Damnoen Saduak Floating Market
We woke up at 5:30 am to prepare and was at the hotel lobby by 6:30 am for the pick up that came 20 minutes late and were taken to Khao San Road, marked with a green sticker, transferred to another van, and driven off to Ratchaburi Province by a willowy driver who will put Michael Schumacher to shame, weaving through the highway while alternately sipping from a can of Schweppes and Red Bull, and were at the Damnoen Floating Market by 9:30 am where a local tour guide valiantly tried to brief us while being interrupted by an elderly Indian couple and a loud Chinese man so we peeled off, brought our own tickets and ended up on the same boat with the same elderly Indian couple and two fat Chinese guys, bumped into other tourist-laden slow and speed boats, the elderly Indian couple triumphantly haggling a wooden Harley-Davidson at half the price while the fat Chinese guys settled for two elephant-inspired coffee mugs during a stop over at a canal-side souvenir shop, us buying nothing and just trying to appreciate and enjoy the slow bumpy boat ride.
We had not have breakfast and it was 11 am so we explored the dry land market for a place to eat, deciding between roasted duck with rice or noodles, settling for the latter which we found to have duck blood too and ordering fried oysters and omelette as an after thought, paid the bill and went back to the dry land market to hunt for cheap souvenirs like salted tamarind candies at 100 baht for 3 packs and 3 sets of elephant key chains at 70 baht each which is cheap, sat on a bench to inspect our loot where the tour guide found us and herded us with a group for the floating market village tour that comes with the package, and was amazed how such bigger high-powered long boats can go so fast and effortlessly navigate the narrow canals as we gawked at traditional and modern Thai houses which to me is the highlight of the tour, that and the long sleep on the trip back to Bangkok.
Siam Square
Back in the city, we refresh ourselves with a bath and fresh clothes, uploaded photos to Facebook and braced for an afternoon of sampling three of the Nerd Nomads' "7 Places to Eat Thai Food in Bangkok" namely [1] Prachack for the roasted duck, [2] Rot Dee Det for the beef noodle soup and [3] Sawang Noodle for all other noodle soups, dropping Sawang in the end because it was too out of way in our city itinerary, booked an Uber to Prachack which we found to be almost like On Luk Yon in terms of the stainless tables and plastic stools that is the trademark of ordinary places where everyday people go for great local food, ordered a combination of roasted duck and pork that came drenched in a sweet sauce that tasted like kecap manis, too much of it that the sauce drowned the flavors of the roasted meats but still good, before walking to the Saphan Taksin Skytrain station for the search for Rot Dee Det which we found around the Siam Square area, had our beef noodle which is good also but not great as we expected, the beef balls turning out as beef balls ala fish ball and not the type we have for Soup No. 5.
I don't really like uptown Bangkok but this trip is for the wife and since we were already in Siam Square, I showed her around starting at Siam Discovery where we disembarked from the Skytrain and was immediately rewarded with a free viewing of a live Thai boxing match, my first too, while crossing into high end Siam Paragon to take a look at merchandise that we can't afford, gawking at insanely expensive bags and shoes, and indulging a saleslady who demonstrated how to clean nails and remove wrinkles with a magic potion before crossing over to the lower end Siam Square One where we came upon an outdoor market selling much cheaper items, happy that the wife is just content walking through since the baht in my wallet has frighteningly thinned into a few hundreds and twenties.
Lo and behold, a food fair at Siam Square One but we were still full of roasted duck and beef noodles so we just walked around, had a free sample of what tasted like kalamay and some sour baby mangoes tempered in a sweet dip of sorts, entertaining ourselves with savoring the aroma wafting from each food stall and watching a coconut man dissect a whole ball of white coconut meat and water from the coconut shell, not really trying to buy or taste anything, just killing time, before I decided it's time for MBK.
MBK is the short of Mahboonkrong and at 8 stories housing 2,000 stores and hosting 100,000 visitors everyday was once Asia's largest shopping mall, and I sense this is where we'll gonna do the shopping so I changed my last $100 into 3,100 bahts, 2 baht more to a dollar than the airport exchange rate, and walked all 8 floors, looking for shoes, buying specialized t-shirts and fake branded underwear for the kids at 100 baht per piece or a discounted 6 for 500 baht, cooling off with cold mango and coconut smoothies in the food center at the top floor before going down to the taxi stand, the queue too long I decided to haggle with a tuktuk driver who turned out to be Alain Prost and for 170 baht, whizzed us through the Bangkok traffic to our hotel like there is no tomorrow, scared but mostly thrilled to have a final authentic Bangkok experience before flying going back home.
