If you enjoy a Baroque-opera, take note:
Today, tomorrow and on Sunday (18, 19 & 20 May 2012) Dido & Aeneas, an opera by Henry Purcell, will be performed in Bangkok in the small hall of the Thailand Cultural Center.
It’s another project by NUNi founder Pattarasuda Anuman Rajadhon.
Tickets cost 600, 800 and 1,000 baht (200 baht for students) and can be bought at Thai ticket major (or you can call 02-255-6617/8, 02-254-4954)
Bangkok Rising is the headline of a lovely profile of this city – recently one of their writers made it to our favorite place in the world and had her own Bangkok sightseeing experience, which made her fall in love with our city. If you haven’t been here yet and are looking for some general ideas what to see in Bangkok, you might wanna read this piece.
The EU Eco Film Festival 2012 will take place in Bangkok, starting May 24 2012. It’s a spin-off of the annual EU Film Festival and takes place at SF Cinema on the 6th floor of the Terminal 21 shopping center.
In total there are 10 movies that focus on changing the world.
This short movie is about climate change, and how it can affect our cities. EU Ambassador David Lipman will give an opening speech at 6:30PM.
The movie Home, by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand can be watched online on YouTube for free. It’s about how the world is changing because of global warming – from a bird-s eye view, beautiful camera work.
Starring Pete Postlethwaite who lives alone in the devastated world of 2055. He’s watching videos from the year 2000 and wondering why we didn’t stop global warming when we still had the chance.
A movie from Finland by director John Webster.
A German movie where three friends chat in a bar about climate change.
About the garbage problem in expanding cities, by Danish filmmaker Mikala Krogh.
A movie from Poland about the Bialowieza forest.
About the destruction modern agriculture can have on the environment. This is a French movie.
If you enjoy watching movies (the European ones that are shot to make a social impact), then the EU Eco Film Festival might be well worth to include in your Bangkok sightseeing trip.
Terminal 21 is one of Bangkok’s newest major shopping malls, opened in October 2011. It’s a very unique concept mall, different in many ways from other large Bangkok shopping centers, and we do like the ideo.
Why is it named Terminal 21? Because of it’s innovative concept: being an airport terminal that leads to different places in the world. From outside it already resembles a modern airport, featuring the typical curvilinear glass-and-steel façade. And why 21? Well, because it’s located at Sukhumvit Soi 21.
Each of the nine floor represents a different city, and it’s reflected in the architecture and interior design. In total there are around 600 shops here – but most of them are brands that you probably have never heard of, independent and small boutique labels, not the typical big-name brandnames that you find in every other mall, except for the ground floor where you’ll find several big international brands (see below). Some of them are high-priced luxury brands, some of them are low-priced budget labels and many are in-between – so there is something for every wallet.
An eight-screen cineplex (two of them with 3D) operated by SF Cinema City, electronics and mobile phone stores and a spa are located here.
Here you find the food court (at Pier21), and popular landmarks, attractions and places from the area, including the Golden Gate bridge.
What’s also nice about this place: usually food courts serve overpriced, mediocre food. But at the Terminal 21 foodcourt you get really good value for your money.
And it’s really Pier21 themed:
There are also plenty of cafes and restaurants here, great for foodies. If you want a good coffee and/or cake, try the Baanying Cafe. For decent dimsum at very good prices try the Canton House.
Many small, independent boutique shops from all over the world selling gifts, accessories, home decor, trinkets, beauty products and toys.
More small, independent international and local boutique shops for fashion and accessories, many of them also for men.
Yet more small, independent international boutique shops, and it’s mostly fashion for women.
At a small replicated Champs-Élysées, you find a mix of large international brands (like Esprit, Charles & Keith, The Body Shop, The Face Shop) and smaller labels, and a Starbucks.
This is where large international brands are lcoated, like Kipling, Jaspal, Adidas, Levi’s, Guess, Puma, Nike, and so on. And yes, apart from Sistine Chape murals you also find classical statues.
The information counter staff all wear flight attendant uniforms.
The basement is Carribean-themed, and here you also find the gourmet market and several take-away food outlets like Subway, Baskin & Robbins, Japanese Mos Burger, Madame Heng, Mister Donut and more.
