How to Spend A Week In Bangkok - Day 1 and Chatuchak

Day 1 of How to Spend a Day in Bangkok.

Over Eid break this year, we went to Bangkok for a week. To be clear, we were supposed to do 3 days in Bangkok, during which my sister was going to join us too (FUN), 2 days in Koh Samui and then another 2 days in Bangkok. After only the first 2 days in Bangkok though, we decided that (a) We had been running around far too much and were far too exhausted to add another two airport trips/flights to our week and (b) We needed more time to soak in this overwhelming city, so we cancelled Koh Samui and spent a whole week in Bangkok.

The reasons I picked Bangkok for my Eid break were (a) Ramadan was crazy exhausting with all the recipe posts, Bangkok has been on my bucket list for a while now, and (b) I wanted to go somewhere where I could just switch my brain off and relax and (c) I wanted to take an advanced level Thai cooking class, but sadly could not find anything higher than beginner/tourist level.

Bangkok sounded effortless, if you may. I wanted to just read a book by the pool in the shade of the trees with a coconut -or two- in hand without feeling the need to take too many pictures. Funnily enough, the trip (although exciting) felt less relaxing and more like an adventure which felt quite like the Amazing Race, with curveballs, detours and roadblocks, all in the quest for pork-free food.

We spent our first 5 days in Bangkok at the Hilton Sukhumvit, and the last two in Movenpick Sukhumvit. We usually try to move hotels every two days, to get the feel of different neighborhoods.

Let’s start at the beginning. This might be long and boring, but this should give you an idea of how much you can do during a week in Bangkok, and whether you even need to spend a week there or not.

Day 1:

We landed in Bangkok at 7:30 am on the 25th of June, and from the minute the airplane touched down, my excitement could not be contained. I was practically skipping to the immigration counter, and couldn’t stop inhaling deeply, because I absolutely LOVE the Far East, and I even love how it has it’s own, peculiar smell that I can’t help but find pleasant. Is it a combination of rice, pandan, fish sauce, rain and just about everything great about life? Probably. So far, I’ve been to Singapore, Malaysia and now Thailand, and I have loved all these places ever so much- in the same order.

My sister landed at DMK, and we landed at BKK. We all first went to our hotel to unload our luggage, leave our passports in the safety deposit box and freshen up a bit before braving our first day in Bangkok.

It took us about 30 minutes to get from BKK to Hilton Sukhumvit, because traffic was low on Sunday morning. The trip cost us around 550 bahts, which I would later learn is quite reasonable. Funnily enough, every time we went to the airport, it was much, more expensive (my sister paid 850 bahts to get back to DMK and we coughed up a hefty 1050 for our trip back to BKK).

After changing into some fresh shirts and slapping on some sunblock, we took the concierge’s recommendation and decided to take the BTS (Skytrain) to the first stop on our itinerary: Chatuchak Weekend Market. The closest Skytrain station to us was the Phom Phrong station, which was (without exaggeration), a 3-5 minutes walk from our hotel, depending on how long your legs are.

We had heard SO much about Chatuchak Weekend Market, about how it has 15000 stalls, and how one can find everything under the sun here. I was most interested in coconut ice-cream from Coco JJ, but everything we heard was true. We spent the next 5 hours there, and only left because our feet were hurting too much to even walk any longer.

We took a GrabCar to a randomly selected mall from our list of malls-to-visit, which turned out to be Siam Center. We learnt a few days and too many trips later that it is one of the most expensive ways to get around. At Siam Center, we officially initiated our quest for pork-free food, and found our way to food republic. Since we were hungry, we enjoyed our Tom Yum rice, Green Curry rice, Pad Thai, Mussels Omelette, Sticky Rice and Mango, and Thai Milk Teas very, very much. Yes, this was a single meal, yes, we were a total of 3 adults.

Just before we turned into the soi 24, which is where our hotel (Hilton Sukhumvit) was , we saw a Lek Massage Boutique, and decided to get off there instead. 1 hour foot massages for 350 bahts a pop, which is such a sweet deal that the foot massages at Lek became a daily ritual.