The capital city of Thailand, Bangkok!!!

After visiting Malaysia, off we go to Bangkok,

The capital of Thailand. Without doubt one of the most happening places in South East Asia. With the right mix of modernity and traditional life style, Thailand is a must visit place.

Grand palace is probably the most iconic building in Bangkok. The rich cultural , historical and architectural marvel of Thailand is seen in abundance here. The reference to Indian mythology speaks for itself as to why Thailand draws a lot of Indian crowd. The boat ride along the chaopraya river is an experience in itself. All most all great cities have a river associated with it. Chao phraya river makes Bangkok special.

View from Chao phraya river

The reference and admiration for the late king Rama the tenth ( Bhumibol Athuliyathej) is in abundant display in Bangkok. Most of the government buildings and bridges bear the name of the king.  

Our Travel plan for Bangkok was from 18^th August 2018 to 22^nd August 2018. We boarded our flight to Bangkok from Malaysia at 08:05AM and reached Bangkok by 09:10 AM. 

Our itinerary were as follows:

Day 1 (18^th Aug):

We covered Chatuchak Market

Day 2 (19^th Aug):

Grand Palace, Wat Arun, Wat Pho,

Day 3 (20^th Aug):

Victory Monument, Central World, Ganapathy & Trimurthi Shrine, Pratunam Market, Platinum Fashion Mall, Gaysorn Village, Erawan shrine, Lumphini Park, Asiatique Night market

Day 4 (21^st Aug):

The Pattaya City (this we will be covering in a separate blog)

Day 5 (22^nd Aug):

Terminal 21

Bangkok is one of the most popular city in Thailand. This was my first visit to Thailand and my hubby’s second visit. So he had an idea of how to travel where to go and all. In this blog we will try to give you an overview of Bangkok which might help you to plan your travel.

Grand Palace 

Visa On Arrival:

While you are visiting any county among the first items comes the Visa. As a citizen of India we do have On arrival Visa facility available for Thailand. And yes, we too opted for the same.

To know the list of countries eligible for On arrival visa please check the below site:

http://www.thaiembassy.com/thailand/visa-on-arrival.php

Documents required to get Visa:

• Passport or travel document with a validity not less than 6 months
• Visa application form (filled out) – you will get this form from On arrival visa counters present in each airport
• One(1) recent 4x6cm. photograph of the applicant
• Round-trip air ticket or e-ticket (paid in full)
• Proof of financial means (20,000 baht per person/40,000 baht per family)
• Copy of Hotel booking in Thailand

When we visited Visa fee was 2000 Baht per person. This might get changed over the course of time. Just get everything ready. Once you fill the form and you have all the documents ready you can stand in the queue and get your visa stamped by the authorities. There are many counters and you will be called upon and asked to submit all the documents. Once they verify the documents you will be asked to wait inside from where you can collect your passports with Visa stamped in it.

There is also a fast track counter. To get the visa faster you have to pay 200 Baht extra which will save your time. Whereas if you are standing in normal queue you might have to wait for more than an hour.

Green Papaya salad or Som tum is one of the famous Thai food which we ended up having from airport itself. 😉 So once we were done with visa stamping and immigration clearance we had our food from Airport itself.

Green Papaya salad

Hotel:

We stayed at Hotel Narai which was located at Silom area. Nearest BTS station to our hotel was Chong Nonsi.

SIM card:

You can purchase your SIM card from Airport itself. You have to produce you passport to get the SIM.

Transport in Bangkok:

One of the most common transport facility available in Bangkok is BTS(sky train). There are two train routes in BTS. One is Silom line and the other one is Sukumvit line. To interchange between different routes you should get down at Siam station. You can get your tickets directly from BTS stations itself. There are also self-service ticket machines. We found 2 types of ticket machines here one which accepts both currency notes and coins and the other one accepts only coins. We mainly depended on BTS for our whole trip. You can see the train map available in each and every station. For ease of travel purpose we took a photo of the BTS map and kept in our mobile. Taxies are also available which is bit costly in Bangkok. There are also buses, but we didn’t try it. You can get daily pass which costs us 140 Baht per person.

Tuk Tuk:

Tuk Tuk is another mode of transport available in Bangkok. Tuk Tuk is similar to auto Rickshaw available in India.

Chatuchak Weekend Market:

Chatuchak market is known as Thailand’s biggest weekend market. The market has many stalls which is widely spread across many streets. To get to chatuchak market you can get down at Mo chit BTS station or Kamphaeng Metro station. It has a collection of items ranging from vintage items, food market, dresses, flowers, fruits, shoes, etc.

We tried Coconut ice cream which is a famous dish in Thailand. It was really yum. They cut a Tender coconut skull into 2 pieces and peel out the flesh and add ice cream on top of that. And they add some toppings to it and serve it in coconut shell itself which is the uniqueness of the dish. After tasting the yummy coconut ice cream we roamed around the market visiting many different stalls. They had a good collection of vintage items like bags, boots, belts, etc. It started raining heavily so we were forced to wait for the rain to stop. We found there are many food items like fried octopus, beef, chicken, different varieties of breads with garlic , sweetened milk, sugar butter, chocolate, strawberry fruit jam, pizza sauce, etc. We also saw fried squid eggs, quail eggs being sold here. The whole market was decorated. Some streets decorated with papers, and  some other with colored umbrellas. We tried garlic toast and sugar butter bread both of which was really tasty.

Note there are self-service storage lockers available which is located near Kamphaeng Metro station. If you end up buying too much and you still want to shop for more you can deposit your belongings in the locker and go for another round of shopping. 🙂

7 – Eleven:

We don’t want to spare talking about 7- eleven while we are in Bangkok. This shop was our life saver with a variety of food items to grab easily. They will also heat the food in microwave if you need it hot.

