ABOUT BANGKOK, THAILAND
Timezone : UTC+07:00
Currency: Thai Baht (THB)
Visa: Not required for Malaysian
Plug adapter:
GETTING THERE
Took Air Asia to Bangkok. The 2 hours flight will take you from KLIA2 to Don Mueang International Airport. From the airport to your hotel, you can take a taxi or van, and can buy the ticket from the counter inside the airport. During this trip, we took a taxi as it was more convenient for the 3 of us.
Before leaving the airport, we bought a local sim card to get connected. Purchase Happy Tourist Sim which cost only 179 Baht. Coverage is quiet good and more than enough data for Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook, etc.
Happy Tourist Sim – 179 Baht and valid for 7 days
When its time to leave Bangkok, we took Grab from the hotel to the airport (Don Mueang). Did some shopping at the airport as well since I still have some money which I haven’t spend. Bought some Naraya pouches and Thai made soap & lotion (love it!). There’s also a play area for the kids and opposite the play area is a Halal eateries, which is just near to our departure gate!
ACCOMMODATION
Stayed at 2 different locations (quite similar to my trip in 2014 but different hotel in Sukhumvit) and book both rooms via Agoda. To make the best of your booking, you can also open Agoda apps via Shopback and you can receive up to 8% of the total booking credited to your account! Just make sure to download and register a Shopback account first.
- Sacha’s Hotel Uno – Located in Sukhumvit 19, 170 meter away from Terminal 21 and 200 meter away from Asok BTS Station and Sukhumvit MRT station, and opposite 7-11 so basically we chose this hotel because of the location. The hotel consists of 2 buildings, premier room located within the same building as the reception area, while deluxe rooms are located in separate building above a Japanese restaurant. The hotel room is big and clean, with free wi-fi, and they also have free a tuk-tuk shuttle service that can take you to a nearby location. Will definitely stay here again! (Image source: Agoda)
- Rambuttri Village Inn & Plaza – Located in Soi Rambuttri. Few minutes walk to Khao San Road and Banglamphu (where you can find a Halal eateries that I love to go to), which is a heaven for backpackers, and since the hotel is not really located in the main street of Khao San Road, you can still get a good night sleep! The hotel is nice and clean with free wi-fi and roof top pool. There’s also 7-11 and tour agency within the hotel.
GETTING AROUND
There’s a lot of ways to move around Bangkok – BTS & MRT (click here for map), taxi, tuk-tuk (check the price first and negotiate if possible), Chao Phraya Express Boat, Grab, bus, walking, depending on where you are going. For us, most of the time we use the BTS + walking, and sometimes Grab and tuk-tuk.
This year we came across the Chao Phraya Tourist Boat, a hop-on-hop-off boat, blue flag boat. We took the boat from Phra Arthit Pier to IconSiam because it was too hot to walk around Khao San at noon (it was 37 degress celcius) and since we have already visited most places near Khao San area previously + haven’t been to IconSiam. Basically the boat runs daily from 9am – 10.30pm. Boats depart every 30 minutes from 9 piers: Sathorn Pier (BTS Saphan Taksin), IconSiam Pier, Lhong 1919 Pier, Ratchawongse Pier, Pakklong Taladd (Yodpiman) Pier, Wat Arun Pier, Tha Maharaj Pier, Thonburi Railway Station Pier, and Phra Arthit Pier (if you are in Khao San area, can take the boat from this pier or if from city, can go to Khao San and stop at this pier). From 4pm to 6pm, the route is extended to Asiatique as well.
Refer below for the ticket fare.
- All Day All Night Pass (unlimited “hopping” within 9am – 10.30pm, departing time from Sathorn on the purchase date) – 300 Baht
- One-Day River Pass (unlimited “hopping” within 9am – 5.30pm, departing time from Sathorn on the purchase date) – 200 Baht
- One-Night River Pass (unlimited “hopping” within 3pm – 10.30pm, departing time from Sathorn on the purchase date) – 200 Baht
- Single-journey Ticket (Valid for one “Hop off” only. Buy a new ticket to hop back on) – 60 Baht
- Free for children 90cm and below
Visit their official website for more details such as boat timetable.
