What is your travel bucket list this year? For me, what I haven’t been able to achieve is traveling around ASEAN!
This trip does not go directly to all countries in ASEAN, I will try to visit Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and Malaysia at once. Pay it in small installments, yes, because time has not allowed it to linger.
This trip I also specialize in enjoying street photography. So there are not many lists of touristy places that I will visit. Me and a friend of mine will go straight to the streets looking for street scenes that can be captured.
Welcome to Bangkok
The Air Asia QZ251 plane that I was traveling in landed smoothly at Don Mueang Airport, Bangkok. Btw, thanks to Air Asia for the great tickets #MakeSoReal my dream!
This airport is used for domestic and international flights by low cost airlines such as Air Asia. The advantage of this airport is that immigration routes are quieter than Suvarnabhumi. I remember almost missing my flight because of the very long immigration queue at Suvarnabhumi when I came from Thailand a few weeks ago.
To get to the city center from Don Muang, there is no ARL (airport rail link) train line to go to the nearest bts or mrt station. In addition to taxis, public transportation that we can use is a bus that goes to Mo chit BTS station. It costs 30 baht for one way.
From there, you can easily go anywhere because there is already a BTS (Bangkok Train System) or MRT.
There’s a bit of drama at don mueang immigration. My friend didn’t seem aware that he was queuing at immigration where he wasn’t allowed to take pictures. He was making Instagram stories, so excited. So he was immediately arrested and taken to the immigration office for interrogation. After grinning, plus a thousand reasons to the immigration officer whose English was broken and his face was dirty, we were let out.
Our accommodation is in Rachathewi. Because of its location near the mosque, you can easily find halal Thai food here. The people around this mosque are usually from southern Thailand
Unfortunately, my apartment is a bit of a horror. I’ll tell you later..
It’s January in Bangkok, the sun rises at 7 in the morning, so there’s a little time to curl up in bed before we head out.
In the morning, leaving our inn, we were immediately enchanted by the Bangkok morning sun which feels much softer than our sun right at the equator.
But I’m a very morning person. It’s itchy to want to be in the morning sun. Especially if the photo in the morning is really cool.
This morning I just walked around Rachathewi and Pratunam. Because the sunrise is not blocked by buildings facing north and south. So cool.
It didn’t take a few hours for me to take pictures, walking from Rachathewi to Pratunam, passing a Mall called platinum where women bought empty suitcases that would be filled with dozens of clothes to be resold in Tanah Abang or Mango Dua.
Darul Aman Mosque is one of the largest mosques in Bangkok. There are lots of halal food around here. The average resident here can speak Malay a little bit.
I talked to some Muslim friends here. One of them is Mr. Yakob, a Thai citizen whose house is near the Thailand-Malaysia border.
“When I have time, I can meet you at Hat Yai, just message me on Facebook,” he said.
After Friday I went back to the hotel to rest for a while because the heat of Bangkok really made me sweat profusely.
“Wir lo are you in Bangkok? Where are you staying? Let’s go together!” said Sefin, my friend who apparently was in Bangkok too.
“This is a bad hotel, Rachathewi area.” answer me
“Let’s meet? ”
“Come on, I’m going to Chinatown here,”
When I met my friend, who apparently was hanging out at one of his friends’ places in Thailand, he even said, “Hey, are you staying at the hotel, okay? My friend said it was haunted!
The bastard.
Indeed, since last night there have been strange feelings in the room. Just because you’re tired, you just get delayed. But yes, this room is big, clean, spacious, and cheap! Anyway, below the price of the hotels next door that are in the same class.
At night, above 11 pm, someone knocked on my door. When we opened there was no one. I think prankster.
Twenty minutes later, someone knocked again. I peek from the peephole, no one. Goosebumps started to goosebumps.
The door kept knocking, not only my door. He seemed to be pacing and knocking on doors all over the hall.
Just stopped around 2pm. So my sleep is not good.
Well, maybe he wants to meet a handsome person like me.
Back again to Chinatown. We tried to take the river angkot which is connected to the BTS Saphan Taksin station. There are tourist boats and boats for ordinary local residents.
Tourist boats are very expensive, it can be 150 baht for one way. While the local boat is only 30 baht one ride. The difference is that the tourist boat (blue flag) only stops at tourist spots and there is a guide who explains each location, while the local boat (orange flag) stops at every location. pier station.
The red colors here at dusk against the background of the dark blue sky are very pleasing to the eye. Street food is also abundant. Unfortunately, most of them are non-halal. So Ms. Sefin had the heart to eat noodles with pork in front of me which was also rumbling.
From chinatown, we walked to MBK center to eat at one of the halal restaurants. Not far away only about 15-20 minutes walking. There was no taxi to take us because of the extraordinary traffic jam on Saturday night.
The next day we explored the National Stadium, Siam and surrounding areas. The scene in this place is very urban. Perfect for street photography. Neat graphics, colorful buses with various advertisements with human faces with various expressions, and a slightly covered area topped with a bridge so that the heat doesn’t get in too much.
Remember the cat gang I wrote in the previous post? I went back there and tried to take another picture. This time it was more to explore into the alley and unexpectedly I found a mosque and a Muslim community around it.
“We’re mostly Cambodian Muslims,” said Fatimah, one of the sellers of the beef noodle soup I eat for breakfast.
I always like Thai cuisine which combines sour, spicy, sweet, and fresh herbs to increase appetite. Fortunately, when traveling abroad I prefer to walk everywhere so that it compensates for the calories that come in haha!
At Siam station, we chatted with a group of young people sitting around relaxing. Because they usually carry cameras, it looks like they’re the same photography enthusiast like me. At first I thought they were Thais, but they turned out to be Vietnamese tourists!
“We can meet again at Ho Chi Minh city, I’ll take you around,” he said
Wow! I’ve got a friend from Ho Chi Minh City ( I prefer called it ‘Saigon’) who can be a local guide!
Anyway, Bangkok is a lot of fun. People are friendly. As long as we are polite, they don’t mind smiling into our camera frame.
Like the girl I met in front of this central world mall :3
Continued to the next city : Siem Reap!
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