The Suan Lum Night Bazaar
February 10, 2008
One of Thailand Musings readers was kind enough to take me up on my offer to publish your stories, so today we have a guest writer.
Richard Elliot gives us his take on the Suan Lum Night Market in Bangkok. I love this post because Suan Lum is just 2 blocks from Golf’s old apartment in Bangkok so as you can imagine we spent quite a few nights there. Thank you Richard!
Richard comes to us from jolly old England and his blog is a personal style blog with his own musings as well as travel and food related postings. Give his blog a visit and let him know you got there from Thailand Musings 
Many people visit
The night market is open every day and is easy to get to, located less than two minutes walk from the Lumphini MRT / Underground station. If you prefer to get a metered taxi, it is on Rama IV road and every taxi driver will know how to get there.
I have always found the market very friendly and approachable for a (first time) tourist. It has an excellent range of shops, but is smaller and more manageable than its more famous bigger brother Chatachuk Market. It also has the advantage of being open every day unlike Chatachuk market, which is only open at weekends. Despite being tourist friendly, there are lots of locals at the market and prices aren’t too expensive either.
As with every Thai market there is almost everything you can imagine for sale. My favorite items are the excellent range of silk scarves and clothing, handmade crafts (including a great card shop), t-shirts, bags and CDs. An excellent place to buy presents for friends and family back home as well stores for your onward trip through
There is a large food court at the market which has an excellent range of street food favorites, mine being the Som Tum papaya salad. Most evenings you will find a live band playing on the large stage within the food court. On the other side of the market there are a number of beer gardens and restaurants, serving German Wheat beer and showing Premiership Football (soccer) matches for home sick European travelers.
If you have more time to spend in the area and arrive early, try relaxing in
Being so close to the main business district of Bangkok, the market seems to be under constant threat of closure with developers seeking to build on the site. Thankfully it is still open, visit before it is too late!
Popularity: 5% [?]
Siam Paragon and Siam Ocean World
January 20, 2008
An interesting recent addition to Bangkok (December 9, 2005) is Siam Ocean World which is located in the basement level of Siam Paragon. Siam Ocean World is the largest aquarium in SE Asia and includes penguins, sharks and a variety of offbeat sea creatures. It is great for kids and even adults will find something interesting here. 
Plan on spending 1-2 hours to see the entire exhibit. Admission is 750 baht for adults and 600 baht for children which seems a bit expensive to me, but what the heck you’re on vacation right? Oh, if you’re Thai then you pay 280 baht for children and 450 baht for adults which is a bit more reasonable. Isn’t dual pricing wonderful?
Siam Paragon is huge with a total area of over 300,000 sq. meters about 1/3 of which is devoted to department stores. It is an upscale mall catering to wealthy Thai’s and foreigners and has many luxury brands including Gucci, Hermes and Burberry. You’ll also find many small Thai traditional arts stores carrying everything from tiny items to very expensive and highly decorative silk, ivory, and antiques, ostentatiously geared towards the extremely wealthy.
Especially interesting, especially to car afficianados are the autos on display at Siam Paragon. Kids may not be that impressed, but many adults will enjoy it much more than Siam Ocean World. Ferrari’s, Lamborghini’s and Maserati’s are on display which is even more impressive considering the high auto import tax in Thailand makes these cars 50-100% more expensive than they would be in the west.
Siam Paragon and Siam Ocean World are located in the large mall area on Rama 1 Road in the Pathum Wan district of Bangkok. It is quite easy to get to either by Skytrain (Siam Station) or by taxi. Next door to Siam Paragon you’ll find Siam Center and Siam Discovery. MBK Shopping Center is also within walking distance and other nearby centers include Gaysorn Mall which is the most upscale of the Bangkok malls and Central World Plaza. Considering all of the nearby options you could easily spend the day in this area and 1 hour or so to investigate the aquatic displays at Siam Ocean World is worth it.
Popularity: 56% [?]
BANGKOK SHOPPING STREETS FESTIVAL
January 1, 2008
Originally launched in 2001, the Bangkok Shopping Streets Festival is a tourism promotion initiative jointly developed by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), other state agencies and a range of organizations representing the private sector, particularly department stores, shopping malls and plazas, hotels and office buildings along Rajadamri, Ploenchit and Rama I Road.
This year, Bangkok’s Shopping Street extends from the Ploenchit Road intersection to the Ratchaprasong Road intersection and Pathumwan Road intersection.
Timed to coincide with the festive season and Christmas and New Year celebrations, the Bangkok Shopping Street Festival culminates with the 2008 Bangkok New Year Countdown featuring the theme, Bangkok Countdown 2008 @ Central World - The World of Happiness.
Christmas trees, traditional trimmings and other festive decorations transform the city’s Shopping Streets into a magical wonderland by night, reminding passers-by that the season of well-wishing and gift-giving is upon us. Gardens, shopping malls and plazas, department stores, hotels, banks, office buildings, 14 pedestrian bridges and the SkyWalk – a maze of interconnected elevated walkways and islands in the middle of road are decorated with thousands of colourful decorative lights that twinkle through the night.
