Bangkok WOW!!

Ok, I said I will recommend a place for those who don’t like to spend time and energy ouching down the price on Night Bazaar Street. Here I recommend you to wait for weekend because every weekend in Chiang Mai will have 2 walking streets, one on Saturday called Saturday market and another one on Sunday. Guess what it called?? Yeah! Sunday Market. Saturday market is at Wualai, close to RuamPatt hospital, and Sunday market is held at Thaphae Gate. Each place open around 5.30PM to midnight.

Tiaw Thai fair or "Travel Thailand fair" was held in Central World this week. It is organized by Tourist Police Division. The purpose of this fair is to promote tourism in Thailand and to improve the economy situation through tourism.

• To prevent crimes and protect the benefits of both Thai and foreign tourists.
• To support and coordinate with government and other organizations regarding tourism activities.

The uniform and vehicle of tourist police is also different to those of normal police as you can see in the pictures. Top picture is their cute mascot boy and girl in the uniform and below is their vehicle that is quite easy to spot. If you have any troubles about getting around while you are traveling or you think you are cheated by any mean, 1155 (tourist police) is the number you can call for help. There will be someone who speaks good English and also some European languages to assist you.

Tourist police head quarter is in Bangkok. The address is

Hello and Welcome to Bangkok WOW!! blog.
Thank you very much for visiting my blog. I have never used a blog before, so there might be some mistakes since I am trying to familiarize with the functionality and how to customize the blog. But, anyway, I am creating this blog to tell you about Bangkok in general, and also introduce you the fun side of Bangkok in the concept of Bangkok WOW!! I will also try to give an insight information and express the feeling of local people in Bangkok. I hope you will find this blog useful and feel WOW!! about this great city.

Hello there. I didn’t update this blog for a while because I’ve been busy with my job. Anyway, as I promised that I will show you some exciting places, so here we are, part two of my Chiang Mai trip.

It had been raining all day, so I thought it would be nice to take a bath somewhere that I can enjoy the great nature of Chiang Mai. My tour guide told me that he knew just the perfect place for what I was looking for. He drove further away from the city of Chiang Mai about 45 minutes and I was surprised by the place I was looking at. It is HOT SPRING!! I never thought that Thailand has a natural hot spring before. Every time when I think about hot spring, it comes to the impression that I have to go to Japan, dipping myself into a hot spring pool naked with total strangers.


This place is called San-Kam-Pang hot springs; it is initiated by the King of Thailand. Not only hot springs you can enjoy, but also many activities that you can have fun and spend the whole day with your family and friends such as Thai massage, camping, hot spring swimming pool, and a lot more. The thing that I enjoyed the most in this place was the private bungalow with my own hot spring bath tub. It is quite pleasurable to stay in a private hot spring, watch TV, and lie down on a bed after walking for a half day.

It was not expensive either, only 200 baht an hour you can get all this. Oh, something I have to warn you. They have different prices for foreigners and locals in every tourist place. Normally, foreigner price will be twice as much as the regular price. So, if you think you look Thai enough I would suggest you to try a regular one. The other thing I found very interesting at this place was the cooking eggs pool. It is a small pool which has a lot of hooks installed inside for people to hang their eggs into the hot spring. The duration depends on how well you want your eggs to be done which they have an instruction shown on a board.


After getting very comfortable from taking a hot spring, I felt so hungry and went straight to one of the most popular restaurant in Chiang Mai, which called “Good View”. This restaurant is located by the main river that runs across the city, just like Chao PhraYa river of Bangkok. The food did not entertain me much but the atmosphere was pretty good. They had live music in English and good view for you to enjoy throughout your meal. Next to this restaurant has another restaurant called “River Side”, it is decorated in an old style American bar. I did not have a chance to taste their food but I can guess that this place was really good because it was so crowded.

Good View Restaurant

I walked to Chiang Mai night bazaar (Chiang Mai night market) after dinner because I wanted to enjoy the view and it is not too far away, just on the other side of the river (about 20-25 minutes). It is a pretty long road filled with hundreds of shops which you can find all local stuffs, such as handcrafts, silver wares, cloths, blah blah you name it. All things on this road are negotiable and you need to negotiate because the open price will be a lot higher than the price you can buy. I suggest you to ask for half price or even more. Yeah, it takes a lot of energy to get some stuff here but I felt that it was fun and a good chance to practice your Thai as well. If you are not the type of price negotiator, you should wait for part three. I will take you to buy the exact same things for the local price without spending your energy bargaining. Alright guys, thanks for reading. I will leave you with the picture of Tuk Tuk (Thailand's unique taxi) and see you later.

Tuk Tuk at Chiang Mai night bazaar

Normally, I intend to write something that is related to Bangkok, but sometimes I think it is good to take a break and get out of Bangkok. It is not that I am bored or have stuck on the ideas about Bangkok. It is just that I had a great vacation in Chiang Mai and want to share it with all of you. Let me give you a few words about this city, in case you have never heard of it.

Chiang Mai is called the capital city of the northern part of Thailand, where is about 750 Kilometers (465 miles) away to the North of Bangkok. It takes 11hours and a half to drive or about 1 hour and a half if you catch a flight from Bangkok. Chiang Mai can be a very pleasurable place to visit because it is filled with beautiful flowers, rich culture, good food, and lovely women.

This trip I went to many places, where are recommended by local guide. The guide picked me up at the airport, so I did not have to worry about being ripped off by those cab drivers in front of the airport gate. I felt bad on the way to the Bangkok airport though; that a cab driver drove me around, pretending to show me some good views of Bangkok. I ended up pay him twice more expensive than my friend told me it would be. Even though I know exactly how to get to the airport from my house, cab drivers always pretend to turn to the wrong way and say…oh there’s no way to turn back, we have to go around. I told the driver that I would not pay for the extra kilos you drove me around, but he would not let me take my bag out of his car, so finally I had to pay him. My suggestion to you all to avoid this kind of situation is to tell your cab driver the direction in advance and also tell him you will not pay if he misses the turn. Sorry, I should come back to the trip in Chiang Mai before this will be about tips of how to avoid bad cab drivers.

The first place I went is umbrella making center. Chiang Mai is well known for hand-made umbrella, they have variety types and designs which you can pay extra to let them give you a unique design as well. Umbrella making center is located at Bo-Sang, not far away from Chiang Mai city. I do not remember exactly how long does it take, but for sure I got here before I finished my 40 Baht potato chips (should be about 20 minutes). Once you walk into the front door, you will see many different products displaying in front of you (mostly umbrella) with price tag on, so you do not have to spend your energy to bargain. It is quite nice to see local hand-made products that are freshly made by local people (at least, this is what I was told).

If you walk deep inside to the back of the center, you will see the highlight of this place, which is the place to make umbrella. You can see how they make umbrella from the start, how they put each parts together, which material they use, etc. Also there will be many artists, who are painting the designs of umbrellas. They will draw and paint anything you want for a very good price. I bought a small plain umbrella from inside and they painted the word Thailand for me for just 50 Baht. Off record here: for someone who has low budget, you can walk a little further, across the street have something you can buy for almost half of the price.

OK. I think it’s too late now; I have to prepare for my work tomorrow. So I will tell you next time where else I went. I can promise you that you will definitely be surprised. Bye.