Thursday, May 13th
We have a simple breakfast at the Guesthouse, consisting of homemade peanut butter, cereal, toast and jam. With enough fuel, we head to Jim Thompson's House, a must-see for every visitor to Bangkok. While the rest partake in the 30 minute tour, I luxuriate in the Bar upstairs, sinking myself into Jim Thompson sofas and having a cup of Earl Grey tea. It was definitely bliss, a cool respite from the heat and I would have fallen asleep if I wasn't so busy admiring the architecture of the house and if not for the sounds of the occasional sampan (boat) passing by the khlong (canal).

Lunch was at Siam Square Soi 5. We decided to have fried chicken and papaya pok pok. Incidentally, papaya pok pok is just another name for som tum. We went to Katak, a favourite of mine which serves a variety of Northeastern cuisine. This means various types of salads including larb (cooked salad thing). We order liver and pork larb, roast pork, papaya pok pok, fried chicken and to accompany this, khaw neaw (glutinous rice)

After visiting the nearby Bearary (it's a bakery where all the buns are in shapes of bears - *sigh* only in Thailand!!) we went over to Soi 4 to Mango Tango for dessert.

Being quite full, we ordered only three varieties of dessert;
1) Fresh mango with mango pudding and mango ice cream
2) Fresh mango with sticky rice and mango ice cream
3) Yin Yang tau foo fah - which had half white tau foo fah and half black sesame tau foo fah

After dessert, a little more shopping around the area and we caught the BTS back to Saladaeng station. Before going back to the Guesthouse, we decided to have some tea at Black Canyon Coffee house at Silom Complex (it connects from the BTS).

I had the yummy ice coffee with Kahlua and we ordered some sandwiches to share and also had the nothern fermented sausage salad.

That night, for supper we went to Noodi on Silom Road with some of our friends from the Bangkok Opera's production of Turandot (one of the reason we went to Bangkok was to watch it!). A great place for a variety of noodles. A safe place to try all types of noodles that you would see on the street but afraid to try. This place is opened till quite late.

Katak
Siam Square Soi 5
Rama 1 Rd, Bangkok

Mango Tango
Siam Square Soi 4
Rama 1 Rd, Bangkok

Black Canyon
Various branches all over Bangkok

Noodi Noodle house
Branch 1) Silom Road, near the Saladaeng BTS, Bangkok
Open: Till late

Branch 2) 229/1-2 Siam Square Soi 4, Rama 1 Rd, Bangkok
Tel: 658-44841-2O
Open: 10.30am-9pm

Today we checked into new accomodation which we found to be nearer to Silom and the Saladaeng BTS and much cleaner and safer than the place we stayed in the night before. The Bangkok Christian Guest House is high recommended for its vicinity and accessibility. No, you don't have to be Christian to stay there but if you are and have a Christian volunteer card or something, you do get a bit of a discount. Anyway, we paid the equivalent of RM240 for a quad-sharing room with bathroom attached and breakfast included.

We had breakfast at Tung Who Coffee House on Thanon Convent. They are one of the oldest coffee merchants in Thailand, having been set up in 1870. Click here to read more about them We had Thai local coffee with various types of breads with chilli paste, peanut butter, jams, etc. Great start to the day.

Our next destination was the Old Siam Plaza. Located north of Chinatown, this is like not just food heaven for local Thai delicacies (especially the desserts) but the shopping is really good too.

I think we bought almost everything in sight! One section on the ground floor of the Old Siam is dedicated to making old traditional Thai desserts - yup, from golden threads to the other nine golden treasures to durian and mango with sticky rice and yum ma ma, it really is a Thai food heaven, all in one place!!
What I like:
* mieng kam - these are a mixture of ginger, onions, chillies, peanuts, dried prawns, fried shredded coconut with a sticky pasted all wrapped in a kadok leaf. You can buy them separate and assemble them yourselves but if you want to eat it there, the ladies would make them into miniature pyramid shapes on a stick.
* Yum ma ma - this is a salad with mama noodles and anything else you want in it. Choose from squid to chicken to mushrooms, whatever you want ...
* durian with sticky rice
* kueh kapek with cilantro leaves
* all the high cholesterol deep yellow desserts. They are made from duck egg yolks which give the very yellow color to the dessert.
* all the various rice paper rolls and other sweetmeats in different shaped steamed rice flour coverings.

Ah...best is just pick a pack from each stall, then go upstairs to the food court and tuck in! The food court also has some yummy som tum and fruit salad.

The Old Siam is also a great place to shop, I bought lots of Thai Silk and other thai materials from there. Best would be to try to get there around 11am (thus hopefully bypassing the jam on Charoen Krung) and to leave there by 4pm to the nearest BTS station.

We left for the Old Siam and headed for MBK / Discovery Centre / Siam Centre area. After some shopping at MBK, we had dinner at the newly refurbished Coca restaurant which is located on the 3rd floor of Siam Centre. The price here is a fraction of what we pay in Malaysia where a plate of veges will set you back at least RM6. Here, veges are just RM1.80-RM2. After a yummy steamboat which had half tom yum and half chicken soup for stock we made our way back to the Guesthouse to leave our stuff. We then went out separate ways, some to Suan Lum Night Bazaar for more shopping and some to Body Tune for massages.

Bangkok Christian Guest House (located behind the Swiss Lodge)
123 Saladaeng Soi 2,
Bangkok, Thailand 10500
Phone: +66 (0)2 233 6303
Fax: +66 (0)2 237 1742
E-Mail : reservations@bcgh.org
BTS: Saladaeng

The Old Siam Plaza Shopping Mall
NE corner of Tri Phet and Phahurat Road.
Bangkok, Thailand
Open daily 10am-8pm

Coca Restaurant
3rd Floor, Siam Centre
Bangkok, Thailand
BTS: Siam Centre Interchange
There are many Coca restaurants around

Body Tune (just above GNC, near Oriental Princess and exit to Saladaeng BTS)
Silom Road, Bangkok
Tel: 02 2384377