Bangkok dishes up good value in dining, shopping and sightseeing

For years I have fantasized about Thailand - its palaces and temples in gardens fragrant with jasmine and lotus blossoms, its traditional dancers in glittering costumes and its floating markets with spicy foods and exotic fruits. In October 1995, we went to Thailand to see if fantasy matched with reality. We had intended to travel around Thailand; however, the record flooding everywhere made it difficult to travel and we stayed 10 days in Bangkok.

A travel pattern

Because we place high priorities on exploring local sights and sampling local foods, our travel arrangements follow a certain pattern.

We try to stay put long enough to become familiar with the surroundings and lifestyle.

We allow enough time for getting lost and for avoiding daily or weekly closing hours.

We explore on foot and by using local transportation.

We look for centrally located, convenient and comfortable hotels that are a bargain.

And, since we love to eat and try new foods, we budget generously for eating out.

Thais can be charmingly untruthful

We found unexpected contrasts during our 10 days in Bangkok. Graceful Thais moved languidly and dogs wandered sleepily in streets hectic with furious construction of huge malls and grandiose, monumental highrises, highways and overpasses. Commercial activity, selling and buying was everywhere.

Thai men and women smiled and approached us in the most friendly and candid manner. But they often told us the most blatant untruths with a beguiling smile. We had been warned about this beforehand; nevertheless, we were taken in by their openness and charm.

We got a hint of this our first night in Bangkok when a fellow hotel guest got into the elevator shaking his head. He said disbelievingly that his taxi driver at the airport had insisted that our hotel was under water and could not be reached. The taxi driver had suggested another hotel for him.

Of course, our hotel was not flooded, and he felt fortunate that he had resisted the dire warnings of the taxi driver.

In our first encounter, we allowed ourselves to be escorted into a tuk tuk and vroomed away to what turned out to be a nondescript store selling overpriced tourist items.

Sometimes we did get good advice about restaurants and other useful information, but we could not distinguish between those Thais who were truly helpful and those who could look us straight in the eye and tell us something completely untrue. We decided to take all advice with a grain of salt.

We preferred the Royal Orchid Sheraton

We stayed at both the Royal Orchid Sheraton and the Shangrila hotels. Both are on the Chao Praya River.

We wanted to stay near the river since many guidebooks recommended the express ferryboats as the most convenient way to travel. We found this to be particularly true with the flooding and consequent traffic jams on the roads. Most of the tourist attractions are near the Chao Praya River, also.

We considered staying at the Oriental, but it was clearly beyond our budget at over $300 a night. We stayed at the Royal Orchid for $125 plus tax and service, using a half-price United Mileage Plus hotel certificate. We also stayed at the Shangrila for three days at about the same price, as part of a precruise package.

Both the Royal Orchid and the Shangrila were exceptionally comfortable, but we found the former to be friendlier and brighter with tons of fresh orchids everywhere.

Our rooms at each hotel had commanding views of the Chao Praya River and comparable amenities such as complimentary coffee and tea bags. We also received complimentary fruit baskets with samples of local fruits and illustrated brochures describing what they were.

The difference was in the extra touches at the Royal Orchid Sheraton. Our favorite was the hotel's complimentary morning fitness program, offered daily except Sundays.

At 6 a.m. a hotel van drove us to Lumpini Park accompanied by a hotel fitness trainer. Early morning at Lumpini Park is a slice of local life. Hundreds of Thais were jogging in the park, practicing tai-chi or doing aerobics. Many were already eating at open-air food stalls. Fruits were laid out for sale along the pathways.

The hotel trainer led us on a 45-minute jog around the gardens, pavilions and lake. On our return to the van, the trainer opened a hamper and handed us an ice-cold wet towel. This was followed by a large, dry towel to wrap around ourselves plus a bottle of water.

On returning to the hotel, we were led to a verandah overlooking the river where we received a complimentary breakfast of fresh local fruit, croissants and coffee. What a wonderful way to start the day!

We also found the Royal Orchid to be very convenient. The Chao Praya express-boat pier is in an alleyway immediately to the left of the entrance to the hotel, with the River City Shopping Complex immediately to the right. Buses, taxis and tuk tuks all stop in front of the hotel.

The Shangrila is also close to an express-boat pier and about a block from Robinson's Department Store. However, we found the area to be not as pleasant as that around the Royal Orchid Sheraton.

Sightseeing and shopping

We found Nancy Chandler's map of Bangkok to be an indispensable guide for sightseeing and locating eating and shopping places. It is available at the hotels and souvenir shops.

