Blistered in Bangkok II: Mall-ing in the City of Smile

We woke up around 8:30am and I felt as if I just took a nap. The walls of the room are so thin that conversations from the other room disturbed my sleep. I wasn’t sure with my hubby but I was pretty sure he was happy with the bed for it gave him so much space to toss and turn himself around. I was stupid enough though not to remember putting on my earplugs. I thought of having the free breakfast to somehow make up for my bad sleep, but it didn’t. Although a friendly waiter at the hotel’s restaurant warmly greeted us, I lost my appetite when my husband remarked that the hotel does not really observe hygiene as he picked up the utensils and started cleaning them with tissue paper. I inspected mine and saw traces of food stuck in between the fork tines. I couldn’t take them out with a tissue so I used a toothpick. I noticed that the grime was pretty thick so I decided not to use the fork and instead used the knife and fingers to eat my toast. I didn’t bother to ask for another because I would be more upset to receive another dirty pair of utensils.

After eating, we walked around to check the quiet neighborhood of Sawasdee. My craving for food came back when we bumped into a vendor selling various sausages on stick that smelled like Vigan longganisa. But we didn’t have smaller bills at that time so we put off our desire to supplement the skimpy meal that we just had. We didn’t find any shady character in the vicinity, till we reached the National Art Gallery which is just next to our hotel. My husband and I were debating where we were at that point and being the disoriented person that I am, he tried to show me our exact location through the map that we spotted hanging at the corner of the gallery. While we were discussing, a man approached us and asked what our nationality is. He looked amazed to find out that Filipinos bear the same features as Thais. Then he transformed into a tout talking about tours and the rates and was so persistent even as we shoved off.

The first thing on our itinerary that Thursday was to see the landmarks at the north-western side of our hotel. We walked from Soi Rong Mai to Phra Athit and straight on the Santichai Prakan Public Park. It is a relatively small and peaceful park, overlooking the Rama VIII Bridge.   On the side is the Phra Sumen Fortress, a landmark that we didn’t bother to explore much since it is not really aesthetically appealing.

We walked up north til we reached the Wisut Kasat road, which suggested that we were near the very first temple that we intended to see, the Wat Intharawihan (or Wat In) where one can see the Giant Buddha. The statue measured up to 32-meteres high that we had a hard time fitting ourselves with it in a picture. We hurried to get out of the tiled open-area when we heard the gongs ringing ‘cause we were thinking that it would be closed for lunch. As we hurried out, I heard my husband laugh, asking if what he saw was a real monk. I spotted the man that he was referring to and laughed as well. I wondered if smoking was in any way part of the precepts of Buddhist Monks.

We headed back to Wisut Kasat as we discussed how to go to MBK Mall. Funny but, yes, part of our plan was to visit Bangkok malls. We weren’t supposed to go to the malls on the first day until I was tipped off by a friend who happened to be in Bangkok weeks before we went, that Central Malls across the city are running on a 40%-70% discount sale. So my husband and I agreed to first check out the malls for good-buys so that we didn’t have to hurry through shopping at the overcrowded Chatuchak come Saturday. Since we only had around TB200 left and we had no idea how much a taxi ride would cost us from where we were to the mall, we decided to have my husband’s remaining HK dollars changed to Baht. I was getting bitchy because it was lunch time, the weather was really hot and money changers were nowhere to be found in the area. I was so desperate already that I suggested for us to take a tuktuk to the mall and when I saw one driver, I asked how much the fare was. The driver priced it at TB250 and started saying some thing which I didn’t understand. He was the second tout that we encountered so I dismissed the idea of riding the tuktuk. For those who are not aware of the modus operandi of some tuktuk drivers in the city, innocent foreigners will not only be given a rate that’s outrageously high but will also be redirected to places, like shops, and will be forced to buy items such as gems.

Finally, we reached a bank, which unfortunately do not sell currencies, but the manager was kind enough to direct us to the Krung Thai Bank which was not far from there. After we were able to secure an additional TB943, we took a cab to MBK. As expected, we encountered heavy traffic but my husband said, it was nothing like what we have in the Philippines. In Bangkok, the slow movement of vehicles are mainly regulated by stoplights, while in Manila, the main cause of traffic are the undisciplined drivers who recklessly shift from one lane to another, who slow down because they want to pore over vehicular accidents as if they can do something to help the victims and as if it is an honor to be an eyewitness of an accident that will later on be reported in radio and TV newscast. As we compared Bangkok and Manila traffic situations, I suddenly realized that I had seen no guards in the banks that we stopped at. If this were the situation in my country, I bet many robbers would now be millionaires, many banks bankrupt and a number of people murdered. Bank robbery has evolved from just plainly stealing money to both stealing money and killing guards, bank staff and customers. My maudlin moment ended when the taxi reached MBK and I thought that we shouldn’t have panicked for having only TB200 left ‘cause the meter registered only TB97. And we shouldn’t have panicked to buy baht from the bank because we saw one money changer in MBK which sold Baht for a relatively lower price.