It you’ve been visiting too many shopping malls and are bored by the uniform experience, this one might still be worth a visit. A ride along the 36-meter elevator surely is impressive too.
And check out the toilets – first, yes, they are very clean and well-maintained. But they also have heated toilet seats, bidets, and all kinds of fancy stuff that the Japanese are famous for. Plus, every toilet has it’s own theme (one is a bakery, one is a subway, and so on).
You also can enjoy free (and fast!) WiFi here (but you’ll need to register with your Passport once at the information counter in Rome, pardon, on the ground floor).
Terminal 21 is opened from 10Am to 10PM every day of the week. It’s easily accessible by BTS (Station Asok) and MRT (Station Sukhumvit), and can easily be fitted into any Bangkok sightseeing tour.
We can’t say whether Terminal 21 is the best shopping mall in Bangkok or not – that depends on what you like. But it’s definitely one of our favorites!
Here’s a video that shows Terminal 21 from outside and inside in different places – no sound there, so it’s not most exciting video in the world, but gives you good overview of impressions from the place:
You can also check out the Terminal21 Facebook page!
As a team of seasoned Bangkok sightseeing tour guides, we do know that after some time in the Big Mango, indulding in all kinds of exotic new tastes, many people do enjoy a familiar treat. Like cake!
If you are looking for yummy cakes, Amor Bangkok is a good choice. While it’s not difficult to find cake in Bangkok, most of them are made to look beautiful and taste… well, sweet, but not good. Oftentimes they use cheap ingredients. One reason for that might be that to Thai people, cake is still something kind of exotic, and Thais do care about appearance, so when they eat cake, they want to have a nice visual experience, and they like to save money.
Amore Bangkok is different – they provide premium quality for decent prices – around 55 baht for a piece of cake.
If you try any of their cakes, make it one of their cheesecakes first. We are deeply in love with the blueberry cheese cake. The only negative thing we can say about this cake is that it disappears way too fast as soon as it’s put in front of our nose 😉
Blueberry cheese cake
A close relative to the blueberry cheese cake is the lemon cheese cake, which you may admire in the following picture:
Lemon Cheese Cake
The dough basement here is really nice, because it’s a kind of firm, yet soft dough (not crispy, but in a good way soft!). The cheese part of it is just right – creamy and yummy and it makes you feel like ummmmm, at peace. And then there’s that gentle lemon topping, balancing that comfortness out with a refreshing zing and zest. And yes, they use real fresh lemons, not some kind of cheap lemon aroma or ready-made juice.
We love Thai ice tea (cha yen), so we couldn’t resist trying the Thai Tea La-Moon Cake (what does La-Moon mean? We don’t know either):
Thai Tea La-Moon Cake by Amor Bangkok
It’s good, but… just a bit bland, and while the Thai tea cream is just right, the dough of the cake itself is just a bit too loose and lacks character. Well, that’s probably why they call it “soft cake”.
The same can be said about the Orange cake:
Orange La-Moon Cake
But we really liked their Banana Chocolate cake, particularly because the Banana Chocolate combination gives it a kind of “slurpy” texture.
Banana Chocolate Cake by Amor Bangkok
Their Mille Crepe cake is good if you prefer something more subtle and bland, but it is also their probably most filling cake, so much so that we think you can actually share it with another person and still have both people be satisfied. It’s really thinly layered and very soft:
Mille Crepe Cake
And then there’s Amor Bangkok’s chocolate cheese cake. Well, the name is pretty much self-explanatory, and if you do like chocolate, and you do like cheesecake, then you will like this one. It’s a very chocolatish-cheesecake, and fortunately not too much on the sweet side. (You know, not like those fast-food chocolate cakes, where they just put in way too much sugar because sugar is a cheap ingredient? Amor Bangkok didn’t do that, and we love ’em for that!)
Chocolate Cheesecake by Amor Bangkok
They do have a great iced moccha, and their hot chocolate is good too, with a generous foam topping covering it:
Hot Chocolate
Amor Bangkok doesn’t use preservatives, so they gotta make their cakes fresh every day – which they do.
They also have a promotional video where different people praise different desserts, so if you want to watch their advertisement, here it is:
Here is another Bangkok timelapse video, this one from 2012 by Fototrav.
