Day 5: Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, Grand Palace, Central World (Kum Poon & After You Dessert)
Initially, we planned to do day tours for floating market and grand palace for consecutive 2 days. Then we went to the hotel reception to ask if we could get a huge taxi for 6 persons. We were lucky that we chose to ask the hotel reception instead of walking out to the street to get taxi by ourselves. Why so? The hotel receptionist suggested us to rent a car for a day, which can fix 6 persons (or more), to go to both Damnoen Saduak Floating Market and Grand Palace in a day. It costs us THB2500 in total and we are allowed to decide wherever we want to go. This is such a great deal! We managed to save time and also the price is reasonable too.
We wanted to go Amphawa Floating Market at first, but the driver and hotel receptionist highly recommend us to go to Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. So, we decided to listen to locals.
Damnoen Saduak Floating Market is the most famous floating market, which is about 100km southwest of Bangkok. This floating market is routinely crowded with hundreds of vendors and purchasers floating in their small rowing boats selling and buying or exchanging their goods. Most people live densely along both sides of the canal from one end of the canal to another. Majority of these people are agriculturists. (Click here to read more)
Upon arrival, the driver dropped us at a counter, where it seems to be a boat company that drive tourists around the floating market. We paid the boat fee and then get on board to start our floating market tour. ^_^ We have one boat for ourselves, which is good as we can stop freely whenever we want. Before we depart, the person in charge reminded us to stop the boat if we found anything that we want to buy. If not, the boat will just drive past.
Amazing view of the floating market.
Bought a coconut ice cream as breakfast!
This is so unhealthy but this is the first food stall that we found and all of us were starving that time. >.<
There are many vendors, some are on the boats and some are static ones.
The boat stopped us at a coconut sugar farm for us to observe how they make coconut sugar.
This is quite similar to the one I've seen in Mekong River Tour, but this one at Damnoen Saduak don't have much things to see.
This is the most happening part of the floating market, where people can get down for the hawker stalls. But our tour did not allow us to get down of the boat. Well, we aren't keen to get down anyway as the food here are really expensive.
We ordered a plate of Pad Thai to share and this costs us THB200. Super overpriced.
Tourist spot, what to expect? Hmmm.... And it is bad. =(
Friends were craving for some mango and we spotted a stall! Got this plate for THB50. Price is still reasonable and it is sweet!
Sinnah and me enjoying the mango and boat ride. =D
We enjoyed our stay at Damnoen Saduak Floating Market but it gets really hot towards noon time. We quickly ran into the car to get some air cond. XD
Then, we asked the driver to drop us to a place for lunch. We managed to fill up our starved tummy with thai food, which are quite good. Maybe we were too hungry! XD Thanks to the driver.
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NEXT: GRAND PALACE
We reached Grand Palace around 2pm. The weather was really hot, hot, hot!
For your information, Grand Palace has very strict dress code. Visitors are required to dress appropriately. Clothes that are strictly not allowed:
- Shorts, mini-skirts, short skirts, tight fitting trousers, and tights
- See-through shirts and blouses, as well as culottes or quarter length trousers
- Sleeveless shirts or vests
- Sandals (without ankle or heel straps)
- Rolled-up-sleeved shirts
- Sweatshirts and sweatpants, wind-cheaters, pajamas and fisherman trousers
I made such mistake and required to rent their shirt and "sarong" for THB200 each, but the money is refundable. So no worries. But it wasted us a lot of time to queue up to rent the clothes. And it was really hot to wear double layer.
What is so nice about Grand Palace?
The Grand Palace is where every visitor must pay a visit, at least once in their lifetime. The Grand Palace served as a significant royal residence until 1925 and is now used for ceremonial purposes only. It is divided into 3 main zones: The Outer Court (home to royal offices, public buildings and the Temple of Emerald Buddha); The Middle Court (the most important residential and state buildings) and the Inner Court (exclusively reserved for the king, his queen and his consorts). (Click here for more information)
Tourists are everywhere. So crowded! It is really hard to explore the place in peace. There will be people bumping on you, at any time.