Since it was lunch time, the first thing we looked for was MBK’s food court section. The receptionist at the information booth instructed us to go to the 5th floor, which happened to be the international food center with independent restaurants lined up and not the usual food court set-up with tables and chairs in the center surrounded by food stalls. Famished, we decided to eat in one restaurant there anyway, since the prices we found relatively cheap, ranging from TB100 to TB150. Besides, it was one restaurant without an unusual smell. Luckily for us, the tom yum soup and spring rolls that we ordered suited our Filipino taste buds and had similar tastes to the food served at Thai eateries that we usually go to in Quezon City – Jatujak (SM The Block), S.R. (Katipunan Road) and Mommy Thai (formerly along Balara ‘til the owner closed down). We spent around TB240 for our meal, and realized later on that this wasn’t cheap when we discovered the real food court on the 6th floor. There were food stalls around and accessories booths on one side. Customers here do not use the real currency for buying food; there’s a booth near the accessories section that converts baht to tokens.

MBK is a classy version of EVER Gotesco malls in Manila. Aside from the boutiques, one can see bargain stalls from corner to corner. We weren’t impressed with the goodies there nor with the discount rates of stores like Giordano so we left and walked our way to Central Chidlom, which is still several blocks away. Luckily for us, there’s a covered sky walk from MBK to the other malls so that we didn’t have to get sunburned. Unlike MBK, the second mall that we passed by, Siam Paragon was genuinely a high-end mall. Burberry, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Marc Jacobs were only a few of the posh stores that I saw in these malls and we didn’t bother to look around cause even if the products here were on sale, we still won’t be able to afford them.

The next mall is Gaysorn, which we, again, didn’t bother to enter but instead took a peak of the Erawan Shrine across the street. A couple of steps more, we reached the Central Chidlom department store. We were expecting a 70% discount on men’s apparel but to our dismay, the items that we found were not that cheap. Being the New Balance fanatics that we are, we each bought a pair of rubber shoes for only TB900 but with quality same as the original NBs sold in markets (genuinely soft, flexible rubber soles).

Carrying our new pairs of shoes, we walked further north to the Pratunam market, passing by the Central World Plaza. The Pratunam Center is a huge and almost bare building with few bargain stalls, which are transferred to the road side during rush hour. We decided to end our malling but first hung out in front of the building to eat some street food, breaded shrimp and chicken. The taste wasn’t bad, except that the breading was greater than the meat. As we walked our way out of the Pratunam market to find a ride, I saw a cart selling the same sausages on stick that I saw that morning near our hotel. Not very much satisfied with what we ate minutes earlier, I bought the pork sausage for TB10 and it didn't suit our Filipino tastebuds and i don't think it will => Good thing it was only a TB10 worth of food that I threw on the nearest garbage can. After a long walk, we were able to hail a taxi but were rejected because the driver seemed not to know where Khao San was. Hubby was starting to sense my grouchiness, so he gave in to the demand of another unscrupulous taxi driver, who wanted to be paid TB200 for the whole trip. When we reached our place, the driver kept on saying “Rambuttri, Rambuttri!” and we realized that the taxi drivers are most familiar with Soi Rambuttri, than Khao San.

It was way past our dinner (since we usually dine at 6pm) so we went out hoping to eat at the side walk eatery along Soi Rambuttri. But there were no available seats because of too many westerners dining at that time so we decided to go to Khao San and check out other eateries there. What we saw there were bargain stalls strewn everywhere and typical fast-food restaurants which weren’t our option because we were determined to try out Thailand's street foods. So we returned to Soi Rambuttri and looked for a food cart without the awful smell; sorry but I found the smell of some authentic Thai foods like a combination of burning tire and dung. We spotted the pad thai vendor and bought ourselves one order of spring rolls (TB15) and another order of pad thai (TB20) with egg (additional TB5), and added to that 2 bottles of Tiger Beer from 7-11 and feasted inside our room.  Back home, I struggle so much cooking Pad Thai to perfect the taste. But after seeing how the Pad Thai lady cooked it, I thought how silly I was to stress myself out on this easy recipe. (Pad Thai recipe)   My husband didn’t like the spring rolls that much because there was a tinge of star anise. The delicious but simply prepared pad thai was not enough but we didn’t go out anymore to buy and instead, he gulped his beer and we called it a day.