after hearing rave reviews on the most hyped-up place in bangkok, we just had to check out cha-tu-chak. i was curious to find out what kind of things they had to offer us easily deceived buyers! the place wasn't far for us as it was just a couple of stops away from where we stayed, it probably took us 15 minutes to get there. there's apparently 3 stops to cha-tu-chak and the best was to stop at "kampheng phet" (yes, i know what a name!) anyway, this stop leads you directly to my weakness "clothes". holy molly!! "heaven"
we arrived at 11 or so, and mind you it was HOT as HELL. please, highly recommend! for you to wear the skimpiest of your clothes, if you think you're going to look all sluttish, fret not its the common look you get in bangkok anyway! except for the fact that you're not latched onto some "mat salleh" hihi.
okay, just to inform you cha-tu-chak is a weekend market and the size of this place is 7football fields combined together, different sections will see different stuff from clothings, textiles, animals, household goods, food, handbags, all the fake goodies and many many more!! the prices varies for the goods sold from 4 baht - hundreds or even thousands! depends on your taste, as for me my taste wasn't as exquisite, i was happy purchasing all the cheap goodies! hihi... i like.
we walked and walked... and walked even more as for me i was moving around like a headless chicken not knowing where to go and what to do... yes aside from constantly stopping at every little cubicle that sells dresses and stuff! what else is there to do but to shop right? indeed, that was what i did for at least 4 hours... but to be honest this time round i did not go all crazy grabbing every little thing i liked. which was rather odd for me.
another thing i would advice you is to bring a face towel as you will be sweating like a bitch, and i kid you not. as the crowd comes in, the place will be filled with body heat and you'd feel like the sun is getting nearer, and it gets hotter! you'll be drenched in your smelly sweat. but hey, i guess its just a must when you're there to endure all these things all together. things we do to shop huh?
they have loads of little stalls for you to purchase your drinks, and small carts with the funky looking and colored popsicle to cool you down, and these things would cost you lesser than RM1 so yeah no biggie. for those who is particular about what they eat, there is a muslim community there selling delicious delicacies from rice with dishes and the famous beef ball noodles. don't worry you won't starve to death there.
finally, we decided to sit down and enjoy the wonderful coconut drink which was heaven sent... ahhh... and my goodness please wear the most comfortable shoe wear that you have, if you think you could walk in those extremely expensive shoes to look good, then you're screwed! just take the cheapest slippers on sandals that you have in your shoe cabinet and be happy with it. don't tell me i didn't warn you. well the worse that could happen to you is that you'll be walking around with the slippers that you can purchase from the market itself, the ones with the beads that you buy for approximately RM40 here and only pay 18baht there or you can buy those funky looking birkenstock for almost the same amount, your choice.
as i looked at the stuff that i had gotten, i told hubs that i could not proceed any longer as my legs felt like it was about to drop off or go into a coma! i was tired. yes, the little miss greedy was getting all tired and just needed to get back as quickly as possible to shower and get out of the smelly clothes!
the weekend market activity ended at 4p.m. for the both of us. we decided to drag our tired asses back to the hotel. phew!
**
managed to get my eyes shut for an hour, then got ready to head to the 'red light district' called "patpong" night market. well if you ask me, its more like "pingpong" night market... because that would be the most common invitation that you'll get!
got there about 8p.m. and we were hunting for a good seafood restaurant, as we were both hungry and ready to pig out! so finally we saw a nice looking restaurant at the heart of the place and decided yeah, why not since they had the menu written in english. we just had to make sure that we knew what we were ordering. as you can see i'm fussy when i travel, don't want to simply order something and i was going to regret about it later.
anyway, we had pad-thai noodle with the seafood tom yam, some fried squid with dried chillies and the best deep fried garoupa with garlic made for (lazy eaters like myself!) what the chef did was fillet the fish and fried it with batter and fried the bones which had the head attached to it still and then placed all the fillet ontop of the bones to make it look as if they fried the whole thing together... really it was superb! you did not have to cut the fish on your own it was already done for you... hihi... NICE!
finally when we were done with dinner as we paid the shockingly expensive dins, we decided to take the receipt well for memory sake or to make sure we don't go there again, could be either one... we had a little chat with the manager...
manager: (smiled) sir, no sip?
us: (looking confused) sip? sip what?
manager: (looked at the booklet) and said again, no sip?
us: (what the heck is he talking about?) finally, we got the message, and figured out he was asking for TIP! not sip!! bodohlah jugak right? i thought what the f***! is he asking us to sip.
yeah, word of advice when you're in bangkok be prepared with all the small change you can get cause the tip is much expected of the tourists!
walked around the 'patpong/pingpong' market and we were approached like 20 times by all the vultures from all the clubs there, they had this extremely disgusting aura! they creep up behind you and say, "SPECIAL SHOW?" we have "PING PONG SHOW" you want? see special show? that's all they know i guess, and then they will present you with the most shocking MENU. its called the "pussy menu" (pardon my french)... and it has all the description of all the shows they're able to entertain you with.
i looked at hubs and said, "i'm good to go if you're up for it. but just to inform you in advance, i will not be seating, drinking, touching anything that is served from any of these clubs or these girls..."
he then turned around and said, "its okay babe, i think i'll pass! the menu looked scary! thank god for that, seriously!
then one of the shops had football jerseys for sale, so hubs stood there looking at the teams they had, the guy looked and asked, "what team you looking for?" he said, "its okay i'm still looking"...
the guy had the cheek to look at us and say, "better don't look, buy better! no need to look" besterd!! okay so we walked, and ended up at this massage parlour... seriously we had a good bargain on it, 250baht for 1 hour for foot massage or thai massage. seriously? after the amount of walking we did today it was rather difficult for us to pass the opportunity to exploit them :)
ahh... when we were done we had to rush back with a cab as it was raining heavily, and the cabbie was getting all mad, but thank god for the fact that we could not understand a single word he was uttering! the beauty of them not being able to speak in english.
No comments:
Post a Comment