Locations include Chao Phraya River, Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, Siam BTS, Terminal 21, Erawan Temple, Ekkamai, Soi Cowboy, Chit Lom BTS, MBK mall, Siam Paragon, Central World, Victory Monument and Soi 11
If you’re ever near the BTS station Phra Khanong and want to bite a quick bite of good food for little money, this simple food shop is a good choice. Very clean food that’s already made, so no need to wait.
They have a good selection of food (including some vegetarian choices) and you’ll never get bored here.
These kinds of shops are quite common in Thailand. You get a plate of rice and then you can choose what you want on top of that rice – just one, or two or three different side dishes. Thai people call this lad khao.
It’s an unlikely destination for someone who wants to go sightseeing in Bangkok, but in case you make it there it’s good to know this place 🙂
Location: Sukhumvit Road (near Soi 65) between BTS Phra Khanong & BtS Ekkamai
Now this is not the usual kind of religious shrine that we’re used to. In fact many of us would probably consider it a bit “naughty”: the penis shrine. While it’s causing many people to pull out that BangCOCK joke, it’s no laughing matter actually.
The shrine is dedicated to the spirit of Chao Mae Tubtim – a female spirit believed to live in the giant banyan tree there. Then one day a woman came there. She was desperate because she’s been trying in vain for so long to get pregnant.
Nine months after asking Chao Mae Tubtim for it, she gave birth to a healthy child. So as a way of showing gratitude, she came again and brought a huge, wooden penis carving and left it here. And she told others about it, and now there are hundreds of women who come here and ask for fertility and offer penises of all sizes and forms.
If you look around, you can see the the penis is actually a symbol that can be found in many places. Many men carry what Thai people call palad khik, a special kind of talisman.
This relates to animistic beliefs and also to the Indian mythology of shiva lingam.
If you have an interest in the rather curious and strange things, you might want to visit the “Penis Shrine” too – it’s located near the Swissotel Nai Lert Park.
Read more about Bangkok’s Penis Shrine at Global Post.
VietCuisine is a Vietnamese restaurant chain in Bangkok.
We tried the lemongrass salmon which they advertised with a big poster – after all if you advertise something with a fancy large poster, you’re probably really good at making it. Or at least you should be.
Smelly Lemongrass Salmon
Unfortunately this wasn’t the case. Even our designated salmon enthusiast didn’t find any joy in this, and we each took a bite and left it at that, leaving a large chunk of fish uneaten on the plate.
The fish smelled bad, was dry and tasted like… well, old. You just can’t serve people something like that.
The service was friendly and attentive, but that didn’t make up for the lousy food.
You wouldn’t expect that quality of food in a fancy shopping mall like the Siam Paragon, but that’s why we constantly try new places: to do our best to spare you disappointments like that on a Bangkok sightseeing trip. Oftentimes people don’t want to stick to a prefabricated itinerary, but want to be spontaneous in planning their day. And then they might say something like: “He, I feel like eating Vietnamese, is there something around?” In such a case, we’d recommend you other places than that 😉
Another yummy alternative to Thai food in Bangkok is… a hamburger! But if you’re like us, neither McDonalds nor Burger King will suit your taste at all. Fortunately there are still plenty of options to go for good burgers in Bangkok.
And one of them is Chokchai steak burgers in Bangkok – located inside the giant Siam Paragon shopping center (BTS station Siam) on the floor where the food court is. Then you go to the gourmet market (actually walk inside) and there’s that little counter.
There aren’t many seats (I think just around 8 seats), and if you come with friends you sometimes have to wait a bit until sitting becomes available, but since it’s fast food never too long. (Also, alternatively, there are several tables nearby where you can sit down to enjoy your buger, which is what I would recommend for anything more than 3 people).
Chokchai is quiet a large company in Thailand. They have a popular farm in North-Eastern Thailand, where tourists can go to visit and experience what life on a farm is like. (Well, in a kind of Disneyfied version). So the meat that you eat in these burgers comes from the Chokchai farm – which is a good thing, as they have quality meats.
For a Bangkok sightseeing burger break, this is a good place to stop by, especially if you’re already shopping in the Siam Paragon shopping mall. Although there is a strong burger contender right nearby – the Japanese burger chain Mos Burger.