Bangkok’s Rush Hour : Day 1 – Witnessing the Heart of Asia

Having second thoughts when it comes to Tigerairways. The plane ride to Bangkok from Singapore  was definitely not smooth as there were several air turbulence in between. I thought I was doing to lose my life when the plane went into a major turbulence where my heart practically dropped.

Finally! I’ve always look forwards to short breaks and vacation because those are the only times where I could let my hair down and really be myself. When it comes to holidaying and travelling, I will try to maximise time so that I can spend more time being out of Singapore. Adventure is part of my vocabulary!

For this June Holidays, I’ve spend 17 days consecutively travelling to three different countries. First, I flew to Bangkok than spend a night in Singapore before leaving for Malacca in the next morning. After which, I came back to Singapore from Malacca to pack and spent for a night before jetsetting off to Taipei and spent the next 9 days there. It sounded crazy but I was game for it. For those who knew me long enough would know that this is not the only crazy stuff I do. Going for the unconventional way is in my blood.

Time is ticking and I’m bringing you back to the heart of Asia, Bangok.This is one amazing and exciting city to live in! What really impresses me about this city is its effective and vast transport network system. Okay, maybe it’s not that vast to begin with but it’s fast and convenient. What more could I ask for in the city where it’s easy for travellers like myself to get around so easily? What’s even better is that I don’t have to pinch my nose to block off any stench because the Railway stations and trains are clean and new. Alright,  maybe I am being too extreme here because I’ve not checked out the other modes of transportation like the public buses in Bangkok but the newly-constructed airport link systems by the State Railway of Thailand got my full praises for being almost as good as Singapore’s MRT system.

Suvarnabhumi Airport’s Link  Travellers: Not to worry, there are english menu to these ticketing machines. You don’t even need the help of a local to buy you tickets.

 After experiencing the series of turbulence on the plane, I was so glad that I reached safely to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport with my travel mate. Being safe and sound is all I prayed for. God, I’m learning to cherish my life, right now!

Welcome to Bangkok. It’s still pretty hard to believe that Bangkok is moving at such a fast pace.

Instead of cards or ticket slips, their tickets are in form of chips or coins which you just had to scan the chip to get through the gantries. You will only return the chip when you alight at your last stop. Slot into the machine just as you walked out of the gantry.

Doesn’t it looked pretty much similar to like any other modern trains in the world? Eventually all transport systems will look and work similarly throughout the whole world. Slowly, but surely as countries began to develop further.

From Suvarnabhumi Station, we stopped at Phayathai station where’s its the city centre. The whole journey from the airport to the city centre is about 40 minutes. From Phayathai station, we transited to take the internal city train system called the Sky train. The hotel that we scouted for on Agoda.com was located a stone away from Ratchathewi station which is one station away from Phayathai. Our spirits are remained high when we found out that travelling to our hotel was such a breeze for us. We don’t even have to fret about searching high and low for our hotel after we alight at the station because the hotel was just built right next to the station. How convenient! It must have been a blessing!

Among the construction and rubbles, there stood our hotel with reflecting glass windows . It’s hard to miss it because it’ stood out from the rundown shophouses and apartments in the surroundings.

I knew I was in for a treat when I stepped into this hotel. My travel mate and I were so hyped up about this hotel when we saw all the modern and classy furnishings. VIE Hotel Bangkok is a member of the MGallery Collection.

If I remembered correctly, I paid about SGD $260 plus for a twin bed-room across 3 nights and booked through Agoda.com. That worked out to be approximately about SGD $85 per night for two. I wouldn’t consider that as cheap or affordable but the stay’s at this boutique hotel is definitely worth the price we paid for. This boutique hotel offers 5-star services and facilities to guest. What more could we ask for!

Welcome cocktail drink at the reception area. It’s all thee little things that you do to make a guest feel welcome.

Our pretty Thai receptionist,who spoked fluent English, assisted in our check-in.

VIE Room Deluxe! Here we go!

VIE hotel is part of the family of hotels runned by M Gallery. M Gallery has boutique hotels all over Europe!

I love the interior! Thick warm rugs placed in the centre of the room. The theme colour of the hotel rooms is maroon, ruby and mustard yellow. Warm colours that are soothing and calming for the soul.

Here’s a long couch for us to lie down and read a book or magazine as we enjoy view outside. Well, the view outside is not exactly that fantastic but having a top-to-bottom glass window is good enough for us to look out and enjoy the non-bustling sights of Bangkok.

Talking about taste and class. This is how a hotel make their guests feel really pampered.

