Bangkok: Chinatown and Shopping Malls
Yesterday we spent the day at Siam Square and MBK which are the big, rather, huge shopping malls in Bangkok.
…Rewind…yesterday morning we went to Chinatown again, but saw the REAL Chinatown. It was very nice but kind of smelly. There was an entire street dedicated to shoes, and several of them were only $3-5. Traffic was crazy and we were always in the way. Oh yeah, we were at the market at 6:30am. I know. Too early. But we were working out the remnants of jet lag.
So back to the malls. We arrived @ 8:30, but it didn’t open until 10 so we wandered outside people watching. The dress(code) out in that area is drastically different than the older areas near the guest house. Everyone at the mall was stylish and modern, which made me very self conscious. I had also worn the wrong shoes for a day of shopping. My feet were killing me after an hour, so by the end of the day I could barely walk.
We spent the entire day at the mall only to discover that we had missed nearly half of it. Oh well.
**Cool Store: Loft – designy bags, containers, dishes, etc.
Afterwards, we met up with A., one of V’s friends from college. He was super nice and took us to dinner at Cabbages and Condoms. Decent, but not great food. Then we went to a coffee shop called Elefin’s for Lemon Icees. They were a great counter to the sweltering heat.
The most interesting part of last night other than the company, was the area. The Sukhumvit part of Bangkok is completely different than the Banglamphu/Thewet area. Sukhumvit is where all of the American and European businessmen stay when they are here. We supposedly walked through part of the red light district, which comprised of several outdoor bars where young dolled-up Thai girls would meet older, wealthier white men. The concept disgusts me because you know that these men would never do this in America.
Or maybe they would, I’ll hopefully never know.
Chinatown photo by Nik
Chinatown loading zone photo by Nik
MBK Shopping Mall with crazy traffic! photo by Nik
Our dinner destination photo by Nik