We were able to see most of the sights by traveling on the express boat. The Grand Palace, Wat Po, the National Museum, Wat Arun, the Royal Barge Museum and Chinatown are either a short walk away or right at the express-boat piers.

Tickets for the boat (3.5 baht, or about 15 cents) can be purchased either on board the boat or from ticket sellers at the piers. Be aware, however, that many of the ticket sellers at the piers try to sell you tickets for private longtail boats instead.

Metered taxis are relatively inexpensive and the most comfortable way to travel to areas that cannot be reached by boat. However, they often get stuck in traffic and are difficult to find when it rains. We found that traffic lights take forever to change.

Buses are frequent and cover the entire city. But they also get stuck in traffic and are crowded at rush hours.

Tuk tuks, or 3-wheeled open vehicles, are quick and inexpensive. But we often felt we were risking our lives in them as they wove in and out of traffic.

We found English-speaking guides who would give tours at the major sites either for free or for a small fee. We were particularly pleased with the free English-language tour offered at the National Museum. Museum exhibits ranged from prehistoric artifacts to gowns and furnishings of the royal family, offering a fine overview of Thai culture.

Bangkok is full of huge shopping malls: the World Trade Center, Central Plaza, Siam Center, Peninsula Plaza and so on. They carry merchandise no different from that found anywhere in the world.

For local products, the Narayana Phand across from the World Trade Center has three floors of Thai products, some of excellent quality. The River City Shopping Complex also houses many shops carrying local products. It has several fine art, antique and fabric shops.

The most fun and unique shopping experience is at the Chatuchak weekend market, a large open-air market covering several blocks with hundreds of stalls selling everything from live animals to preserved insects to beautiful quilt work and hand-loomed fabrics. We were amazed at the quality and variety of goods sold there.

An ATM machine using the Plus and Cirrus systems is conveniently close by. We had to replenish our money supply three times for purchases of sarongs, scarfs, quilts, pewter work, preserved insects and other Thai products.

Also not be to be missed is a Thai massage. These are available at Wat Po for 50 baht (around $2) and at the hotels for about 750 baht ($30). (One U.S. dollar is approximately 25 baht. A simple way to convert Thai currency is to multiply baht by four and drop two zeros; thus, 100 baht is roughly $4.)

We had a wonderful massage at the River City Haircut Salon for 300 baht ($12). My husband and I were ushered into a small room with two mattresses where we were asked to change into short-sleeved cotton pajamas. Two massage therapists worked on us at the same time.

Thai massage uses a combination of pressure points and kneading. They massaged the entire body but focused primarily on the feet and legs.

Thai food is great

We enjoyed wonderful food, although we generally found the hotel food to be overpriced and mediocre. Arriving late on our first night in Bangkok, we ate at the Royal Orchid's River Night Market, an open-air buffet next to the river.

Different foods were featured at long tables set up around the restaurant, including fresh seafood that could be grilled or cooked to order. You pay only for what you order.

We had bowls of noodles in beef broth, barbecued meat and chicken on a stick, and barbecued crayfish - all delicious. With a beer, the bill came to 640 baht, or about $25 - not bad by U.S. standards but expensive compared to local Thai restaurants.

We found the River City Shopping Complex to be a handy place to eat, since it could be reached directly from the Royal Orchid without stepping out into the heat and pollution of the city. We had excellent meals and reasonable meals at three of the restaurants there: Coffee Cafe, the BarBQ House and the Savoy. Drinks and snacks were also available at a supermarket in the complex.

The BarBQ House serves an interesting combination of hot pot, or shabu shabu, and barbecue.

Each table has a grill fired with hot coals on which you can cook various combinations of thinly sliced meats, seafood and vegetables. The grill has a rounded rim into which the waitress pours a broth. The meats are barbecued on the center of the grill while the vegetables are cooked in the broth, which becomes increasingly flavorful.

Our order of chicken, pork, beef and noodles came to 250 baht ($10) for two. Generally, a 10% service charge is included in the bill, so tipping is not necessary.

Our favorite restaurant at River City was the Savoy, a large seafood restaurant right next to the river. On an open-air verandah, the Savoy displays tables of fresh fish - perch, cod, grouper and others - plus shrimps, crabs, lobsters, mussels, clams and various seafood and vegetables, listing their prices by weight. Your selections are weighed and cooked to order.

