Lily Lee: June 2013

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Bangkok 21 to 24 June

Truely awed by the room in Shangri-la - both the interior as well as the view of the river from our room on the 21st floor. Love the toilet too - so big with separate areas for bathtub, shower and toilet bowl..

Love the interior -deco in our room

Look at the 40 inch big TV with DVD player. LANs connection and Wi-Fi available as well!

Love the toilet - so spacious

View from our room

Took a ferry to Chinatown (N5) from the pier near to the hotel - 40 baht for the one way trip. The Sampeng lane is full of shops selling items in bulk - toys, stationery, accessories etc so cheaply! We also managed to try out some street food... love the goreng pisang and the fried carrot cake. We then went to our favourite shark fin soup and bird nest restaurant - Dragon city in Chinatown. We also ordered a suckling pig and fried rice.

One-way ticket to N5 pier near Chinatown at 40 baht

Love the carrot cake which comes with bean sprouts

Lots of cheap stuff at Sampeng market

True shark fin soup and bird nest soup at Dragon City Restaurant

Suckling Pig - Hong Kong style

One of the temples near Chinatown - Temple of the Golden Buddha or Wat Traimit

We decided to take the hotel's free boat shuttle to Asiatique. However as it was still early, we took some cheese and coffee while waiting for the boat.. love the free wi-fi available throughout the hotel and the signal is so strong compared to Pullman's. Didn't find what we wanted at Asiatique so we took a cab to MBK. Managed to buy a number of t-shirts, jeans as well as a bag there.

Tea while waiting for the hotel's ferry

This is the hotel's ferry which will bring you to Asiatique or River front free

The ferry attendant was very friendly and helped us to take this photo on board.

Asiatique

the stalls near to MBK

Love the vegetable, grilled sotong and steamed fish at a stall outside our hotel.

Took a cab to Dreamworld on our 2nd day in Bangkok. Love the Fantasy Land and the Giant house. 800bht including all rides and snow city. However we were not interested in the ride - woud be fun for the litttle ones or teenagers. Went over to Chatuchak weekend market and took more street food. Had dinner at the Italian restaurant in our hotel and took a cab to Patpong after that.

was lost in the giant house!

More shopping on 3rd day in Bangkok. We bought the one-day BTS pass at 160 baht and took the train to Siam Centre. Could not find much there - proceeded to the Rachathewi station for the well known wholesale mall - Platinum Mall. Bought a number of jeans and hair accessories (only 3 or 4 for 100 baht) - regretted not getting more as it is the cheapest in Bankok. We also visited the Pantip IT mall next to it. As it started to drizzle, we decided to go back to hotel and ate at the stalls outside the hotel - love the beef and chicken with basil leaves set rice. After that we went to Khao San Road and then back to MBK for more t-shirts.

Ratchathewi BTS station

Pantip IT Mall - electronic products at a bargain

A lot of street food outside Platinum Mall.

Love the local food - fried chicken with basil leave rice set and the Tom Yum Gong

Khao San Road

Love this - similar to our otah

Bug cart at Khao San Road

dessert stall in the food court @MBK

Explored the areas along the Chao Phraya River by buying a one day tourist pass. As we had already explored Chinatown N5, Grand Palace N9 we went to N8 Tha Thien Market (more on dried seafood), took a ferry across to Wat Arun - the temple of dawn. Ferry to Wat Arun cost 3bht and admission ticket 50 baht. We tried on the costume at 100 baht each. After that went to N10 Wang Lang Market. Wang Lang Market is near to the Hospital and there are many pharmacies there. We decided to take the ferry to pier N3 near River city and then the shuttle boat back to Shangri-La Hotel.

Tha Thien Market

Taking a ferry across to Wat Arun at 3 baht

Costume for rental - 100 baht

The tourist boat

My favourite - Wang Lang Market - so many local food stall

Love the been hoon soup - so cheap too - 30 baht

So colourful!

Love this local dessert!

Lunch at River City - nice food but expensive

Last look out of the hotel's room before we leave Bangkok.

More photos here -

21 June https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151532151934200.1073741848.676019199&type=1&l=2f370737a6

22 June https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151533385984200.1073741849.676019199&type=1&l=61c045c2cf

23 June https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151535026904200.1073741850.676019199&type=1&l=c331950555

24 June https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151537605419200.1073741851.676019199&type=1&l=11980b0c86

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Pattaya 18 to 21 June

Took the Thai Airway to Bangkok and managed to engage http://pttaxiservice.com/ for the taxi transfer from Bangkok airport to Pattaya. Their service is good- waiting way ahead of time and the driver was holding a board with my name at exit 3. I bought the 4 sets of the 7 day tourist 3G sim card (unlimited data with 100 baht call value) at 299 baht from dtac at the airport for our phones and tablets. We managed to reach Pullman Pattaya Hotel G at 1130 am. We were given an executive club room on the 9th floor - breathtaking view of the sea facing the gulf of Siam.

