For today, I had scheduled only a couple activities as I wanted it to be a slightly more relaxing day than the past few. To start off, we went down to the breakfast buffet and had some great food. My personal favourite was the assortment of dim sum that they had to offer (including amazing dessert custard buns).
After breakfast, we hailed a taxi outside the hotel and departed for what we thought would be the Dusit Zoo. However, this was the first truly awful cab experience that we had in Bangkok. This driver started heading in the wrong direction, which I could tell since I was using the GPS and maps that I had on my phone. At first, I thought that he was just taking a longer route in order to increase the fare. I then realised, though, that he was taking us in the completely wrong direction. We were about 60km outside of Bangkok (to the southeast) before I could get him to pull over and let us out. He just kept saying that we were going in the right direction, and wouldn’t pull over. He dropped us on the outskirts of Bang Na in the slums of the city, and we had to walk to the nearest BTS station (Bearing), which was about 6km away. I wasn’t all that nervous about it, but it was really aggravating!
Once we got to the BTS station, we took it to National Stadium, which was as close as we could get to the Dusit Zoo. There were still many protesters outside of the Stadium, which made hailing a taxi nearly impossible. As such, we started walking in the direction of Dusit Zoo, and eventually got a cab for the remaining leg of the journey.
The Dusit Zoo was shockingly barren and underwhelming. They advertised that they had pandas, koalas, and elephants… of which, they had none. They did have a penguin exhibit, and by “exhibit,” I mean that there were about seven Humboldts hopping around. The only two parts of the zoo that were actually worth the visit were the incredibly rare White Bengal Tigers and a Caracal. The White Bengal Tigers were sleeping, and were a bit difficult to see, but still worth it. The Carracal was pacing around looking as fierce as ever. We don’t have either of those animals at our zoo, so it was fantastic to get to see them, even if it was only briefly.
Koala statue at one of the entrances to the Dusit Zoo in Bangkok
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Sleeping White Bengal Tiger at the Dusit Zoo in Bangkok
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Caracal at the Dusit Zoo
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After the zoo, we took a tuk-tuk for a short lift to the Museum of Floral Culture. This was a museum that wasn’t really mentioned in many places online, but it seemed interesting to me (seeing as floral macro photography is my big hobby). The museum was only firstly recognised by the Thai government about a year ago (in 2012), and it was a little small, but the tour guide that we had was great at explaining the use of flowers in different ceremonies and within different cultures. At the end of the tour, we were presented with some lovely herbal and floral teas and some traditional Thai sweets. The sweets were all very similar, but had some subtleties that set each of them apart from one another. After tea, we walked around the garden and took some photos of the area.
An example of the beautifully ornate pieces made from flowers
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We hopped in a cab to head back to the hotel, and I thought that we were going to have another experience like the one that we had this morning. Fortunately, though, the driver was just taking a different route in order to avoid the protests. He dropped us off right where I had asked (the Surasak BTS station, directly across Sathorn Road from our hotel).
We were debating either staying close to the hotel and going next door to the Blue Elephant, or going down to midtown Asok for dinner. We had eaten at the Blue Elephant in Swords, Ireland, so it would have been neat to eat at the original in Bangkok, but instead, we went to Asok to eat at Nobita Yakinku, which is a Japanese-style BBQ place. We ordered a bunch of different meats (chicken, pork, bacon, brisket, et cetera), and cooked them on the open firepit at our table. For dessert, they brought out this very interesting mix of sno-cone ice with mixed-berry syrup, pieces of sweet bread, and chocolate chips. I hadn’t ever had anything like it. The meal was fun, but I personally didn’t like the food all that much.
Sifting through the sea of protesters, we stopped by Soi Cowboy (which is a one-block red light district) on our way back to the BTS station. I really didn’t have any interest in going into the highly-overpriced bars in the area, but wanted to see what Bangkok’s RLD was actually like. A couple scantily-clad young girls asked me what I would like, and I politely declined. Actually, some of them looked so young that it was a bit unnerving.
Soi Cowboy – Bangkok’s one-block red light district
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If you don’t fancy the ladies, though, there’s actually a lesser-known gay men’s area in Bangkok as well. It is on Surawong Road right before you get to Rama IV Road (right near Dukes Tower. We didn’t see this area at night since it was rather far from our hotel, but it was rather dead during the day (which is to be expected):
The gay district in Bangkok – Surawong Road near Dukes Tower
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Anyway, I snapped a few photos and we were on our way back to Asok BTS station. We hopped the train back to Surasak, had a couple cocktails at Swizzles lounge in the lobby of the Eastin Grand Hotel Sathorn, and retired for the night. I don’t think that my head had even fully hit the pillow before I was asleep. For some reason, the day really took it out of me.
Tomorrow we leave for Krabi (Ao Nang Beach, really), which should start a whole new set of adventures!
