29/07/2009 - Oh My Shoppings...

Unless you’ve been to the gargantuan shopping centers near the Siam BTS station in Bangkok, be prepared for a severe onslaught to the senses and brush up on your bartering skills. Before we went we learnt how to say “too expensive” and “can you lower the price for me” in Thai; ‘Paang Bai’ and ‘Lot rah ka dai mai’ respectively. Very handy. If you show that you are at least trying to learn Thai, it may help to knock off a few extra Baht from your purchase. I saw some tourists simply try to shout at a shop attendant in English believing that the louder you protest against the price in your native tongue the cheaper it will be. This is not a good way to barter.

Today, at E’s request, we went to MBK (cheap huge mall), Siam Paragon (more upmarket mall), Panthip Plaza (legit and fake electronic goods overload) and Central World (another huge mall). We suffered from what can only be described as some kind of dizzy vertigo created by the endless lanes of every kind of product you can imagine and occasionally had to just stand still for a few seconds so we could see straight again. You would walk down one section full of Thai silks, cushions, wooden furniture, incense, rip-off t-shirts and turn the corner to face a massive food court of frying noodles, all kinds of desert foods juxtaposed with western food restaurants like Pizza Hut, McDonalds and KFC. You turn the next corner to find yourself in a completely different department store within the mall selling anything from office furniture to mobile phones. You will get lost. We couldn’t help laughing when we realized that the constant announcements over MBK’s tanoy system were starting to form some kind of pattern: “Mister Robert Smith, attention Mister Robert Smith, can you please meet your wife Sharon at the main reception hall” or “Miss Rebecca Woods, attentions Miss Rebecca Woods, your sister Emma will meet you at the KFC in ten minutes”. These announcements kept going all day and they were always for the benefit of some poor sun burnt farang who had looked away for five seconds only to find them selves alone and lost in some mad consumerist castle. Have you been to Westfield near Shepherds Bush in London? Their claim to fame is being the largest shopping complex in Europe. Let me tell you something, Westfield is like your granny’s local corner shop compared to these places.

We managed to buy some of the stuff we needed for our upcoming trip to Koh Samet, namely a tripod for E’s camera, flip flops, a Thai carry all bag and a few other bits for the flat. Cheaper than Carrefour. E really wanted a bikini but all we could find was designer wear costing at least 65 quid and above. It was quite ironic that E found the cheapest bikini in Topshop whilst in a Thai mall. This may not be the absolute truth as we are yet to fully understand where to shop.