We took a taxi to the Santuary of Truth (Prasat Sut-Ja-Tum) and was awed by the architecture - all using wood carvings. It cost us 650 baht each with the horse carriage from the entrance to the Sanctuary as well as 2 rounds around the sanctuary. We had our lunch at the sanctuary - love the prawn omelette and steam fish!

the carvings on the ceilings

A true sanctuary - not crowded with tourists.

love the horse carriage ride

I love the fish and the omelette!

After that we proceeded to the Art in Paradise - a 3D interactive museum. We had so much fun taking photos there with all the 3D drawings. The admission was 500 baht each. We went to Health cruise which was just next to the museum for a 2-hr body massage. The massage was super cheap at 500 baht (around $21) per person for 2hr. After the massage we went for dinner at the nearby night market. Local delights such as Phai Thai, Fried oyster, Mango rice and bee hoon soup with coagulated pig blood. We walked down to Central Festival Mall (Big C) at 2nd road and did not find anything we wanted so we decided to go to Walking Street. We took a taxi and there was a bad jam at Beach road near to walking Street. It suddenly poured and we decided to take shelter at a Russian restaurant. Love the sauce for the beef fillet and the Lobster Thermidor with rice. Though it was our first try at Russian food.. I must say it isn't bad at all. Lee managed to find the bug cart which was at the extreme end of the Walking Street when we were looking for taxi to bring us back to the hotel. He bought the scorpion, beatle, cricket, locust and other bugs.... he said that the scorpion taste nice like fried prawn but the beatle is the worst as it is acidic. We didn't see any taxi around so we took the tuk tuk back to the hotel. We realised that the taxi was just a bit further down the road! The wind was so strong and the waves plunges against the beach... we could hear the wind howling even when we closed the windows.

Art in Paradise (Pattaya) - had fun with the 3D interactive paintings in the museum.

the bugs which my husband sampled...

The breakfast on 19 June was at the sunset lounge. They even have champaign and smoked salmon for breakfast. The coffee was strong and omelette was served rather that having to queue for it in most hotels. After that we walked down the beach as I have booked a 4-hand massage at the Aisawan Spa in the hotel where we are staying at 10am and there was still some time. The ambience was good though the price is still steep at 3700 baht (though the promotion was buy 1 get 1 free)

We have decided to engaged Mr Toy's taxi service as we find him very friendly and honest - he is prepared to bring us to 3 places from 1130am to 7pm for a price of 500baht. His email is wiboon53@hotmail.com and no. 0832392378. However as he was so nice - we gave him 1000 baht ($42). Our first destination was the floating market and luckily we got him as it was quite a distance away from our hotel. I found a lot of local food there. After that we went to Royal Garden Plaza where we visited Ripley's Believe it or not, Lord Tussaud's Wax work, Infinity Maze at a package price of 600baht each. We had cold feet at the infinity maze as it was so dark and came out the moment we entered! We had tea at the food court above it and the view of Pattaya Beach was amazing from the food court.

Hubby forgot to take off his shoes when he went up the platform to try the local dishes at the floating market.

Free cultural performance at the floating market - more like them flirting with each other.

Can't believe anyone would take a boat ride under the hot sun... all parts of the floating market are accessible by foot as they are linked by bridges on the artificial lake.

Lord Tussaud's Wax work

After that we went to Mini Siam and took many photos. Personally I prefer this than the one in Taiwan. I was pleasantly surprised that there was a night market next to Mini Siam - more shopping and food. We went back to our hotel at 7pm as I have already made a reservation for dinner Bodego Fever (Spanish) at Beach Bar.

Not all are miniature size!

night market next to Mini Siam

nice cream local pancake

excellent performance by Santos @ Bodega night- he even sang us a Chinese song

cold soup - interesting idea

We decided to just relax on the 3rd day - we had a 2 hr massage with a foot scrub at the Savanna Spa nearby at only a total of 1400 baht for the 2 of us. We also decided to walk to the Dolphin Roundabout and do some window shopping. We saw the JJ night market and decided to visit it in the evening. We went back to the hotel after visiting the World Gem and the souvenir shop.We went back to the hotel and got the cabana bed near the beach and had our lunch- oyster and seafood platter there. The current was too strong for swimming and hubby went over to the pool. We went to the night market but did not find much.. I bought a watch and hubby bought 2 spectacle case. We had dinner at a Korean restaurant - the building did not look impressive but the food is good!