Shop, shop, shop, Bangkok!

Heya Internet! This may be part of the recap of my few last days in Thailand and my return to Bangkok, but it comes after I have already been back in Cape Town for a week and a half. So, I am back home and trying to get back into the swing of my normal life, which has been a struggle with huge exhaustion and more of an adjustment period because of the jetlag, but I am fully back at work and feeling out of holiday and Thailand mode. I hope I can do the remaining blog posts over the next few days and post the details of the last days in Bangkok and the trip home. Anyway, this post is about my first full day back in Bangkok and not the return journey which was quite colourful on its own, more on that later…

After the chaos of the end of Chiang Mai and the ridiculously long journey to get to the guest house in Bangkok, I was very, very tired. As mentioned before the large cockroaches scurrying in the street were not the kind of ‘welcome’ I was looking for, neither was the giant rat which ran away from me at the pedestrian overpass when I went looking for supper (seriously, I have met smaller cats before). So, it was no surprise I didn’t have the energy or brain capacity to plan the last two days in Bangkok that night. I had not pre-booked anything in Chiang Mai as I wanted to see what I would be up for when I actually landed in Bangkok, not to mention I had originally thought I would manage to do something during the evening after the flight. Funny that, I was too busy trying to make it to my accommodation to ‘do’ anything, and giant pest dodging is an extreme sport in and of itself if you ask me.

The next morning, I was determined to finalise any more trips or activities for my two days in Bangkok. There had been no trip to the Chatuchak Weekend Market the night before and I was too busy the first weekend and knew I couldn’t carry purchases in my suitcases for four weeks. But I had already been to Wat Arun, the Grand Palace, Soi Cowboy (still yuck) and Nana Market during my first days in Bangkok and 6ixcret Cabaret in Chiang Mai, so all of that was already covered and I had the remaining things on my list of Bangkok items to try to do. At this point I had four things on my list still. I had wanted to visit one of the floating markets in Bangkok and as these were between 20km and 100km from central Bangkok, I decided that this was too far to do in my limited time remaining. Another big item on my Thailand list was a muay thai class and with the Doi Inthanon trip in Chiang Mai, I knew I couldn’t make it in Chiang Mai and was hoping to go in Bangkok. I had looked up a few well-known Bangkok kwoons (muay thai gyms) and there were a few close to BTS train stations, which would be accessible from my guest house. The plan in my head had been to catch a class on that only full day in Bangkok as I thought going the day when I had to travel to the airport was a bad idea. However, after the trip the night before, the heat and the kind of exhaustion I had been dealing with and frankly my less than extensive diet, I decided that I didn’t have the energy, stamina or strength to do a muay thai class at that point. It just seemed like a bad idea when I love the sport so much, classes are always intense and I push myself whenever I do one because I like to prove to myself that I can keep pace with the requirements of muay thai, all not a great combination with the physical state I was in.

This left my last two Bangkok items; the main one I was keen on was doing a Khlong tour which involves exploring the canals of Bangkok by flat-bottom or longtail boat. Now I had read about this and was very keen to do this as I had already been on the Chao Phraya River to see the Grand Palace and had enjoyed it and I wasn’t going to do the floating markets. I had read a lot about the Khlong tours and wanted to see the Thonburi Khlongs and read you can hire a boat for several hundred Baht an hour but that the boat drivers tend to have poor English. More worrying, the River areas are notorious for tourist scamming and fleecing and this is specifically where they warn you not to be a foolish tourist with a slack jaw, camera in hand and a fistful of cash. Now I am a South African, we invented the scam (and you thought it was the Nigerians…) and I didn’t travel thousands of kilometres to be taken advantage of, so I was going to book a Khlong tour with a reputable company and one with a good rating, not chance it with some random boat on the water. That Monday morning, I settled on a well-reviewed company and went to book and was given an earliest possible booking for Wednesday, clearly, they operate on 48 hours’ notice. The problem being I was going to be on a plane to Dubai at 03:30 that Wednesday. Sadly, that meant the Khlong tour was now out, but I decided to further explore the Chao Phraya river on the Tuesday. But more on that in the next post…

The other thing to do in Bangkok that I had not thoroughly explored was the shopping. Thailand and specifically Bangkok is famed for its shopping malls. Now whilst I may have gone a little nuts in my purchasing in Chiang Mai (so much so, I was carrying an umbrella in hand on the plane in fear of my luggage weight), I still had a number of kitschy souvenirs I wanted to buy for myself and as gifts. By this stage I was too tired and the extra stickiness of Bangkok had evaporated any desire I had of doing my shopping outside, besides I had already missed Chatuchak. But I had already decided to get what I wanted at malls or the nearby Nana Night Market if needed.