A bright and beautiful spectacle to behold by night, the colourful twinkling lights and the bright glow from festive decorations warms the heart and lifts the spirit. This is the picture-perfect backdrop for memorable photo opportunities with loved ones, family and friends.
The Bangkok Shopping Street Festival draws on Thailand’s international reputation as the ’shopping hub’ of the region and is backed by the country’s tradition of legendary hospitality and service excellence.
In 2007, the city of Bangkok ranked third in the 2007 Travel + Leisure World’s Best Top 10 Cities Overall and also maintained its leadership among the Top 10 cities in Asia.
December 25, 2007 – January 15, 2008
Ploenchit Road intersection –
Popularity: 13% [?]
Wat Po - Thailand’s Temple of the Reclining Buddha
November 1, 2007
Aside from the shopping and nightlife of Bangkok there is also a very spiritual side to the city and one can find over 500 temples or ‘wats’ spread throughout the City of Angels. The most famous of these is probably Wat Phra Kaew or the Temple of the Emerald Buddha located in the Grand Palace, but the largest of the temples in Bangkok is Wat Po or Temple of the Reclining Buddha.
Wat Po is absolutely stunning. The reclining Buddha is a beautiful, huge and majestic reclining Buddha measuring 138 feet long and covered completely in gold leaf. The Buddha’s feet are 9 feet long and exquisitely decorated in mother-of-pearl illustrations of auspicious ‘laksanas’ (characteristics) of the Buddha. In addition to the reclining Buddha there are other Buddha artifacts which by themselves would be quite beautiful. In addition, the grounds are like a sea of serenity within the hustle and bustle of Bangkok.
You can easily reach Wat Po from the Grand Palace, it’s a short 10-15 minute walk and there is a small market across the street which has some interesting things and the typical tasty street food vendors. Beware however the touts on the sidewalks surrounding Wat Po. They will try to tell you that the temple is closed (for any variety of reasons) and will offer to get a taxi or tuk-tuk for you to see other sights around Bangkok. These guys are NOT really trying to help you and if you accept their offers you will end up who knows where. Most of them will send you off to various shops which are tourist traps selling dubious quality products at inflated prices.
Wat Po is also one of the best places in Bangkok to get a traditional Thai massage. In fact, the massage school at Wat Po is one of the oldest traditional Thai massage schools and the monks at Wat Po effectively wrote the book on Thai massage. The massage school isn’t all that obvious, but you can find it in the backyard area of Wat Po. The massages are 120 baht for a ½ hour and 200 baht for an hour which may be a bit expensive for Thailand, but still not expensive at all by western standards. And it’s a great way to both invigorate and relax at the same time!
Wat Po is open daily from 8:00am until 5:00pm and massages are available until 6:00pm
The entrance fee is 20 baht.
Please remember that Thai temples are sacred places and you should dress and behave accordingly. Do not come to the temple in shorts, sleeveless shirts or other revealing clothing. Think of it the same way as if you were visiting a church in the west and use your best judgment.
Also for you ladies…Monks are not permitted to touch or be touched by women. So if you want to give something to a monk you can either hand it to a male to give to them or you can place a cloth on the ground and then place the item on the cloth for the monk to pick up.
Wat Po really is quite amazing and if you only get to see a temple or a few while in Bangkok make sure that the Temple of the Reclining Buddha is one of them. Trust me you won’t be disappointed at all.
Popularity: 54% [?]
Thailand Crimes and Bangkok Scams
October 28, 2007
This weekend’s surfing of the internet and blogosphere has brought me to several sites that talk about scams and crimes in Bangkok and Thailand. And what I’ve found has simply reinforced my belief that Bangkok is one of the safest cities in the world.
First is a story from The Nation about the number of robberies in Bangkok. Turns out that in the first 8 months of 2007 there have been just 280 robberies reported to the Bangkok Tourist police. Now keep in mind that this is just one robbery a day in the 13th largest city in the world which also has around one million tourists a month coming to visit. I would say that is pretty darn good.
If you’re still concerned about being robbed in Bangkok then here are the top seven places to be on guard:
- Chatuchak market (85 reported robberies)
- MBK (76 reported robberies)
- Bus terminals (50 reported robberies)
- Pratunam/Silom Road/Patpong (46 reported robberies)
- China Town (11 reported robberies)
- Sukhumvit road (7 reported robberies
- Suan Lum night bazzar (5 reported robberies)
Bear in mind too that just 5 suspects have been arrested so far none of those were Thai’s. So basically if you get robbed consider it a complete loss and hope that your insurance will re-imburse you. Consider yourself warned.
A second site I found is called Bangkok Scams and yep you guessed it, they cover various scams to be found in and around Bangkok. Nothing really new here though, basically the same old scams revolving around gems, dual pricing, overpriced drinks in Patpong bars, and touts in general. If you’re a newbie to Thailand it may be worth a look, but really some common sense and caution will go a long way for most.
Again I want to reiterate that I feel Bangkok is the safest city I have ever been to and I can’t see how any person who is aware of their surroundings and displays just a bit of caution would have a problem. I know there is much more crime, and violent crime at that, in the U.S. even in my small town of just 250,000 inhabitants.
Popularity: 39% [?]