Yes. I'm covered up for sun protection but it is so HOT!
The buildings inside are really beautiful and well protected.
We spent about 90 minutes here and decided to run out of this place. One of the reason is that the place is closing soon and we are too hot to stay in there. XD
Our day trip ended because we were all wet and tired. The driver kept asking us, "Are you sure you all want to go back already?" He really wanna make our trip worthy. Such a honest and great driver. =)
We went back to the hotel and rest. We were a little hungry and tried out the Meiji milk that we bought from 7-11 the night before. They are good and cheap! I love it. =)
I prefer the original milk rather than the chocolate milk.
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Dinner time @ Central World
Central World is within walking distance from our hotel, so we decided to walk there. In Bangkok, any place that is within walking distance and if you can walk, please walk! The traffic is really bad in Bangkok and you might spend more time and money to travel if you decided to take a cab.
Central World entrance is strict where people will check your bags prior entering.
First wefie in front of Central World.
There is a market in front of the mall. Look pretty happening but we want to check out the mall and ignored this.
Thai Version Hello Kitty!
We spent about 15 minutes to decide which restaurant to dine in. We want something cheap and nice. XD After checking out the menus of a few restaurants, we decided to try out Kum Poon. Kum Poon has 4 stars in TripAdvisor and that further strengthen our decision to try out this decision.
Kum Poon is located at 7th floor of Central World. It was full house when we arrived at 7.30pm. We need to wait for seats and there are a lot of people waiting with us. Seems to be a famous place.
The environment looks really nice. #macamyes
We waited for about 15 minutes and got a table for 6! Time to feed ourselves! We ordered some popular dishes as recommended in blogs and also a few that we wanted to try. Then we waited for our food eagerly. Haha....
Fresh greens as appetizer?
I ordered a glass of lime juice. It serves with a small cup of syrup. This is seriously good.
Sour level -- high.
Char Grilled Chicken with fried sticky rice.
This is a must-order dish. Fried sticky rice is so special and..... fattening. XD The grilled chicken is of just-nice tenderness.
This fried fermented fish is a big NO-NO for us. All of us felt like vomiting after having a taste of it.
Maybe it doesn't suits our tastebuds.
Som Tam. How to have thai food without som tam to make it a complete set?
We also ordered a bowl of Tom Yum Goong which tastes quite good.
Last but not least, Mango Sticky Rice! Friend has been craving for this for few days already. Finally get to satisfy her taste buds.
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After You Dessert @ Central World
Guess what, After You Dessert is just located opposite Kum Poon at Central World. Great! We don't have to search up and down for this famous dessert cafe. My friend and I were really excited to try out this dessert cafe although we were full after dinner. Before we finish our dinner, we went out to get the number for After You (Expect for long queue and you need to take token number and wait for your turn.)
The little counter is where you take your token number.
However, officially after dinner, the other friends are not interested to try this dessert cafe. Hence only two of us queued and went in to try.
The cake counter. They looks delicious.
Such a huge list of desserts! Awww.. I wanna try all of them!
But too bad, we were really full that time. Only ordered a small shibuya honey toast (THB160) to share.
Ta-daa! The famous Shibuya Honey Toast from After You Dessert Cafe!
They serve honey separately so you can adjust the honey level according to your taste.
I really love the toast here! Really worth trying. =) Too bad we can only try one type due to insufficient stomach space. Next time, we will try more!
After that, we scroll around Central World to explore. Spotted this chocolate exhibition area!
HUGE CHOCOLATE!!!
Chocolate Statue!
It was such a long day! We were all tired and ended the day with an hour of foot massage session at KC Place hotel (THB200/hour). =D You must try thai massage when you are in Thailand. It is cheap and good!
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