Bangkok 15/12/2007

Today is our last day in Bangkok. Our flight schedule is 445pm, so we will have some morning time to explore shopping area near our hotel. Mainly is shop around Pratunam market. We have a early checkout as hotel check out time is 12pm. Our plan is to shop until 130pm, then come back hotel to take the luggage we deposit early on and take a cab to airport, so it give us some 2 hours buffer time to reach airport in case traffic condition is bad.

After having our breakfast at hotel, we head straight to area around Pratunam Market. We start off from Pratunam Complex and walk along Ratchaprarop Road. Surprisingly, there are already many stalls open already, selling mainly clothes, shoes foods and even travel luggage. The price is ok but you need to bargain. We walked all the way until we reach Indra, another shopping center which sell a lot of clothes and shoes. The thing we found out here is they usually give you 2 pricing, wholesale price and normal price where wholesale price is cheaper but require you to buy 3 pieces. Is not that cheap but the price is definitely still reasonable. And of course is still a must here. When we shopped around Indra, i actually received sms saying our flight is delayed to 610pm. A ha, is somehow a good news for us as we have more time to shop. In the end, my friend bought some office skirts, a luggage (750b) and some souvenir (5b key chain)

In the end i believe we don't really step ourselves inside Pratunam market. The thing is there are too many stalls at the road side or in the shopping center which we find it sometimes is too much. So sometimes we have to alter our plan on the fly and just use our instinct.. haha. But we did follow to have our last stop at Big-C where we plan to have our lunch there and also do some shopping at the clothing section at the departmental store. We had our lunch at Tha-Siam Noodles which specialized in pork. We really enjoy the food there and their black jelly (Qing Chao) is very refreshing. Generally all of the Thai food we taste is above average. After lunch, we went to buy some clothes and also some food to bring back as souvenir.

Pork noodle (55b) and black jelly (25b)

We reached hotel around 330pm and we asked our hotel bell boy to help us call a cab. The cab fare actually cost us 400b which we found out later from our cab driver that the bell boy actually will keep 100b. Hmm... So it depends on how you see it, if you feel like they deserve the money and you appreciate the convenient of having cab to come to hotel to pick you, then i believe 400b is ok. Else, you might want to wait at the hotel until some cab driver carry passenger to the hotel or flag at the road side. I believe it should cost you around 300b. Anyway, the traffic to airport is smooth, maybe because is our timing as well as is Saturday.

Generally , the new Bangkok airport is huge, we made a mistake to try to walk along its shopping stretch form one end to another end. So tiring... Anyway, we had our dinner at airport restaurant and it turn out to be my most expensive meal throughout my Bangkok trip. The pineapple rice i order costs 200b. But is at airport, so the premium is definitely there. The last thing i want to say is still the airport bus from our terminal to the airport. Is definitely not a good experience when everyone have to squeeze inside the bus but since is budget, can't complaint much also.