26/08/2009 - ...the shopping continues at Fashion Island...

Before you start thinking this is a blog about shopping in Bangkok, can we just remind people that we’re doing a lot of shopping at the moment due to the fact we left the UK with only a suitcase each! You have to get the essentials and discovering where to shop for this stuff just so happens to be one of  the first steps in discovering this beast of a city.

In my case, I need to get smart affordable clothes for my TEFL course and E told me about a place where I can buy them called Fashion Island. There are plenty of clothing shops in all the malls in Thailand but you should expect to pay western prices unless you’re lucky enough to find some 100% cotton shirts and trousers in a market (any other bloggers out there who can give us tips please get in touch!). In this case, Fashion Island is 20 minutes from our flat and it has been known to house some cheap shops along the same parallel as Primark/H&M. The cab (with HUGE spoiler on the back, go faster stripes on the wings and an actual karaoke video machine on his dashboard) picks me up and blasts me down the motorway to the mall. I manage to find my way around quickly enough and instantly find swimming goggles (not to teach in, obviously, although it would be quite tempting to turn up like that on my first day at school…) at a huge sports center on the 2^nd floor, just above the information table. They sell everything from indoor running machines to badminton rackets to football shoes. As far as I can remember this mall has a few major brand names floating about and some obscure (but still expensive) brands I’d never heard of before. It does seem to cater for women more than men, as is to be expected in clothing malls, but I did manage to find some designer slip on shoes, cotton shirt, silk tie and black leather imitation belt. After grabbing some noodles I get my haircut at a proper salon for 100 Baht. So for two pounds you can expect a decent half hour cut and shampoo from a pro, even if they do start chatting you up in the process…ever heard of the term ‘walking ATM’? I was told I had a ‘beautiful nose’. Hmm.

Tally:

Two 20 minute cab rides = 160 Baht

Slip on designer shoes = 280 Baht

Pro swimming goggles = 180 Baht

Cotton shirt = 280 Baht

Silk Tie = 100 Baht

Black leather imitation belt = 150 Baht

Haircut in salon = 100 Baht

Big bowl of noodles and Pepsi = 75 Baht

Total = 1325 Baht (24 quid).

25/08/2009 - The Mall Bangkapi and SF Cinema City

Our nearest mall is The Mall Bangkapi. We thought this wouldn’t be as big as the beasts you get off Siam Square, but it’s a contender.  

We’ve been shopping there a couple times before but to celebrate E starting work and her recent promotion we thought we’d come out for a meal and movie. Well, we may just become regular cinema goers again after last night. We went to probably one of the smaller branches of SF Cinema City (www.sfcinemacity.co.th) located on the top floor of the mall but for 100 Baht each (just under 2 quid) we got a seat in one of the cinema’s 14 air conditioned theatres. Think reclining business class sized seats (not that we would know…) with enough leg room for Peter Crouch and you get a good idea of how comfortable it was. You can check the times of the English shows on the website as the other movies are overdubbed in Thai. The movie we saw? The quite brilliant Tarantino flick ‘Inglorious Basterds’ (http://www.inglouriousbasterds-movie.com/). By far the best Tarantino movie since Pulp Fiction. Yes, the Kill Bill’s were good and Jackie Brown was passable but trust me, this is a special movie and what a great place to watch it. It seems that cinemas in the UK have a health and safety limit for the amount of decibels you’re allowed to be subjected to but this isn’t the case in Thailand. At times E and I had to actually cover our ears (and we’re hardened musicians…). You do, however, get used to the volume and now I will refuse to watch a movie unless it gives me tinnitus. You actually feel the gun shots on screen reverberate in your chest and you can hear the creak of Colonel Hans Lander’s Nazi leather jacket (played by the quite brilliant Christopher Waltz – give that man an Oscar).

In Thailand they play the national anthem before every movie, so don’t forget to respectably stand and keep your arms by your side when you do so. In the UK you are free to publicly criticize your monarchy but if you are caught doing so here then you may be facing at least 3 years in prison. Lèse-majesté is a crime taken very seriously here.

