Laboyraryan. Storyteller. Demigod.

Having wanted to experience the Thai New Year, Songkran Festival, I booked a flight to Thailand when Cebu Pac announced their promo fare. Luckily, I got a roundtrip fare of Php4,300.00, which I think was a fairly good amount. Before diving into this adventure, I went about having my own research and trying to figure out how friendly Thailand is to solo travelers. Fortunately, prior to my trip, I arranged a pseudo-itinerary for my officemates (to which I was not included in the trip! Boo. JK). So here goes nothing.

Push mo lang yan teh!

Day 0 - MNL-BKK
My flight departed at 8:00 pm, and arrived at the Suvarnabhumi Airport at around 11:30 pm but my AirBnB booking was still scheduled at 12nn of Day 1. As honest as I could, I asked the Information Desk where I can sleep in the airport, and just spend the night. But my mind got ahead of me and thought otherwise, and since the airport wifi was so strong, I immediately contacted my AirBnB host and asked if I can check-in earlier and they happily obliged. I had my money exchanged at the airport's ForEx and hailed a cab from the taxi bay. (Tip: Always bring USD when going outside of the country, then have them exchanged at your destination country. USD has higher value instead of converting peso directly.) My driver hardly spoke English, good thing, my host sent me instructions in Thai, which I showed to my driver. After all the ordeals, I was finally at my room at around 2 in the morning.

Three of a Kind: My family for 4 days Will have a separate entry for my stay here :)

Day 1 - BKK City Tour + Songkran Festival

Since I arrived early morning, I only got to sleep from 3 am til 8 am thinking that I would miss a lot. So I went about my business and walked around the street of Silom area. My AirBnB is strategically located in the city: to the North is the market where you could get cheap eats and very good Thai street foods; to the South is the Surasak BTS station; to the West is the Chao Phraya river, to where I headed first and; to the East is the party district of Silom -- red light, lady boys, LGBT crowd, name it and you got it there!

My first agenda was to tour around the city following this itinerary:

At 9 in the morning, I started walking to the Chao Phraya river - the nearest pier to our area was the Tha Oriental (N1). I then took the Orange public boat, which costed me 15Baht, and headed for Tha Thien (N8). The ride took me about 20 mins. After getting off the boat, I walked for about 200m to my first stop: Wat Pho.

Wat Pho: Famous for the reclining Buddha

In order to access one of the largest and oldest temples in Bangkok, Wat Pho, and be able to view all these majestic Buddhas, I paid an entrance fee of 100Baht. I was dressed casually in shorts and tank top. They did not have much restrictions when it comes to clothes, I guess you only have to be decent-looking. I also wore sandals as it is best to wear footwears that are easy to slip on and off as I had to take them off for more than 20 times as I entered the temples.

Not wanting to miss the Songkran festival in the afternoon, I had my quick lunch of Oyster Omelette and Lemon Grass Jelly juice at an open food stall inside the temple. It costed me 100Baht too. I skipped going to the Grand Palace as I've had enough of Buddhas, and wanted to save the 500Baht entrance fee for something else. I then proceeded to the N8 Pier and headed for my second destination: Wat Arun - Temple of the Dawn.

Wat Arun: Temple of the Dawn The main temple was under construction during that time

The temple complex of Wat Arun is just across the Tha Thien pier (N8), which took me about 5mins to cross by riding the Orange Ferry and paying 3Baht. I was there at around 2:30 in the afternoon. While walking the streets, some people were already starting firing their water guns towards me, a signal that the festival was about to start.

Wat Phra Si Sanphet

Wat Chai Watthanaram

Wat Phra Mahathat : the tree with the Buddha Head

Wat Phanan Choeng

All tired because of all the walking and heat of the Thai roads, we went home at around 4 and got back to our dorm at 6:30 in the evening. We capped off the night by having another round of drinks and dancing in the dorm's lobby and continued at another party place.

Day 3 - Chatuchak Market

Early in the morning of Day 3, I met a new friend Ikin, who just checked in at the dorm. I immediately asked her of her plans and invited her to tag along with me to Chatuchak Market. It was so fun having her around as she was so game with all the things we wanted to do.

We left the dorm at around 9 and walked to Surasak station bound for Chatuchak Park station. Since the station is about 300 meters from the market, we took our time buying and eating some streetfoods and taking lots and lots of photos!

Resting at Chatuchak Market after a long walk

This has got to be one of the cleanest and most organized markets I've been to!

Halal Tom Yum shared with dear friend, Ashikin.

After walking for 4-hours and finding stuff to buy at the Chatuchak Market, we decided to watch The Jungle Book Movie in one of the theatres in MBK. It is always a must for me to watch movies in other countries' moviehouses.

A post shared by Ashikin Norisam (@ashikinnorisam) on Apr 17, 2016 at 2:53am PDT

Quick rundown:

Day 1
10:00 - walk around city/to pier N1 (100Baht for bfast & drinks, 15Baht for Orange Ferry)
11:00 - tour around Wat Pho, take pictures, have lunch (100Baht entrance, 100Baht lunch)
14:00 - sail across Chao Phraya to Wat Arun, tour around Wat Arun and take pictures (3Baht boat, 50Baht entrance)
16:00 - go back to N1 / Silom area (15Baht Orange Ferry, 50Baht streetfoods)
18:00 - Songkran Fest (100Baht dinner, 200Baht drinks)

Day 2
07:00 - quick breakfast (100Baht for bfast & water)
08:00 - ETD Ayutthaya (35Baht BTS tix, 70Baht minivan)
10:00 - tour around Ayutthaya (500Baht each for Tuk-Tuk)
12:00 - lunch (175Baht each)
14:00 - snack (50Baht)
16:00 - ETD Bangkok City (70Baht minivan, 35Baht BTS)
18:00 - ETA Bangkok (100Baht streetfoods)
19:00 - dinner & drinks (500Baht)

Day 3
09:00 - breakfast (100Baht)
10:00 - ETD to Chatuchak market (35Baht BTS to Siam, 25Baht Siam to Chatuchak)
10:30 - ETA Chatuchak market (150Baht streetfoods and water)
11:00 - shopping (2000Baht)
13:30 - ETD to MBK plaza (25baht BTS to Siam)
14:00 - late lunch and movie at MBK Plaza (200Baht lunch, 250Baht movie)
17:00 - early dinner (150Baht)
18:00 - ETD to dorm (35Baht Siam to Surasak)
20:00 - ETD to Suvarnabhumi (75Baht BTS from Surasak to Suvarnabhumi)

Total expenses:
200 Baht - taxi from Suvarnabhumi airport to dorm
900 Baht - dorm rate = 300Baht / night x 3
5413 Baht - total expenses
6513 Baht

TOTAL DAMAGE: 6,513 Baht x 1.35 = 8,792.55 + 4,300 (airfare) = 13,092.55

/dmarco