Final stop: Bangkok Chinatown – Yaowarat Road
Now while I was on Centralworld, I had to plot out my destination – Yaowarat Road. The main artery of Bangkok’s Chinatown.
To be honest, this wasn’t on the first set of lists I made for the touring thing. But after I booked the Bangkok guided tour from Klook, I started planning around the fringes before I went to Thailand. What to do after 5PM? Then I perused some of the offers at TripAdvisor, and I got curious as to why there were lots of eating tours in, near, or making a stop at one place: Bangkok Chinatown. So I decided to make that my extra stop for February 9 after the main tour has completed. But with an asterisk. That asterisk was, if I am exhausted by 5PM, cross off the extra leg and go back to the hotel, pig out at any nearby restaurant.
By 4.45PM at the bus, I was gauging my interest. Do I go? I thought I could still go on until 8PM, and man I was hungry after all that walking. So I firmly decided to go to Bangkok Chinatown after the tour.
Plotting the course was made easy by Google Maps. Taxis are out of the question – I’ve heard enough tales of hapless tourists getting gouged. And Grab is no good either – I wanted to avoid the infamous Bangkok traffic, and 5PM wasn’t a nice time to test the roads. Train it was.
So I had to plod back to Siam Station, but use the Silom line going to Bang Wa, and made a stop at Sala Daeng. Then I hopped to a nearby Metro blue line at “Si Lom” going to Lak Song, and alighted at the Hua Lamphong station. Then after a healthy 550m walk, there’s the fabled Yaowarat Road.
Hua Lamphong Station was one option out of two train stops. Another option was to alight instead at the Wat Mangkhon Station, one stop later. Saw that in the map before I decided to go for Hua Lamphong. However, 1) it is directly on top around the middle of Chinatown, so I had to abandon my plan of up-and-down Yaowarat Road, and 2) I am strange – I tend to prefer long ways sometimes, just to see more instead of seeing less. So, I decided on Hua Lamphong. 11 minutes of walking was no biggie… not yet.
From Hua Lamphong, I had to cross several roads to get to where I needed to go. And as per course in Asian countries (like mine), locals already have the “mental green light” when it came to crossing streets. Like, the pedestrian light meant STOP but locals innately knew when to safely cross, lights be ignored. I too have that sense, but as I am with foreign countries, I’d rather follow the pedestrian lights and their rules. I don’t have domestic immunity, so for me as a visitor, I’d rather just abide by the rules.
By the time I arrived at the tip of Yaowarat Road near Wat Traimit, it was apparent that CNY decorations and festivity-related event centers are being put through their testing phases for the next day’s festivities. Golden dragons and red everywhere. Then I started walking down the street.
I walked from there until near Chakkrawat Road, which was a healthy distance to cover. Would’ve been easy, if not for the BIG deluge of people and vehicles trying to traverse the road, plus workers trying to put metal barricades for the night road market, and a live troupe of dragon dance performers walking the same road with drums.
OK, I thought, let this troupe pass through first. I am not going to tail this bam-bam-bababam-bam thing. I stopped for a roadside treat first. There was this roadside stall selling something iced and sweet, so I thought to try one just to pass the time.
Then the madness became more harder. 6PM. Lots of people started to go into the street sides, so navigating got much harder. Like a concert pit or something. Taking pictures are a no-go, too many people and I had to manage myself first and look out for pickpockets, and I had to do my best to see what’s what in the market. Lots of food to eat but I had to be very selective. If I were 25 I could’ve eaten several meals and still have room for a cup of Haagen-Dazs, but now I can probably only eat two meals at a time. Stomach ain’t what it used to be.
So one of the things I wanted to try was that stewed pork leg, or khao ka moo. I looked for a stall that had a seat for one. Nope for several. The eating tours really are in high hear, huh. All tables nabbed. So I started to eyeball the inner streets on the side of the main road and see if there were hidden stalls on the sides I can rest for and eat one. Luckily, one had a seat. And sells beer.
I rested my legs for a bit then I went for another jaunt to look for food.
When I got to near Chakkrawat Road, I felt it. The dreaded “I’m tired and I want to go back to the hotel and chill” feeling. Any tourist will be familar with that feeling, like “sorry I’m done for the day, let’s go home”. Fighting that feeling will be hard – every step is a marathon leg. So I crossed the Yaowarat Road and traversed back using the left side of the road. I saw what’s what in the right side anyway. But I had side goals – one more dinner dish, and one for breakfast tomorrow. I’m not paying for a breakfast buffet.
I didn’t have to look far for the breakfast thing, one was just near where I crossed the street from.
A stall was selling many bread filled with various flavors, so I bought 4 for 100 baht. One Thai milk tea, one pandan, one chocolate and one coconut. They steamed it for a few minutes before putting them in takeaway containers.
Midway thru the street from where I started, O bought a small takeaway packet of small cube-sized Thai sausages called sai krok isan, and they gave extra sauces, cabbage leaves and a few slices of cucumber plus a couple of chillies and ginger slices. I thought that was it for the buys.
Then a few stalls after, a stall just opened, selling seafood in takeaway containers. They had (I think) clams, scallops, and shellfish. But also, big red shrimp. Cooked shrimp. And best of all, some of them were peeled already. I didn’t plan for this, but as they gave me two samples, two fat peeled shrimp dipped in spicy green sauce, I’m in. 300 baht for one full container. That’s it, I’m done, thank you, I’m peace-ing out before I see wagyu cube steaks or something.
A few paragraphs ago, I mentioned I started near the Wat Traimit. I saw that when I came in and I didn’t give any particular attention – after all, Bangkok has a lot of wats. But when I came back on the way to Hua Lamphong, I went in because I saw these big-ass candles.
The view wasn’t bad either. Look at that beautiful building. Very very nice to see. A quick wiki look said that building houses a golden Buddha. I remembered that picture in a Guinness Book of World Records I’ve read before, and luck be that it was the same one. As it’s late already, I can’t have a peek anymore, but it was a nice breather stop. I’ve walked far and long and my legs are like the 20% battery warning on my phone. I need a bit of a charge. Thankfully a tent nearby was giving away cups of cold iced water, and that was more than enough to give me a boost. Thank you, temple I barely visited. Maybe next time 🙂
So my longer way gamble paid off somewhat. Extra temple seen. Not bad at all.
Water bottle count: nearly 6 (plus a bottle of Chang)
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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