We had a delicious deep-fried grouper topped with chili sauce plus grilled rock lobster and wonderful mussels steamed Thai style. The mussels were a new taste treat, redolent with lemon grass, ginger, shallots and lots of fresh coriander.

A tasty dish of stir-fried vegetables came with asparagus, mushrooms, choi-sum and other tender vegetables. We topped off our meal with sliced mango, which was accompanied by sweet Thai sticky rice.

Our dinner bill including wine was 1,150 baht ($46), which we considered a bargain considering what we ordered.

On another evening we tried the inside dining room at the Savoy, which features Chinese/Thai cooking.

When we asked if they had fresh fish, the waitress replied that the only fresh fish they had was perch. This sounded unlikely to us, since they obviously had lots of fresh fish on the verandah.

We asked to see the "fresh" fish and found the perch swimming around in a tank. It turned out that by "fresh" they meant "live." The perch, steamed with scallions and ginger, turned out to be delicious.

Over-rated, we thought

Many guidebooks had recommended Than Ying as having excellent Thai food. We caught a free Oriental Hotel shuttle from the River City pier to the Oriental Hotel and walked about 20 minutes to the restaurant.

We would recommend going by taxi instead. The streets were filled with traffic, noise and dust. Heavy construction on new buildings and overpasses crowded the streets and made walking hazardous. We finally found the restaurant on a quiet side street.

Food at Than Ying was good but uninspired. The restaurant is in an old house with a new wing decorated California style. It offered three prix fixe dinners that featured a variety of Thai foods.

The medium-priced 550-baht dinner started with mixed Thai appetizers. This included small servings of corn fritters, mixed vegetables in a small waffle cone, shrimp cake, and deep-fried chicken wrapped in a pandanus leaf. This was followed by spicy prawn soup, spicy beef salad and a sample of three entrees: Massaman beef curry, garlic prawns, and beef with tamarind.

Everything was good, but nothing tasted as good as it sounded. Dessert was apple slices baked in coconut milk plus fresh fruit.

A couple of favorites

We much more enjoyed two less-expensive Thai restaurants, Seefah and Soen Daeng.

Seefah is in Siam Square. It was recommended by a Thai man who saw us wandering around looking hungry. The clean, bright restaurant has an open kitchen and a bakery counter.

We ordered steamed noodles in clay pot and rice topped with sauteed chicken and egg. Instead of being soupy, the steamed noodles in clay pot turned out to be firm, dry and chewy with a crispy bottom. We couldn't resist ending with desserts of sliced mango with sweet sticky rice and fried bananas.

Our bill, including iced coffee, beer and tip, was only 350 baht ($14).

Soen Daeng was our favorite restaurant, located at 78/2 Ratcha-damnoenklang Road in the Democracy Monument Circle. It had been recommended as a local favorite by a friend who travels frequently to Thailand.

The restaurant has the look and feel of a 1940s cabaret, with alternating male and female singers serenading the customers. Well-dressed Thais who appeared to be regulars filled the restaurant.

On our first visit we lunched on steamed mussels and two types of Thai noodles. One was a flat look fun noodle fried with basil leaves and the other was a steamed flat noodle with chicken and shiitake mushrooms. Both were delicious. A bean curd roll appetizer was fried crisp and filled with crab meat.

Final food notes

Both the Royal Orchid Sheraton and the Shangrila offered wonderful breakfast buffets for around US$15 which were bountiful with fruits, pastries, cooked-to-order omelets and local foods.

We also tried the much-touted Sala Thip Thai restaurant at the Shangrila and the Verandah at the Oriental. We found the settings to be lovely, but both meals were pricy and not memorable. We found the service at the Oriental's Verandah particularly disappointing - slow, forgetful and error prone.

Most of the malls and department stores, such as Robinson's, have food courts where noodles and a variety of local fast foods are available. A central booth at each food court sells scrip for all the food stalls. Each stall has pictures of the different dishes it serves, and we found it easiest to look at what other customers were ordering and point to the same thing.

Conclusion

We had a wonderful time in Bangkok but regret that we could not visit outlying areas.

We were disappointed to find rampant development and out-of-control traffic and pollution. It was impossible to walk for very long without feeling congested and headachy from car exhaust and dust from construction.

Although we wished that we could have visited it about 30 years earlier, much of Bangkok remains unique and memorable. We have happy memories of boating along the canals, watching the fish jump and seeing people going about their daily lives on the river. The temples and the Grand Palace are sights not to be forgotten.

And, of course, we will always remember the wonderful food and exotic fruits.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Martin Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group