Boat service in Chao Phraya River:

The Chao Phraya is the major river in Thailand. All the major tourist attractions like Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun, Asiatique night market are located on the riverside. There are frequent boat services available inChao Phraya river. Si Phraya Pier was the nearest Pier to our hotel so we walked to the pier to get boat to Grand Palace. Si Phraya pier was near Sheraton hotel. The boat service is available to all the piers available in the Chao Phraya river. We used the boat service to travel for Grand Palace to Wat Arun. And from ‘Tha Chang’ we got boat back to Si Phraya. This is the old city.

Grand Palace:

Grand Palace is the royal palace in Bangkok. The palace was built by King Rama I. It has a combined area of 218,400 square metres, surrounded by four walls. This whole complex consists of temples, government buildings, halls, etc. There are so many building and complexes within this whole area. Once you get down at Tha chang you could walk along with the flow of crowd as there is no specific direction marks like where is the entrance or from where to get tickets like that. Viseschaisri gate is the gate where you enter the complex. This gate is the only area which is free to visit and you don’t have to pay anything but from here to enter into the main entrance you have to take the tickets. Entry fee to grand palace was 1000 Baht per person.  Once you take the tickets you could enter the main area which was very much crowded.

There are many buildings named Chapel of emerald Budha, the golden Phra Siratana Chedi, Phra Mondop, Prasat Phra Dhepbidorn, Jade Budha Temple, Chakri Maha Prasat Hall, Rajkaranyasapha hall, Dusit Maha Prasat Hall. There are free maps available near the entrance in many languages so you could pick up one if you would like to.

All the buildings had a circular structure at the bottom and a stupa structure at the top. The golden Chedi will give you a feel of a building constructed out of real gold. The temple of Emerald Budha is the most sacred Budhist Temple in Thailand. This temple is housed with an Emerald Budha statue which is believed to be brought from India. Chakri Mahad Prasat Hall has a beautiful palace like structure and from here you could get some good snaps as this area was less crowded compared to other areas during our visit. The only disadvantage is you can’t go inside this hall.

Wat Arun:

Wat Arun which is known as the Temple of Dawn is a famous Temple located on the river side of Chao Phraya river. The Temple derived it's name from the Hindu God Aruna who is none other than God of Sun. Wat Arun is one of the most beautiful and photogenic Temple.

Entry Fee: 50 Baht per person

Wat Pho:

Wat Pho is the temple of reclining Budha. The statue is 46m long painted in golden colour. There were so many bowls kept at one side of the temple in which you could donate money. Before entering the temple you have to take out your foot wares and keep it in a bag kept outside the temple and once you get out of the temple you have to replace the bags back. Wat Pho is known to have the largest collection of Budha images/statues scattered around the temple area.

Entrance fee was 100 Baht per person which includes a free cold water bottle which you could collect from one of the corners of the temple area.

Victory Monument:

Victory Monument is an Obelisk monument in Bangkok. The monument was erected to commemorate the Thai victory in the Franco-Thai War.

Central World:

Central World is one of the biggest mall in Bangkok. In and around Central World there are lots of other malls, markets, and shrines.

Pratunam Market:

This market again is near to Central World. This is a cheap market again if you wish to do some shopping.  It is a ring of shops that faces the main road with narrow alleys that leads inside. Here also you have many local food stalls. We could see lots of Indian restaurants in and around the market area. The baiyoke sky hotel which is the tallest tower in this area is near this market.

Platinum Fashion Mall:

This is mall which will provide you rates similar to markets. I would suggest you to visit the mall if you are a shopping freak. You would get almost everything at a cheaper rate that too inside an air conditioned mall. Isn’t it an added advantage.

Gaysorn Village:

This is another mall which is also accessible from sky walk. This mall had a beautiful interiors and decorations.

Erawan shrine, Ganapathy & Trimurthi Shrine::

On other side of the Central World is Erawan Shrine. The idol in the shrine is a Budhist version of Lord Brahma. It is also known as four face Budha shrine. From sky walk of BTS you will get a good view of both Erawan shrine, Ganapathy & Trimurthi Shrines. Erawan shrine is just opposite to Gaysorn village. When we went there we saw a traditional form of dance being performed here. This is nothing but a prayer being offered to Budha. It was a different way of offering prayer.

Next to Ganapathy shrine there was a food market which had almost all varieties of non-vegetarian food available.

Lumphini Park:

Lumphini park is one of the beautiful park with an artificial lake where visitors can rent boats. At the entrance of the park itself there is King Rama VI statue which is located on a podium. You will get a complete view of the city from here. You could get a panoramic view of the traffic of the city , BTS track and the skyscrapers looming around.

Panoramic view from Lumphini park

Asiatique Night market:

Asiatique is one of the famous night markets in Bangkok. Asiatique is located at the river side of Chao Phraya river. The market is beautifully decorated. The giant wheel is visible from a long distance and during night time the lights around the market make it more attractive. The market has good dining restaurants, fish spas, and Calypso theatre.

There are free boat services from Saphan Taskin BTS station to Asiatique and back to Saphan Taskin. You can exit from station towards the river and walk towards left at counter 3. There you could see a queue for the free boat service just stand in the queue and hop in once the boat arrives.

Terminal 21:

This is another famous mall in Bangkok. The mall has an airport theme with each level being different destinations like London, Istanbul and San Francisco. The food court at top had a large variety of dishes with affordable rates. You have to get a prepaid card from the counter before going to any food counters to get the food. If you have any money left in the card you will get it back while returning the card.

The mall is near to Asok BTS station and Sukumvit metro station. There is self-service locker facility near Sukumvit station entrance similar to the one from Chatuchak market. We used this facility as we had so much of luggage with us. Locker charges are hourly based at 40 Baht per hour.