Day 7: The Chatuchak day and a bit of khao san road

Day 7: 30th Dec 2012

Day: 7

 I am wondering what a lazy bones I should be not being able to write a blog in a continuous manner. I promised myself to update on a twice in a day basis which gradually has become once in a week.
Grumblings apart.

I will write a review about Mystic place rooms hotel, Bangkok in this post and share my experiences about my day in Chatuchak.

(Hotel Review)

I stayed in this hotel just one night as I had plans to visit Chatuchak. Hotel has different themed rooms. The room I stayed in was trash chic. The decor of the room was built out of waste. It was an excellent idea. 
Location wise I would say it is not bang-on. I would say Mo-chit is on one far end of the city.
I tried locating the hotel all by myself from the BTS station it was quite difficult. Not If you take a taxi I am sure you would definitely find it easily.
The hotel offers Tuk-tuk service to BTS and Chatuchak on an hourly basis.
The service is efficient. They have a cafe called as mystic cafe prices are very reasonable but the portion is less.
The hotel served breakfast too. But on the downside vegetarian choice was limited to toast.
For Non-Vegetarians I would say nothing is an issue.
No noise and my room had a small balcony facing the road good enough for a laid back morning tea.
I will surely recommend this hotel for a short stay.

View of the room

I also want to add how creatively they have turned trash into treasure.
This photo would be a good example.

Stand made of crushed cans

Now, that I have written enough (I think! ^_^) about the hotel. Let me write how the day at chatuchak went for me.

This blue blue tuk-tuk took me to the Chatuchak market for free!!

Tuk-Tuk @ Mystic place rooms 

k t As everybody says, I will also say Chatuchak is huuuuuuge. It is definitiely bigger than the biggest of markets you would have seen.
My God what is not there. You will be spoilt for choice for anything and everything.
And definitely do not even try to venture without traking in a map which you can get at the entrances or the BTS station.

And don't worry even if you forget to pick one you have maps attached like the below here and there

Chatuchak Market Map

I made the mistake of not picking up the map and I would have rounded the same area for about 3 to 4 times. hehe. Happens.!

There is nothing you can't find in this market, name it you will find it.
I went around a lot and I kept a few things in my mind so that I could compare with a few shops around the market and then find the best one to purchase at a good rate.
What did you think? I did not or was not able to find the shop again.

All  lanes looked the same, I didn't have a clue where I was. As I had read many blogs that Chatuchak clock tower can be a point that nobody can miss.
Went round and round and round could no find where it was..

Poor me :( !

I kept walking and decided not to do the comparison stunt that I pulled up on myself.
And purchased all the junk stuff I could take with home with me. Just to add up the baggage fees I would be paying the Air Asia guys. Phew phew

Some photos in Chatuchak, to get you all an idea of the whole chatuchak scene

Plaster of paris models of dogs

As crowded as our T. Nagar

Me standing in one of the chatuchak lanes

I also spent a good 45 minutes just waiting to get my potrait done from one of the stands in there.
And the result was

My mother was pretty unhappy about this and commented that it didn't look like me at all.
What do you have to say??

The artists I would say actually did a good job and the price was THB 100 per per person.
You even have the option of getting it framed.

After doing all this stuff I again walked around and this time I shopped whatever I liked the very moment I liked, did not want to compare things.
I purchased everything that my mother would call as waste of money.

And to top it all I was not able to carry all the junk back to my hotel. I easily would have had 20 ~ 30 carry covers with me along with my water bottle and camera.
Now for the last junk item I purchased was a big bag to carry all the junk I purchased which I bought for THB 70 after bargaining hard.
The irony of the bag was that, it tore even before I could reach the hotel.
Way to go!

And I forgot to talk about the famous coconut ice cream of chatuchak

Coconut Icecream @ Chatuchak

No you guessed it wrong.
I did not try it. It cost THB 30 which was fair enough for the quantity.
I would strongly recommend against trying this coz it is highly unhygienic you can see the largest of flies buzzing all over the ice cream stall.

All the shops here start closing by around 5:00PM. And this is the time when you can see people giving heavily discounted prices.
If you still have energy to go around the market for a quick look or any last minute grabs I would definitely say you should not miss the discounted prices.

I had the energy and I went around to dig a deeper hole in my pocket.
I would have spent around THB 4000 that day. :( :( :(

I walked back to one of the entrance to find a taxi and none were ready to take me back to my hotel.
I walked my way to the BTS station with the heavy torn bag I had purchased.
Reached my hotel and now I had to check-out and they helped me find a taxi to my next destination near Khao San road.

Surprisingly the taxi driver went by meter, I have heard from a lot of people that taxi drivers would never agree to go to Khao san road by meter.
Anyways It took around 45 minutes to reach my hotel after coping up with Bangkok's traffic and the check-in was smooth.

This time I stayed in a hotel called Boon Siri Place.
All the way to Khao san was beautifully decorated. Once in my hotel I dropped my bags and ventured outside in the aim of walking to the infamous khao san road.

If you had noticed I have not spoken anything about food today. It's just that I forgot.
Lunch adventure happened at Chatuchak I ate in one of the small restaurants in there who served me some Malaysian fried rice(Vegetarian one of course)!
Sorry though I forgot the name of the restaurant. The quantity of food was Indian and all that for Just       THB 60.
Yaaaaahooooooo.
I thought this was the chance and ate two full plates of fried rice which would have been enough for me even for my dinner.

Coming back to the Khao san road hunt, My hotel was situated at a 7 minutes walking distance to Khao san but it took a little  longer for me to find the road and what seemed to be like a clean area all of a sudden turned into our T. Nagar Ranganathan street.
Lot of people, so many petty shops hawkers yelling at the top of their voice and few uncles approaching you with a bit of paper written Pussy show on it.
And at least 5 people would pass your ears saying " Ping-Pong show" / the sex show.
Warning: Don't get lured into it until you do not want to waste all your money on nothing but cheap sex tricks and you would be contributing to a sad part of the sex industry in Thailand.

Anyways I am walking further to see why khao san is famous, I know why now

• The sex shows
• Accommodation as cheap as THB 150 per night
• and for the best pad Thai in Thailand

You could also find creepy fried insects that these people sell and charge THB 10 if you want to take a photo.

I keep walking to the end of the road and something caught my eye

Coutesy: talkbangkok.com

And that was an Indian restaurant.. Drool drool drool drool
I do not know If I was secretly longing for Indian food, I went in the restaurant the moment I saw it.

And to my pleasure I saw a singh cook working in the kitchen. Authentic Indian food yayyyyyyyyyy....

I ordered everything from soup, masala papad, garlic naan, 2 side side and jeera rice. And I happily ate everything and I loved it.
The time to dig my pockets now, I expected a bill around THB 350 ~ 400. And guess what I decided not eat for next two days after seeing the bill. It was THB 870
Very good, what now?! I put a sad face and walked back to my hotel.

And I saw something that I would never forget on my way back to hotel and that was a chor ( Thief)
I saw him cut a foreigners bag at a distance and run away, I was surprised how it was.
And with 2 shocks for the day I came back to my room to sleep.

Now I am going sleep, so I will tell you the rest of the story in my next post

~ Kei