Tom Bangkok, the most visited city before and after COVID-19 and most commonly remembered for the city with the longest name. Due to its proximity to Singapore and advent of budget airlines, Bangkok is also one of the top travel destinations for a quick getaway in the region. In this review of Bangkok, we spent 48 hours over the weekend – landing at Bangkok International Airport on a 3pm on Friday and taking off at 3pm on a Sunday. This is also why our 48 hours is actually spread over a period of “3 days”. As this was our first flight since the onset of COVID in 2020, we were pretty excited about this trip and were looking forward to it! Before our flight, we checked out the Priority Pass offerings at Changi Airport Terminal 1 post-COVID…
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Lounge Hopping at Changi Airport Terminal 1 – Friday: 11am to 2pm
As our flight was scheduled for 2pm, we headed to Changi Lounge (land side), SATS Premier Lounge and Marhaba Lounge to check out the offerings post-COVID…
The first few things that we noticed when we arrived at Changi Airport was that the atmosphere was buzzing! There were alot of tourists at both the departure terminals as well as Jewel Changi Airport. This means that the post-COVID recovery for the tourism sector is finally underway…
As Changi Lounge is on the land side, it was the first lounge that we visited and we found that the lounge no longer offered buffets. However, we were pleasantly surprised by the tasty, high quality pastries that are currently being offered. A meal such as the one you see above – due to the crisp layers of the chocolate danish and raisin swirl as well as the gourmet coffees, it probably costs in excess of $20 at a classy cafe in town…
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From the captions above, you may have noticed that we actually hopped over to Terminal 3 to check out the SATS and Marhaba lounges there. This is to also confirm that the internal Sky Trains that plies between terminals are also up and running. As always, we enjoyed the laksa at SATS – probably better than many of the laksa that you can find in the city. At Marhaba, the ambience is nice with its high ceiling and good teriyaki chicken over rice. Yum!
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Soon, it was time to depart for our flight via Scoot to Bangkok…
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Checking-In at Centara Watergate Pavilion Hotel Bangkok – Friday: 2pm to 5pm
Flight time from Singapore to Thailand is about 2.5 hours but you will gain an hour due to time difference. As we approached Thailand, we were able to see the nicely-segregated rice fields. Soon, we landed and started to make our way to arrival hall. As there are several concourses and we probably landed at the furthest end, we had to walk for 15 mins or so before we reached the arrival hall. It’s at times like these that we’re thankful for inventors of travelators. At the arrival hall, you’ll have to choose the correct lane at immigration. This is because some lanes are served by two customs officers and some by one – akin to how you will choose the lanes at Johor customs.
Also, we witnessed an incident at our arrival.
One of the Chinese passengers was flagged out after he handed over his passport to the customs officer. A small squabble ensued before the customs officer called for another counterpart to escort him and his friend away. As with most customs these days, you’d be required to scan your finger prints and face (masks off) as a form of secondary verification on top of your passports. Although we “chose” the wrong lane – we saw that our lane was served by only one customs officer 😅, the wait was still relatively short. Next, we had to locate the airport rail link…
After clearing immigration and customs, it was relatively easy to locate the Airport Rail Link to Bangkok City. The train ride takes about 30 minutes to travel from Bangkok International Airport to Bangkok City – avoiding the crazy jams of the city. It is also relatively cheap at 40THB ($1.5SGD). Hence, we’d strongly recommend this option if you’re heading to Bangkok,
The other thing we noticed was that prior to boarding, there will be some cleaning and checks done before passengers can board. So just be patient. The journey was a breeze. Within 30 minutes, we arrived at Ratchaprarop Station where we could walk to Centara Watergate Pavilion Hotel, conveniently located across from Platinum Fashion Mall…
The walk from Ratchaprarop Station (Bangkok Airport Rail Link) to Centara Watergate Pavilion Hotel took about 10 minutes. If you’re coming from this direction, you’ll have to enter a small little mall, follow the signs and you’ll reach the ground floor of the hotel. The reception is located at level 9. Here, you’ll find the in-house restaurant (Cafe 9), the reception, the gym as well as the in-house Cense Spa. Do note that Centara Watergate Pavilion does not have a swimming pool. There is a water feature with some outdoor cabanas where you can chill. The towels provided are for you to dry your feet if you decide to dip in the waters. But nope, no swimming pools here.