We know there are bigger cinema’s in Bangkok where you can get the full VIP treatment but this isn’t bad for a local, especially when you can have a plate of sushi down the hall at the Kobune Japanese Restaurant for 25 Baht. The cuts of fish, rice and meat are served on a plate that floats by your table on a mock pirate ship!

Tally:

Two cinema tickets = 200 Baht

Two bowls of noodles = 100 Baht

4 sushi plates and two cokes = 150 Baht

Total = 450 Baht (8 quid total – 4 quid each)

For any of you teachers out there about to hop on a plane to teach abroad, E is going to write some stuff about her experiences teaching at an international school soon. After I’ve corrected all my grammatical errors on this blog, I’ll fill you in on how my intensive 4 week TEFL course is getting on – I start in about 10 days!

15/08/2009 - Chatuchak Market

Our flat is crudely lit with bright white bulbs that seems to be the norm in Thailand. Our best educated guess on this is that it keeps the bugs away (anyone reading this who knows the answer, as Google has failed me, please let us know). Because of this we needed to go somewhere to get some mood lighting and a couple of throws for the couch, bed, etc, and were told that this place has it all.

This weekend market is so big it’s got its own tourist information center and printed map. If you want to do this in a day, you’re fooling yourself. It’s massive. It crams its 10,000 stalls into 28 acres of land in northern Bangkok. We’d heard it gets crowded so we left early and arrived at Mo Chit Skytrain station at 8:30. The Skytrain has two lines - Silom Line and Sukhumvit Line. To get to Mo Chit from Ekkamai only cost us 40 Baht each. You can also get an unlimited one day travel card for the Skytrain (also called the BTS)for 120 Baht which will allow you to go to any stop on any Skytrain line.

The market is split into 14 sections: Food and Drink, Books, Antiques and Collectibles, Handicrafts, Clothing and Accessories, Pets and Accessories, Used Clothing, Gardening Tools, Furniture, Art and Galleries, Ceramics, Gifts and Souvenirs, Massage and Spa and Others. It’s only a short walk from there to the tourist info center where you can pick up your essential map. We told ourselves we had to stick to a couple sections of the market only and headed straight for the handicrafts section. It was full of all the usual trinkets and bits you see in expat’s houses – wooden elephants, joss stick holders, little baskets, etc. E’s eyes lit up and we both started bartering straight away. For the first time since we’d been in Thailand I didn’t get my usual dizzy vertigo feeling and absolutely loved winding my way through the crowded lanes. It’s not manic here, either. We both thought the vendors would be after the hard sell with lots of shouting and frantic bidding going on. It was actually pretty quiet, even when it started to fill up – there was just a respectable low hubbub of eager Thai’s, tourists and expats bartering for their goods which made it even more pleasant in relentless heat. One highlight was a traditional Thai instrument shop we stumbled upon and E asked one of the assistants to play on the Saw-U, a two stringed instrument with a coconut shell for its head. We remembered where the shop was and promised ourselves to head back when we could. You can check out their website at www.jidathaicraft.com. It’s in Thai but there are pictures to help you navigate the site. We managed to find what we needed (a pair of small wooden lamps, some hand made paper fairy lights, a couple Thai triangular cushions for the balcony with a straw mat for them to sit on, a couple of bin baskets and I’ve forgotten what else…) and after 4 hours of goggle eyed shopping, we caught a cab home (yes, don’t get on a bus if you’ve got loads of bags).

            Tally:

            Thai silk cover (king size) = 700 Baht

            Thai farmer’s hat = 35 Baht

            Straw mat = 100 Baht

            Two large Thai triangle floor cushions = 750 Baht

            Pair of wooden lamps = 350 Baht

            Paper fairy lights = 150 Baht

            Bin baskets x3 = 60 Baht

            Total = 2145 (39 quid). 

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.