If there was one thing I learned, never ever rely on maps, better to really ask the hotel about the directions and transportation hahah! right after we got off the train station we didn't know what to do, where to go exactly, you see it's very disorienting, people don't speak English, they'll just point you to where you should go, then after that you'll be like, what? where? sorry? should we cross the street? ahaha!
After getting directions, we finally decided to hail a taxi and hand our hotel address to the driver, this was the first part of getting ripped off by a cab driver. See the map above, according to google map, it's a 10 minute walk from the station. Since we had our luggage's we opted to take the taxi. The taxi driver charged us 100 baht! we didn't even argued as we just wanted to get to our hotel, we were following a strict itinerary during that day (Yea right!).
We realized that it was better that we took the taxi to our hotel, but the distance from the train station to the hotel is not worth the 100 baht. The ugly truth slowly came in, we should have taken the tuktuk for 50 baht, a less expensive mistake, my mother was afraid to take the tuktuk, thinking we might get scammed hahah well it was the other way around. Note to self, research more, ask the hotel how to get to your destination.
Finally reached our destination and was able to check in early. I don't have photos of our room but it looks pretty decent.
First order of business was to ask about the travel tours the hotel offers, choose then change currencies and book. After all the shebang, go to the malls, MBK & Siam Paragon. We went out and started to scout what's within the vicinity, by the way the original plan was to walk all the way to Platinum Mall. It was raining, so we hailed another taxi, it was easy! we told the driver to take us to MBK, he said yes, but for 100 baht and we will drop by a shop. I kept on telling the driver we will pay 100 baht, just take us straight to the mall, he kept on insisting that we will just drop by a shop, we can look around and then he will take us to MBK. So the driver won, we gave in to his suggestion.
We went to the biggest jewelry store in Bangkok, my mother a regular in BKK, has seen this shop and even bought earrings for me from her previous trips. Hurriedly left the store empty handed, we were not keen on buying jewelries, the driver ended up with no gas. According to the driver, if we bought jewelries worth 2,000 baht, he'll get 5 liters of gasoline. it's like his referral fee for bringing in customers. He kept his word and brought us to MBK, but didn't exactly dropped us in the mall haha we got off in a train station near MBK, a little walk won't hurt. I think we called it quits, he didn't get his gas and we get to walk to MBK.
Nothing much happened in Day 1. We just went around MBK & Paragon, checked out the fishes in Siam Ocean World.
Photo dump below
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