The check-in process was rather prompt. After finishing up our welcome drink, we were given our key cards with a complimentary upgrade to Deluxe Room which was sliiightly bigger than the Superior room…
First off, we have to say that the hotel is extremely clean! If you’re heading to Bangkok and do not need additional facilities such as the swimming pool, Centara Watergate Pavilion Hotel is perfect for you to rest and rejuvenate for your next day out. Did we mention that it is very very clean? 😄 The only thing bugged us was the glass panel that allows views into and out of the bathroom. Why? It was rather strange that the curtain to separate the bathroom from the sleeping area, was on the OUTSIDE. Hm…🤔 Nonetheless, at $60SGD per night, it was very reasonably priced.
Massage and Dinner near Platinum Mall – Friday: 5pm to 7pm
After checking out our hotel, we took a short walk towards Platinum Mall to find the massage parlour that was recommended to us. Located diagonally across from Platinum Mall, Leteva Thai Massage offers great massages that are attractively priced…
This time, we did the foot massage and head,neck,back,shoulder massage for 250THB each – slightly less than 10SGD for an hour’s massage. For the foot massage, there’s even a nice little footbath to start off and the strength of the masseuse was pretty good as well. As for the HNBS massage, we didn’t have to change into typical spa outfits and the masseuse just massaged over our shirt and jeans. Turned out to be a really great session that ended with a typical Thai “bone cracking” ritual. Professionally done! 😊
After the massage, we got back across the street to Platinum Mall where we had dinner at the food centre (or food court) located at level 6…
To be honest, Platinum Mall seems to be a good place to shop – only if you’re into shopping for clothes and such. It is a fashion mall afterall. As shopping was not really high on our list this time, we headed straight to level 6 for an early dinner where we had a triple pork noodles – consisting of braised, roasted and charsiew pork, for 120 baht ($4.5SGD) and the mango sticky rice for 80 baht ($3). This allowed us to cross out two delicacies that we wanted to try. The roasted pork was actually quite good, cackling at the skin. Little wonder a lady after us just ordered take out for a portion of roasted pork…after the light meal, we headed back to our hotel before grabbing out to Jodd Fairs Night Market!
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Dinner and Night Market at Jodd Fairs – Friday: 7pm to 11pm
The Grab ride from Centara Watergate Pavilion Hotel to Jodd Fairs was about 150THB (~$5SGD). However, do book your grab ride in advance as the Bangkok traffic can really delay drivers quite a bit. On several occasions we had to wait about 20 minutes or so for our ride.
Upon arrival at Jodd Fairs, we were greeted by live music and a large open space with tables and chairs to wine and dine. However, when we tried to go for seats that were being left emptied, we were told that there’s a queue. Hence, remember to join the queue and head to these tables in an orderly fashion. Since we were looking for a dinner location, we headed to one of the “Volcano Ribs” restaurant. Although there was a queue, we managed to get a seat in less than 10 minutes…
Sometimes known as “Pork Ribs Mountain”, “Volcano Ribs” is actually a dish that stacks the spine of pigs, drizzled with a green chili based white Tom Yum soup. The ribs are boiled till the meat becomes tender. The chili/Tom Yum drizzled over the ribs is spicy and sour, yet very enticing…
We also ordered some other dishes such as pineapple fried rice, fried fish, deep fried pork belly and lala (clams). However, we found the ribs to be the most value-for-money. The other dishes didn’t taste that great, were pricey and came at really small portions. This was also probably why we saw some couples enjoying just the “Volcano Ribs” without ordering other items.
After dinner, we continued to stroll around Jodd Fairs. We really enjoyed the atmosphere at Jodd Fairs as well as the fairy lights that lined the paths. There are also alot of other street foods available such as BBQ beef, skewers, cuttlefish and fried items. We purchased the Shiba-Inu milk tea at 60baht ($2.50) before continuing our stroll around Jodd Fairs. We also recalled finding a really talented pancake artist. You didn’t read that wrong…a pancake artist…
After going through most of the stalls at Jodd Fairs, we finally found the stall (not because the stall owner is pretty – there’s another fruit juice stall owner who is just that). This time, we ordered the “My Melody” pancake. She then whipped out her phone and using her artistic talents, tried to match the photo with a cute slant and this was how the My Melody pancake turned out…
As we were still pretty full, we had the My Melody pancake for takeaway. At 40baht ($1.5SGD), the pancake was worth it and was also tasty when dipped into the chocolate sauce. Definitely having other cute characters during our next visit in the future!
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Book with Agoda Here: Popular Hotels in Bangkok
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So this ends our first 9 hours of our 48 hours travels in Bangkok. In Day 2, we’ll continue our 48 hours whirlwind travels in Bangkok by visiting some amazing bakeries and doing some cafe hopping in Bangkok. Stay tuned!
