Full Bangkok Experience

Mandy:

We realized that there's not too much to do in Bangkok during the day other than shopping shopping shopping. I would have never guessed that I could actually be bored of shopping! :O I guess when I travel I expect to do more than spend my days in giant shopping complexes. We did try some new things as well. We started the morning off with an authentic Thai iced tea for me and a Thai iced coffee for norm from a local vendor cart. My iced tea tasted a lot better than in Toronto since it was way less sweet because they use evaporated milk versus condensed milk. After that we were on the lookout for street food. We ended up in this chaotic local shopping area with so many people and no where to walk. Norm got a rice dish and I had a savory crepe. We still weren't full so we went back to the wonton restaurant :) After we were all full we went to Siam Paragon and Siam Centre mall where we grabbed a snack from Dr. Jones Orphanage (I don't get the name either). After that we headed to a neighbourhood called Sukhumvit. We should've listened to our hotel concierge who told us that there is nothing to do there. We ended up going back to Siam Paragon because we had nowhere else to go and it reminded us of a mall in Seoul we really liked. The mall had a premium grocery store, mini restaurants, dessert, etc. We managed to fit some cheese gyozas and other small eats before we walked home.

Local drink cart

Street rice

Giant crepe

Wonton place round 2!

Delicious mall food

Giant shopping malls

Carrot cake was good but the chocolate milk was weird

Oh la la la.. Norm's dream

Cheesy gyozas

Mandy's dream ;)

Best type of mochi

We couldn't go to Thailand and not go to a Muay Thai fight so we checked out the arena. We bought the cheapest 1000 baht tickets (pretty expensive for what you get). The "seating" area was shared with the locals. Apparently tourists pay a premium which makes sense. I can't see the locals affording to pay 1000 baht per game. Anyway so there were about 10 fights that night. Each fight was about 4 or 5 rounds. I got pretty bored fast as I didn't know what was going on but the locals chanting and the coaches cheering was pretty eventful. Some of the fighters were so young! They looked 15 at most. I also want to mention that I needed to pee but I held it in for two hours because the washroom was DISGUSTING 0__0

Not the best seats in the house =P

Round oneeeeeeee!

After much debate we also couldn't leave Bangkok without visiting Patong and seeing a Ping Pong show. We did our research online and prepared ourselves so we wouldn't get scammed. We knew we were close when all the men kept harassing us about Ping Pong and Thai Girl shows (we initially thought they were saying Tiger shows but our friend Alison clarified that for us, haha). We finally found the Super Pussy neon sign and the men swarmed us. We were skeptical at first because an American couple came outside and said "600 baht a drink!? Forget it!" But a salesman assured us he can get us in with no cover and we just have to buy a 300 baht drink each. Norm confirmed the details and we went up the stairs. To our surprise we only ended up paying 300 baht a drink and paid tips for the tricks. Women kept going up to us for a massage but we shooed them away. The show itself wasn't super interesting... It was everything we expected. They shot ping pong balls out and a tourist hit it back, blew on a bell, smoked a cig but the most amazing was shooting a dart to pop a balloon. Three balloons in a row! After a few tricks I told Norm to chug the Singha so we could get out of there. Left without any problems. Phew.