Bus, Shopping, & Gaming

I'm a little behind on my blog updates - normal service will resume in due course. In the meantime, we hope you all have an absolutely fabulous Christmas - Liz, Roth, & Neko x

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

22 Dec 2024

Neko is just trying to catch a mouse (my mouse!) on Christmas morning.....

Bangkok, Day 33

On our way back to the apartment yesterday, I took a note of some of the buses that stopped at a bus stop near to us. Then later in the evening, I did a little research on the buses and their routes just to see where they went. I was keen to experience using the bus to take us 'somewhere' and that is exactly what we did today!

We started the day a little later than normal, thanks to R taking his sweet ass time getting up, having breakfast, ironing his linen shirt (as this apartment has both an iron AND a hairdryer) and putting on his sunscreen. Unlike me, who is usually the one up early due to the call for food and attention by little Lord Neko. Come to think of it, R was the same when the kids were babies - he could somehow sleep right through their cries, but he can hear me opening the fridge door!

Anyway, we just missed our 149 bus (thanks R!) and had to wait about 40 mins for the next one. Of course, during this time, we weren't even sure if it was the 149 that we saw go flying past us, but we guessed it might have been. Also as it was Sunday, R then commented that maybe the bus didn't run on a Sunday and whilst part of my brain was like, "garbage - this city operates pretty much 24/7", the same thought had crossed my mind but the problem was, all the timetables I could find online were in PDF form and Thai. So we just decided to try our luck.

Whilst waiting on the bus, eagle-eyed R then spotted a 149 coming in the opposite direction, so we at least knew it was running on a Sunday. After what seemed like a lifetime (and getting fed up of waving taxi and Tuk-Tuk drivers away from us), the 149 eventually arrived and we got on the bus.

Oh, what a lovely bus it was - air conditioned, plenty of space to get a seat each and a lovely conductor who sold us our tickets. We were on our way to the Icon Siam shopping centre on the other side of the river. We could get there via the BTS, but it would mean a few changes as there is no direct route from where we are currently located, but using the bus was part of the plan for today.

The cost of the journey was 40 baht (£0.93) and the journey was a very pleasant 20mins or so. The traffic was pretty light and we were very surprised at how easy it was. We were the only tourists on the bus of course and thankfully we were able to advise 'Icon Siam' and the conductor recognised this ok. She even kindly advised in advance when our stop was coming up too.

Icon Siam

Now we had been to the fabulous Icon Siam previously with R's past Thai PhD students (Drs K & P) and we had loved what we saw, but this time we decided to take things at our slower (and oldies pace), especially now that we are less like star struck bunnies with everything.

IconSiam is a fab shopping mall and it is so grand. It was lovely to take our time and explore it all over.

Of course part of the attraction for the Icon Siam is the amazing views of the Chao Phraya River that you can get from a number of key vantage points (Drs P & K had shown us these too).

Squid Game

Whilst here we could see that there was some sort of event going on, as there were lots of people watching stuff on the river and an event area was all decked out in pink with these strange red faceless people acting like weird guards.

Now I didn't know what it was, but it turned out to be some sort of promotional event for the 2nd series of Netflix's Squad Game. So I think I may have inadvertently signed myself up to take part in this now....

After quite a bit of time walking around the malls, we had a walk around the local area before getting the same 149 bus back to our accommodation area. The traffic was a lot busier by this time, so it took a little longer to get back, but the bus was fabulous and we had a nice, relaxing seat and view as we headed home.

Dinner

After getting off the bus, we headed to the Top's Food Court. Note: We had gone to the food court at Icon Siam, but the place was heaving and there were hardly any available seats, so we decided to get something later. It was quite a bit later in the afternoon by now, and most of the food stalls were closed, so our options were limited. We both went for some beef boat noodle soups, which looked fab and they were good, but they were really spicy, and the heat just seemed to intensify with every spoonful, so we struggled a bit and couldn't finish all the soup part, but the beef and pork balls were great.

Bangkok, Thailand