Slack!!!

A few weeks ago there was a long weekend in Vietnam, so I used it as an excuse for a quick trip to Bangkok for a few days of fun and shopping. I found myself a nice little budget hotel right in the centre of the shopping mall area and settled in for a few days.

I arrived around lunch time on the first day and headed straight to the shops! Also indulged in some lovely Thai food. This trip I also finally checked out the weekend market. Despite many trips to BKK I'd never made it to the market so I decided to put it right on this trip. It is next to a nice park so I spent a bit of time there reading my book and enjoying the relative (to Hanoi!) peace and quiet before tackling the market. It is pretty big! A lot of the stuff is generic SE-Asia market handicraft stuff but there were plenty of shops selling stuff I've not seen before in other cities so I had a fun couple of hours browsing.

The following day I decided to check out some tourist attractions I hadn't been to before. I got the ferry along the river to go and check out Dusit Palace and the marble temple. It was probably a bad decision to be trekking along the streets at the hottest part of the day, and I underestimated just how far away from the river these things were so it was a bit of a grim walk to get there. The palace didn't seem to have much going on - I don't know if it was just shut for lunch, or shut to the public in general. The temple was pretty tho, and super white in the sun.


On the way back from the temple, I got off the boat around little India and went on the hunt for fabric. There was so much pretty stuff! I was quite restrained tho and only picked up enough stuff for a couple of skirts. The rain clouds were rolling in at this point so I ditched plans to go have dinner by the river and check out the Grand Palace after dark and instead made my way back to the shopping centres for a bit more retail therapy.

On my final day there my flight back to Hanoi didn't depart until the evening so in the morning I went to check out the Jim Thompson house museum. It's an old wooden house in the centre of BKK and there is a guided tour around the house and gardens, and then you're free to spend time in the gardens afterwards. It was a nice place to spend a couple of hours.

















All in all, it was a nice few days break from Hanoi. Full set of photos here.