Awww. They are really sweet, isn’t it? Just in case, the hotel guest forget to bring a travel adaptor. Imagine all that fuss involve when you need to charge your mobile or laptop but you just couldn’t find an adaptor! The hotel is putting in effort to remove all the fuss which the guest has to face when travelling. How awesome is that!

Thai Streetfood. Do what the locals do. Eat what the locals eat.

 It was almost nearing dinnertime and both of us were feeling quite hungry so we decided to try some streetfood just right outside our hotel. We saw several locals sitting on small stools and eating noodles from a piping hot bowl of soup. It looks tempting enough and we were game for it. I had my taste of streetfood in Vietnam and suffered all sorts of side effects from eating streetfood before – diarrhoea to food poisoning. You just had to eat it with caution but then again, what’s travelling all about if you don’t do what the locals do and eat what they eat. It’s about being immense into their way of life and culture. That’s the motto of a true traveller.

SGD $2.00

 Though this seems like a small bowl of chicken noodles, you odd to see how much chicken and noodles the cooking lady added. The portion is actually quite big. It’s tasty but not to the extend of having me coming back for more.

On the small tables of the streetfood stall, you will find common condiments such as chili flakes, fish sauce and sugar.

Banana fritters.

 After we had our taste for streetfood, we headed to Siam Paragon which is about 15 min walk from our hotel. It’s winthin walking distance from our hotel though you might want to take the hotel’s free tuk-tuk service which we only found out the next day! At Siam Paragon, we found even more food options as there were so many interesting cafes and foodcourts. We were totally spoilt for choice!

Check this out. Water cooler by the street. How cool is that? I wonder when will Singapore start installing water coolers on the street. With such hot and humid weather,  it would be great if we can get portable water everywhere we go. But then again, water is a precious resource in Singapore because we do not have fresh water in country.

This is a must-go-to mall. If you haven’t been to Siam Paragon, you haven’t been to Bangkok. I’m serious! How could you miss one of Bangkok’s coolest mall?

Our eyes had a feast that day. It just so happened that there was some sort of a flower exhibition going on in the mall. Couldn’t get enough of flowers this year!

The flowery affair

The Girly-girl pose. Learn this from blogshop moedels.

Cute miniatures. I wouldn’t mind having a own farm when I retire. Moo-moo!

THANN cafe. I believe this is the next-big-thing! I’ve been noticing the existence of this brand of aromatherapy products almost everywhere I go! Even in Taiwan!

Travelmate wanted to get her dose of bubble tea and we tried Mr.Cup T. The cup was HUGE!

Next, we decided to try something which is not offered in Singapore. It’s pretty typical of tourist to do that. “Can’t find it in Singapore? Then let’s try it lah!” That’s some Singlish for you.

Uh-huh! Madame Tussauds’s at Siam Discovery Centre! We are heading there on our last day!

After navigating around the city and discovering some of the malls, we saw there was a night market right opposite Siam Paragon and decide to head over for some shopping. They do sell really cool stuff over there!

Anna Sui’s? That’s all I could think of.

Having a mad rush to prom ? Need to dress to your nines with makeup down but didn’t know how to beautify your face? Try this stick-on smoky eyeshadows!

Handmade vintage bangles.

Funky accesorries such as this pair of ring.

Geeky digital clocks.

Thumbdrives that comes in cute-byte sizes!

Wonder how those Thai girls had attractive and big eyes? Try these coloured contact lens which can enlarge the size of the pupil, enhancing the size of your eyes. These are contacts that have no degree but I doubt they are safe to put on.

Meaningful handicrafts. This takes quite abit of craftmanship.

If you are a Thai and happen to read this blog post, please do send me a message to tell me what this is called! I’m dying to find out. It’s too sweet for my liking but it looked traditional and interesting so we bought one to try. (Thank you to one of my blog readers who kindly replied my question in this post. The food featured about is called Khanom Buang( ขนมเบื้อง) or Crispy Thai pancake.

For dinner, we had Pad Thai from streetstall and ate by the roadside.

According to my travelmate, this is PadThai tasted pretty authentic and very appetizing.

Banana Pancake.

 This is one pancake that leaves me a deep impression of it. It’s a simple pancake but it tasted and smell like heavens. The uncle who made this was totally incredible. How can something so simple tasted so good? He only uses dough, eggs, butter and banana for this pancake. I’m amazed.

Back to the hotel to retire for the night.

Surprise! We had a pillow menu to choose the type of pillow we want.

Good night chocolates to end our day with a sweet note.