TOURS
There’s a lot of tour agency which you can go to (and can also do comparison before making the booking). We booked 1 tour during this trip through Mr Thai (this is the name of the tour agency) which is located within Rambuttri Village Inn.
- Damnoen Saduak Floating Market – is a floating market in Damnoen Saduak District, Ratchaburi Province, about 100 kilometres southwest of Bangkok, Thailand (around 2 hours journey from Khao San). It has become primarily a tourist attraction, attracting domestic and foreign tourists. It is often considered the most famous floating market. Tips: if you want to buy cheaper souvenir, walk towards the end to Paew Souvenir. The shops that you visit during the paddle boat tour is quite expensive. One of the tourist in our boat wanted to buy a fridge magnet and the seller was trying to sell it at 499 Baht! Per piece! She manage to negotiate further to 80 Baht at the end. As for Halal food, we just bought grill banana during the paddle boat ride and a coffee at the stall. We saw one boat selling Halal fried chicken and prawn but it was too late to stop. (Reusing photos from 2014 so that I can save some space for my media upload..lol
- Maeklong Railway market – Maeklong Railway Market is a traditional Thai market selling fresh vegetables, food and fruits. What makes it special is that the market is located on a train line where, a few times a day, the train runs directly through the market. When the train comes, vendors lower their umbrellas and move some of their produce further back off the train tracks. As soon as the train passes, vendors open up their umbrella again and continue selling. Actually we only booked a tour for Damnoen Saduak Floating market. However according to our tour guide, most of her customers who were in the same tour group as us will be going to the railway market as well. So she offered us to tag along for free and of course we said yes! 😛
INTERESTING PLACES
- Khao San Road – I love Khao San Road as it is a lively place especially at night! Night market, live music & massage parlour which close very late at night. It is also near by a lot of famous landmark: Wat Arun, Grand Palaca, Wat Pho, etc. For Muslim, you can also found Halal eateries. I love eating Thai Briyani (khao mok gai) at Aishah Rosdi which is located on Banglamphu Street (close to Khao San)
- Sukhumvit – Bangkok City center where you can find big malls, and my favourite place, MBK Mall!
- Safari World – A 1 hour trip from Bangkok city center and opens daily from 9am – 5pm. It consists of two parks : Marine Park and Safari Park (drive-through range for seeing by car or one of the park’s coaches). You can choose to enter either one of the 2 parks or both. We chose to enter both parks and booked our ticket via Klook and manage to save around RM208!! If you are going to book via Klook, do also use Shopback so that you can get back up to 3.5% cashback. If you are asking how to get to Safari World, for us we took Grab. Make sure to choose Grab Premium because the normal Grab driver are not keen to take us there since it is a bit far so they requested for us to cancel the booking. Luckily one of them suggested to book Grab Premium. I would really suggest if you are going there, do book both Safari Park and Marine Park since for Safari Park, the ride ended quite fast and you can only go in once. However it was a wonderful experience and my son love it! As for Marine Park, there are few shows that you can enjoy such as Sea Lion Show, Bird Show, etc and you can also feed the Giraffe. Other than that, there are a lot of animals that you can see, quite similar to the zoo but not as many animals as the zoo.
- Sea Life Bangkok Ocean World – the largest aquarium in Bangkok and in South East Asia, and located within Siam Paragon. The place opens everyday from 10am – 8pm. Do look out for the animal feeding timing – otter feeding, shark feeding, penguin feeding, etc. For pricing, please refer to the official page. However we bought our ticket via Klook and manage to save RM180 and the ticket redemption is fast since they have special lane for Klook customer! (loving Klook!)
For this trip we didn’t visit Grand Palace, Wat Arun, Wat Pho, since we were there in 2014. You may read my post on those interesting places HERE
SHOPPING (MARKET)
- Chatuchak Weekend Market – opens on Saturday & Sunday, 9am – 6pm. To go here, take BTS to Mo Chit and walk roughly around 5 minutes. You can also take the MRT from Sukumvit, near BTS Asok station, and stop at Chatuchak Park and walk around 2 minutes. The market is big, roughly around 15,000 stalls, so do spare few hours to explore the market, bring a lot of money and get your negotiation skill ready! For Muslims, there are few Halal eateries within the market area. This time, we end up having lunch at Aree Burger since we are not able to locate the Shawarma stall we went to previously.
