls were forced to shut down forcing us out into the streets... Chili was freaked out she kept saying don't go take pictures hahahaha

i was like a dare devil go in front to take a close look too bad that day i did not bring my DSLR out...

if not the pictures would be in better quality

the start of the protest

by night fall the whole road met a stalemate

but due to the danger that might occur we were force to go back to our hotel....

have to wait until the next day to the embassy...

went to the Malaysian Embassy early in the morning....

but loosing your passport in another country was heck lot of things to do....

need to lodge a report in the local police station...

take passport size pictures, translate your report to english and their language by authorities with valid chop so its certified.... the photocopy it...

then report to the embassy... with all the things needed

then they will interview you....

after that they will ask you to pay then issue u a new temporary passport

the temporary passport issue by the embassy

after that you need to take the passport to the local immigration for the authority to chop certified it then fax it back to the embassy...

but this steps takes times as all the locations are located in north south east west.... far far and faraway from each other...

it took us from 8.30 am until 5 pm to finish everything and travel back to Ratchaprasong District....

The Thai immigration... its so huge and looks something like Putrajaya

but was lucky we did it and finally Jean Cui and Chili has an identity back...

as we were told alot of people sold their passport for money as the fetch a good price in 3rd world countries... so interview is needed....

but due this problem we had extended our stay in Bangkok making it a full 1 week

Siam Square is not forgotten in our shopping trip...

but this time around theres new places in Siam Square....

like a place which sell digital stuffs and a bonanza mall is up, theres another big huge mall, opposite there is MBK, Siam Center, Siam Paragon and Siam Discovery....

that time around Jang Guen Suk is there for a visit which makes May gone mad ! keep wanting to see him live....

Siam Square is having a major renovations 2 major road has been in construction wonder what are they building maybe more malls for shopping hehehe....

Siam BTS station

Day View of Siam Square

night view of Siam Square

during our last few days Bao's debit credit card has problem due to the amount in her account was missing.... but the hotel said they has not charge it...

but after so many misunderstandings they found out that the problem is with debit card can't accepts refund like credit card ...

in order to refund it they need to deposit the money...

so problem solved....

after 7 days of shopping this is what i got

it was really a very adventurous 8 days.....

tears from sadness and guilt.....

joy from shopping, friendship and togetherness.....

lost of passport and money......

found of credit balance back in the card.....

and not forgetting one thing precious gain....

is a memory of our precious friendship together before we leave our university life in our separate ways.... we wont know what the future holds until our path cross once again....

i am really feeling not good at all this few days...

so many things in my mind....

but still sharing is caring .... here is my story

Luv,

~GiNo