Thailand
Bangkok – Shopping
by James on Apr.21, 2004, under Thailand
Well hello from Bangkok,
Things have been good it is very hot here, and humid.
We arrived in Bangkok at midnight and when we finally found our tour guide in the airport he seemed to have difficulties trying to fit 6 people’s luggage and 8 people into a mini van… (funny that)
Well we got to the hotel safely and spent our first day looking at IT stuff in Pantip Plaza.
Unfortunately we thought we would get up early to beat the midday heat…unbeknown to us Thai shops don’t open till 10am… so we had a couple of hours of checking out 7 Eleven.
We found shopping quite a traumatic experience the first day. People are really pushy and watch you constantly.
Susan bought a MP3 player for about $120 which was a bit of score.
We have also seen a tailor and got measured up for suits so that will be good.
Taxi drivers will rip you off if they can for instance one driver wanted to charge us 200 Baht for a trip that usually cost 50 Baht.
Also you need to bring your own toliet paper to the toilets. Fortunately Susan had been reading Lonely planet otherwise that could have been embarassing.
Today we went on a temple tour which was really interesting. The tour guide was pretty on to it which made the time better. We went to the biggest Jewellery store in the world and Susan conned me into buying her a diamond ring.
This afternoon we have spent in an air conditioned shopping centre called MBK. The shopping is quite good here. Things are pretty reasonable like this internet access at $2 an hour. We both like the less pushy atmosphere and feel a lot safer here. There are more westerners here also so we don’t stick out like sore thumbs so much.
Looking forward to our tour of the floating markets tomorrow and getting to England where we can drink tap water again!