- Asiatique – A combination of indoor & outdoor stores, facing the riverfront. You can also ride the big ferris wheel and enjoy magnificent view of Bangkok. To go here, take BTS to Saphan Taksin station and take exit no 2. Next, jump on the free shuttle at the end of the pier (boat runs at 4pm – 11.30pm). When we first when to Asiatique few years back, there’s not much of Halal food. However this year, there’s a lot of food stalls with few options of Halal food available! So yeay to this! Asiatique opens everyday, 4pm till midnight.
- Khao San Night Market – a very lively night market mostly selling clothes and accessories and you can also enjoy live music at most cafe/club. For Halal food, there’s kebab and roti.
- Banglamphu Night Market – close by Khao San Night Market
- Sukhumvit Street Market – takes over both sides of the street along a 1km stretch between Nana and Asok BTS Stations. Opens daily from 5pm to 12am.
- Talad Neon Night Market – a picturesque night market with lots of food, shopping and fun activities. We went there by BTS and stop at Chit Lom station, then took a tuk-tuk to the night market. Had a Halal roti & martabak + coffee for dinner, did some shopping and took Grab back to the hotel. This night market opens daily from 5pm – 12 am.
- Artbox – a bright night market where a lot of tourist hang out. But it’s not really for us as there’s no Halal food and not much of item to look at as well. However we did buy few bottles of juices
- Silom Night Market
- Soi Cowboy Night Market
- China Town
- Little India
SHOPPING (MALL)
- Iconsiam – A new attraction which recently open in November 2018. IconSiam is a riverside mall, overlooking the Chao Phraya river. The mall opens daily from 10am to 10pm. To go here, you can catch the free shuttle boat near Saphan Taksin BTS station. You can also catch a free shuttle bus from Krung Thonburi BTS Station or Wongwian Yai BTS Station. For us, we went there by Chao Phraya Tourist Boat (please refer to earlier post). There’s also Light-and-sound dancing fountain along a 400-metre stretch of the Chao Phraya River, the longest in Southeast Asia. For Muslims, Halal food is available.
- MBK – a must visit. You can found lots of clothes, souvenirs and Thai product here including Halal snacks. While you are here, do visit Yana Restaurant for a Halal delicious Thai food. There’s also a lot of food stalls outside and there’s few which are selling Halal food.
- Terminal 21 – a very interesting mall, with designs of few different countries for each floor. Previously there’s a Halal food located at level 5, but when we went there we couldn’t find the place
- Siam Discovery – Madame Tussauds is located within this mall
- Siam Center
- Siam Paragon – Bangkok Sealife Ocean World is located within this mall
- Central World
- Platinum Fashion Mall
- Fashion Island Shopping Mall – located outskirt of Bangkok. We went here right after visiting Safari World and had lunch as there’s one stall at the food court selling Halal food. There’s also a small indoor amusement park for children as well.
- Mega Plaza – over 600 shops selling toys; toy model, vintage collectible figures, hot toys, games consoles, gundam, tamiya, remote control toys RC, drones & more. We went to this place while staying at Rambuttri Village Inn as it is close compared to Sukhumvit area.
FOOD
- Aishah Rosdi – located near the big roundabout & opposite 7-11 in Banglamphu. There’s a small entry that you need to get into. If you cannot find it, you may ask the information counter nearby (that’s what I did). Just ask for ‘Halal food or Muslim food’ and they might be able to help you. Here you can enjoy delicious Thai Biryani, also known as Kao Mok Gai
- Yana Restaurant – located within MBK, level 5. They serve Halal Thai and international dishes. We simply love the food here and will definitely visit again!
- Usman Thai – Recommended by a cousin of mine. Usman Thai serves delicious Thai food and they also have hostel nearby the restaurant as well. Went there by Grab and back to hotel by Grab as well. This restaurant is located at Sukhumvit Soi 22, however you need to walk in a small lane
- MBK food stall (outside of the mall)
- Talad Neon Night Market food stall
There are lots more of Halal food. All you need to do is to look for it! Happy food haunting! 🙂
You may also read my previous Bangkok trip post: BANGKOK 2014
Farah Zulkifly 