Bangkok: Day 2: JT House, MBK Mall, Skytrain ride

Sunday November 17, 2007. Bangkok, Thailand

(notes from my journal)

Up at 5 AM. Maybe it’s excitement… or jet lag. Who’s complaining! We’re ready to go!

Got dressed and headed down for another delicious spread by the river. Our agenda for the day was Jim Thompson House and the a visit to the MBK mall to see if we can score on something useful (whenever I use the term “we” and there is shopping involved, it’s Heena doing the shopping and me walking around like a zombie).

To get to the Jim Thompson House, we took the ROS boat to the BTS sky-train station (Saphan Taksin) and then took the sky-train to National Stadium station. The sky-train is efficient, clean and fast. The air-conditioning provides a respite from the humidity and pollution.

From the National Stadium we made our way to the JT house – which is quite beautiful and nicely decorated. We took the official tour of the house (no photography allowed inside) and were given all sorts of information about his life, how he revived the Thai silk industry and also about the artifacts in the house.

After the tour, we spent a little bit of time in the JT store (did not get anything) and then decided to head to MBK. It’s only a short walk from JT House and right by the sky-train station. After an hour or so of shopping we headed to the MBK food court on the fifth floor of the mall. We got some green curry, Indian style noodles and a desert. The green curry was really spicy. It felt as if the lady who made it was on a dual mission to kill and “please with chillies” both at the same time. Some more shopping post lunch and we headed back to the hotel for some rest since our legs were aching from the previous days walking around.

Back at the hotel we relaxed for a bit and then decided to venture in the area around the hotel. While walking around we found a place that was offering foot massages and was crowded with a lot of people. So we decided to get one ourselves for an hour. It was pretty good and my leg pain eased quite a bit after the massage.

After the massage, as soon as we got out of the parlor there was a guy selling rotee with egg in it. Oh, how could I resist! Turns out he was Bangladeshi so we chatted a little bit using the many common words in Bengali and Hindi. The rotee was delicious!

I think we had enough for the evening and took our laptop/books up to the towers lounge and got a seat with a view. Heena spent time surfing the internet, while I worked on my journal. By 9:30 we were ready to call it a day and headed back to the room to get some sleep.