Other Must-Try Activities in Bangkok

Apart from the majestic temples and crazy shopping experience, here are some of the things that you shouldn’t miss when in Bangkok:

Get a Thai massage

Go around the city and you’d hardly miss a sign pointing to a massage place. We wanted to try Wat Pho’s, but since they were already full when we got there, we went to find their sister school. It’s in one of the side streets just outside Wat Pho, yet the building was far from attractive. We’ve been used to having massages with an ambiance in Manila, but here it had no frills – no fancy decors or candles or soothing music.

The receptionist asked us which massage we want and whether we’d have a male or a female do the massage. No option like that in Manila – which we found strange, because we don’t usually let a male stranger touch our bodies. The good thing was that there were rooms where the massage is done, in contrast with Wat Pho’s open area. The bad news? Males and females go into the same room.

After changing our clothes, we were finally getting our massage! 🙂 Everything started out fine, until suddenly you’d feel as though your body is being stretched to the limit. I had a difficulty telling my masseuse to lessen the pressure, given the language barrier. An hour of interchanging pain and pleasure was what we endured. The massage became more enjoyable as every minute went by.:-)

All in all, it was a very good experience! It’s very much worth a try. If you hate the pain, just charge it to experience. After all, it only costs 400 baht an hour, and you’d have an afternoon of funny stories to share with your friends!

Visit a high-end mall

Bangkok is a shopping paradise after all, so why not see some luxury goods? Like us, you don’t have to spend too much. We went to Siam Paragon, and just window-shopped. We, or at least I, couldn’t afford most of the products sold there, so we were just content with shopping at the grocery and dining at some of the more affordable restaurants.

See a cabaret show

It’s one of those things that I never got to do with my parents around…I knew it would have been awkward. 😛

Honestly, I guess we’re just being curious about the show, and how entertaining the show could get. After all, we’ve never seen anything like that. We went to watch Playhouse Cabaret Show, which was held in Asia Hotel. The hotel was old and spooky, and the show receptionist was rude, who didn’t even bother letting us choose our seats.

The show itself was a bit entertaining, yet on hindsight, I would rather have spent my money on food or shopping. Oh well, let’s just charge that to experience!:-P

Visit Thai Asiatique

Thai Asiatique is a complex near the Chao Phraya River full of shopping stalls and restaurants. It also houses the Calypso Cabaret and a giant ferris wheel. We went here after our visit to Ayutthaya.

Even though we grabbed some snacks before heading here, we were starved. We went to this restaurant named Capri, which serves pizza and pasta (I wanted to try the Thai resto around the corner but my friends would kill me if I insisted on Thai food). It turned out to be a great decision. 🙂 The food was very good and the bartender performed a great show, except that some bottles were broken in the end.

I only wished we arrived earlier so that we could have gone shopping from stall to stall. 😛 I’m not really a shopper, but the cheap goods in Bangkok bring out a different side of me. Haha 🙂

This ends my Bangkok tale…at least for now. I hope to be back there in a few years (definitely a shorter interval than four years), or maybe a few months! Happy travels!

Special thanks to my friend Jo for the photos of Playhouse Cabaret. 🙂