We woke up at 5:30 am to prepare and was at the hotel lobby by 6:30 am for the pick up that came 20 minutes late and were taken to Khao San Road, marked with a green sticker, transferred to another van, and driven off to Ratchaburi Province by a willowy driver who will put Michael Schumacher to shame, weaving through the highway while alternately sipping from a can of Schweppes and Red Bull, and were at the Damnoen Floating Market by 9:30 am where a local tour guide valiantly tried to brief us while being interrupted by an elderly Indian couple and a loud Chinese man so we peeled off, brought our own tickets and ended up on the same boat with the same elderly Indian couple and two fat Chinese guys, bumped into other tourist-laden slow and speed boats, the elderly Indian couple triumphantly haggling a wooden Harley-Davidson at half the price while the fat Chinese guys settled for two elephant-inspired coffee mugs during a stop over at a canal-side souvenir shop, us buying nothing and just trying to appreciate and enjoy the slow bumpy boat ride.
We had not have breakfast and it was 11 am so we explored the dry land market for a place to eat, deciding between roasted duck with rice or noodles, settling for the latter which we found to have duck blood too and ordering fried oysters and omelette as an after thought, paid the bill and went back to the dry land market to hunt for cheap souvenirs like salted tamarind candies at 100 baht for 3 packs and 3 sets of elephant key chains at 70 baht each which is cheap, sat on a bench to inspect our loot where the tour guide found us and herded us with a group for the floating market village tour that comes with the package, and was amazed how such bigger high-powered long boats can go so fast and effortlessly navigate the narrow canals as we gawked at traditional and modern Thai houses which to me is the highlight of the tour, that and the long sleep on the trip back to Bangkok.
Siam Square
Back in the city, we refresh ourselves with a bath and fresh clothes, uploaded photos to Facebook and braced for an afternoon of sampling three of the Nerd Nomads' "7 Places to Eat Thai Food in Bangkok" namely [1] Prachack for the roasted duck, [2] Rot Dee Det for the beef noodle soup and [3] Sawang Noodle for all other noodle soups, dropping Sawang in the end because it was too out of way in our city itinerary, booked an Uber to Prachack which we found to be almost like On Luk Yon in terms of the stainless tables and plastic stools that is the trademark of ordinary places where everyday people go for great local food, ordered a combination of roasted duck and pork that came drenched in a sweet sauce that tasted like kecap manis, too much of it that the sauce drowned the flavors of the roasted meats but still good, before walking to the Saphan Taksin Skytrain station for the search for Rot Dee Det which we found around the Siam Square area, had our beef noodle which is good also but not great as we expected, the beef balls turning out as beef balls ala fish ball and not the type we have for Soup No. 5.
I don't really like uptown Bangkok but this trip is for the wife and since we were already in Siam Square, I showed her around starting at Siam Discovery where we disembarked from the Skytrain and was immediately rewarded with a free viewing of a live Thai boxing match, my first too, while crossing into high end Siam Paragon to take a look at merchandise that we can't afford, gawking at insanely expensive bags and shoes, and indulging a saleslady who demonstrated how to clean nails and remove wrinkles with a magic potion before crossing over to the lower end Siam Square One where we came upon an outdoor market selling much cheaper items, happy that the wife is just content walking through since the baht in my wallet has frighteningly thinned into a few hundreds and twenties.
Lo and behold, a food fair at Siam Square One but we were still full of roasted duck and beef noodles so we just walked around, had a free sample of what tasted like kalamay and some sour baby mangoes tempered in a sweet dip of sorts, entertaining ourselves with savoring the aroma wafting from each food stall and watching a coconut man dissect a whole ball of white coconut meat and water from the coconut shell, not really trying to buy or taste anything, just killing time, before I decided it's time for MBK.
MBK is the short of Mahboonkrong and at 8 stories housing 2,000 stores and hosting 100,000 visitors everyday was once Asia's largest shopping mall, and I sense this is where we'll gonna do the shopping so I changed my last $100 into 3,100 bahts, 2 baht more to a dollar than the airport exchange rate, and walked all 8 floors, looking for shoes, buying specialized t-shirts and fake branded underwear for the kids at 100 baht per piece or a discounted 6 for 500 baht, cooling off with cold mango and coconut smoothies in the food center at the top floor before going down to the taxi stand, the queue too long I decided to haggle with a tuktuk driver who turned out to be Alain Prost and for 170 baht, whizzed us through the Bangkok traffic to our hotel like there is no tomorrow, scared but mostly thrilled to have a final authentic Bangkok experience before flying going back home.