After the arduous travelling of the day before I headed for a hearty breakfast to get back on track and set me up for the day. On my way back to the BTS station, I noticed a souvenir shop that I had passed numerous times on my first trip to Bangkok and decided to check it out as it was an airconditioned stop along the way back to the guest house or the BTS. It turned out to be rather reasonably priced on their stock, every item had a price tag (have I mentioned how ill-equipped I am for haggling?) and they took credit cards which was an important factor at this point with the amount of cash I had on hand. I ended up picking up a number of gifts and some touristy bags I had been eyeing for the entire trip. I happily trotted back to my room with a couple bags filled with many of the items I had been looking for, already purchased.

Then I headed to the BTS and travelled to Siam station to be able to reach the malls I planned to visit. My first stop was MBK Center (it pains me to spell it wrong like that, but they spell it that way, ie. wrong). I chose MBK for its market style stalls and souvenirs in addition to the typical mall shops. MBK is huge and known for bargains and the ability to haggle at the stalls, all while in an airconditioned mall environment. This was very appealing and I still had a number of souvenir items to acquire. I traversed the many floors, escalators and different areas, from the multi-floor department store (seemingly as typical here as anywhere else in Thailand or the rest of the world, having everything mid to high-end at eye-watering prices), shop upon shop of gold jewellery, cheap luggage, knock-off T-shirts, toy stores with bright colours to attract the kiddies and finally the souvenirs. After checking out much of the mall and taking numerous photos of the vastness, I stopped off at the supermarket on the lower level for some fruit for lunch and some crackers and then headed back to the souvenirs. Two floors held the stalls and although the selection did encompass what I was looking for, the fact that the price was not the price and I was going to be sized up and given a Western tourist rate did not sit well with me. In the end the afternoon was wearing on and I wanted to get to the next mall and decided to abandon the souvenir hunt in MBK and take it up again later that evening at Nana Market or along the river the next day.

Having half worn out my body and certainly almost fully exhausted my patience for shopping at MBK, I headed off to the more decidedly ‘touristy’ mall destination – CentralWorld. Now I had to see CentralWorld as it is one of the largest malls in Thailand and in the world. It has over seven floors with over 500 shops with a combination of high-end and mid-range stores, a cinema and even an ice rink! It is bright, clean, airy and much easier to navigate than MBK with a calmer, more pleasant vibe than my earlier destination.  I traversed the entirety of the mall, determined not to be defeated by any shopping centre, even if I was quite exhausted by this stage. I went into all sorts of shops, both ones we have back home and ones we don’t. From one of the largest H&Ms in the world (who cares?), being overwhelmed by Sephora (we don’t have it back home, but the prices were horrifying), ogling from outside my beloved Marc Jacobs and hitting the sales in Mango (I love shopping Mango outside of SA as the prices are so much better), I looked at everything. By the time I had made it through every floor, I was so tired and the Royal Project celebration and promotion happening in the mall had already closed down (of course I had visited some Royal Projects in Chiang Mai).

I got back on the train to return to the guest house to stash my purchases and head back out to find those last few souvenirs. I replenished with some much-needed water and then hit the streets again to find those final few items I was looking for, in what I hoped would be Nana Market. Once more I was confronted by the creepy Western men making the acquaintance of the perfectly turned out ladies of negotiable affection while I scoured the stalls searching for select souvenirs. Sadly, though there were many things for sale, they did not have what I was looking to buy. I powered back in the other direction looking to try one more place for those final missing pieces, racing to reach the last mall before the shops closed, glaring at any leering men who may have mistakenly looked in my direction instead of the women of purchasable friendliness.

I was back in the ‘home stretch’ and returned again to Terminal 21 mall for the umpteenth time, still not having made a purchase at that point. It was almost closing time and I raced around looking for souvenirs before every store closed around me. They did not have what I was looking for and there was a certain level of regret for leaving behind what I had wanted at MBK. In the end I thought I would pick up those items the next day somewhere along the river.

I slowly made my way back to the guest house, luckily Terminal 21 is very close to my home base in Bangkok as by that point in time I was absolutely shattered. I synced my Fitbit with the app and found I had done over 37 000 steps and over 25 kilometres in the day, no wonder my feet hurt and I was exhausted. Who knew shopping was such an endurance event?