Exploring Bangkok-Day 1

View from Siam Square Bangkok

If you have not yet read my blog post on hot to reach Thailand & related formalities please click here. 

For stay in Bangkok, I recommend that you stay at a hotel somewhere near or preferably at Siam square. It is by far the most convenient location for sight seeing in Bangkok. Many hotels are concentrated in the Sukhumvit area but it is not logistically well located. I stayed at the Holiday Inn on Siam square which is at a walking distance from major tourist attractions. It may be noted that many hotels in Bangkok charge a refundable security deposit of 1000THB which is best paid in cash for easy refunds.

If you are the explorer type, then you have lots to explore in and around Siam Square. Siam square has the 4 mega malls of Bangkok which are Siam Discovery, Siam Paragon, Siam Central and MBK. MBK is one of the largest mall in all of Thailand. Siam Discovery mall has the Madam Tussauds Wax museum on the 9th floor and Siam Paragon all has the underground Siam Oceam World. Just Siam square would require more than one day to explore if you have the time.

I generally have limited leaves and have to maximize my stay in any country and explore late in the evening after completing my day tours. Due to time limitations I have everything pre-planned and I had booked entrance tickets for Madame Tussauds wax museum and Siam Ocen World from a tour operator. You can use klook.com or isango.com to book entrance tickets for Rs 1500 for each of above venues per person. Again, the local SIM card helped me as I had to call up the tour operator to inform my location. They handed us our tickets and then we had to proceed on our own as a guide was not included and anyways, is not required.

 

We first went to Siam Ocean World in Siam Paragon Mall which is in the basement B1 & B2. It is a very very large aquarium with many exhibits . There was quite a lot marine life that we had never seen before. One problem that the place had was that it is very very dimly lit, may be to showcase the exhibits with their back-lights, but this is major problem for photos. My main reason to visit this place was to take a pic along with the Famous Glass Ceiling Aquarium & the Underwater Tunnel.


The place also has an under ground flowing stream, an under ground pool, and exhibits for rare marine life such as Manta Rays, Penguins & Octopuses. There is a small food court too if you are in the mood.Do not miss the Manta Ray & Penguin exhibits as they come highly recommended. You can spend some time at near the poolside or at the food court but I could not stay longer than a few hours.Next we followed our trusty guide Google Maps to the 9th floor on Siam Paragon Mall for the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.

   It is well signposted if you can read Thai. But it was very difficult to find. We had booked skip the line tickets and got instant entry but that was  in vain as there was no line anyway. This wax museum is smaller than the one I visited in Singapore on Sentosa Island and has fewer wax figures but since this was my first visit to any wax museum it was very exciting.
 If you are into souvenirs, I recommend that you get your hands immortalized into a wax sculpture at their souvenir shop for around 1500THB. I did this at the Singapore museum for 50 Singapore dollars but is totally worth it. And if you do decide to do it, do not forget to get it filled with clay to increase its durability.

The museum wrapped up our day tours and we ventured out in the evening to get some and get a feel of the city. But the moment you step out on roads in Bangkok, the Tuk Tuk operators will keep buzzing you to book a ride as tourists can be easily made out from among the croud. If you decide to walk like we always do, then be sure to get an idea of overhead road crossings and th very very few zebra crossings. We were staying at Siam Square which has the 4 mega malls of Thailand. We decided to visit the largest of them all, The MBK for souvenirs and food. And, mind you, the MBK is one very huge mall. You have constantly check the large digital touchscreen maps they have installed on each floor. We got lost many times inspite of checking the maps. 

The ground floor of the MBK mall has been alotted to street vendors which is a great place to get some souvenirs at good prices. There are 13 floors to this mall and we could manage to go up to 5th floor till we got lost in the maze. By the time we got out we were deperate for some good vegetarian food. After another hour of searching we could ony find a Burger King which sold veggie burgers and that was our dinner till our stay in Bangkok. One thing I got to know on my fisr ttrip abroad was that India was the only place where Mcdonalds served a Vegetarian menu. Out side of India, even the only vegetarian thing you can get at a mcdonalds is a coffee. This makes me remind you that your options as vegetarian are very very limited in any country of th world outside India.

After about 3 hours of getting lost in MBK and muching on some hard earned Veggie Burgers, we called it quits for Day-1 in Bangkok. I hope you liked the blog and keep tuned in and follow my blog for more travel logs, recipes and much more.