The journey from Siem Reap to Bangkok brought with it 10 hours on a bus and 2 hours in a sweaty queue at the border. However, it also brought with it the return to the land of 7 Eleven service stations and the holy grail of snacks, the 7 Eleven toastie – you win some, you lose some.
Our primary goal for our return to Bangkok involved shopping and stocking up on all our supplies before heading down south to the islands. No cultural exploring this time. Instead of staying near Khao San Road we opted for the more upmarket neighbourhood of Sukhumvit, much closer to the shopping district and easy to access via the metro and sky train.
We started our shopping adventure at Chatuchak weekend market, taking advantage of the bargains on offer and trawling through the cheap clothes. After a while we couldn’t bear the heat and were craving air conditioning.
We jumped on the metro and first headed for Lumphini Park, one stop we’d missed on our first visit to Bangkok. On our short stroll through the park we were lucky enough to see a wild monitor lizard. We were both pretty taken aback by the sight of it and jumped back screaming, Annie at first thinking it was a crocodile.
Bangkok’s Many Malls
A short taxi ride later and we were back at CentralWorld Mall, ready to through ourselves back into capitalism and western chain shopping. We spent the afternoon perusing H&M, Pull & Bear and Boots, stocking up on necessities and Annie being very successful in filling her backpack with new clothes.
CentralWorld was decked out with Christmas decorations and for the first time on the trip we started to feel festive and in the Christmas spirit!
On the second day we went to Terminal 21, another shopping mall near our hostel, partially to browse for more clothes and partially to see the excellent theming of the mall itself. It’s based on an airport, with arrivals and departures escalators taking you between each floor, each floor representing a different far flung metropolis. There are floors based on Rome, San Francisco, London and Paris, with appropriate landmarks throughout. The highlight of the mall was its huge food court in the basement, which we spent far too long browsing.
Red Light District
On our first visit to Bangkok we’d skipped Soi Cowboy, Bangkok’s infamous red light district, due to it being a fair way from our hostel. This time we were staying just around the corner, so it would be rude not to at least have a walk around. Our stroll along Soi Cowboy was exactly as we imagined it would be, filled with tourists, loud music and glamorous Thai ladies of the night.
Bangkok from Above
One of the things we wanted to fit into our stopover in Bangkok was a visit to one of its many sky bars. After assessing the prices and dress codes of many bars (and the backpacker wardrobe options we had available) we decided on Brewski, a craft beer bar on the top of the Radisson Hotel.
We were so glad we managed to fit it in as the views over Bangkok’s skyline were spectacular. We splashed out on a couple of glasses of wine each and got slowly tipsier as we watched the sun setting. We’d finally made it to the classy side of Bangkok!
We were enjoying our evening so much that we lost track of time and had to make a mad scramble for our night bus to Koh Tao. We had to make it all the way across town to Khao San Road in a taxi, through pretty bad traffic, but we made it with time to spare, ready for the journey to our island Christmas.
Chloe x
Pint-Sized Adventurers 