Shopping:
Previously I told my friends that I never really buy much in Bangkok on my previous trips. This is the absolute truth. But not for this trip. We spent every single Baht we had. By the end of the trip, we were digging our purses and pockets for every spare coin or dollar.

The first stop on Friday was Platinum Mall. And we were already shopped out at the first shopping centre. Xiu Ru and I stormed the basement first while the rest crawled on the first floor only to meet up for the much needed grub for further shopping. Thai girls are little petite things so the question on my lips were ‘will this fit me?’. The picture below is just a quarter of the shopping we did collectively at Platinum Mall.

Chatuchak! We trooped down on Saturday morning, armed with fans, both battery operated and hand operated. The girls spent ages in a bikini shop (uh huh Mel, I am pointing at you) and perused the ‘Thai designer’ stalls at the weekend market. Spoke to two girls owner of a stall whose clothes we liked and asked where to go for clubbing. One of them studied in Beijing for 4 years and spoke very good mandarin (better than *cough* Seow *cough*). Seow made friends with another stall owner who loves Singapore and was telling how he got a headache from ION Orchard and how he is totally into Goyard right now (we asked to see his Goyard and we touched it, heh.) Less purchasing was done here perhaps because of the weather? But while Seow and Jas bought dog food and treats for Chloe, Snow and Peanut, we petted little puppies and daydreams of dog ownership returned.

Xiu Ru and I slept in on Sunday after the first night of clubbing so the other girls went off to conquer the Siam Paragon area after breakfast while we crawled back to bed. Upon rousing from our second sleep, we trooped pass Platinum Mall and Pratunam Centre and over the river, to our first large shopping mall, Central Mall. The prerequisite bras were purchased at Isetan and a chocolate pie and ice cream cone from MacD’s were consumed. Xiu Ru tried on this gorgeous backless culotte playsuit from Disaya at Zen but walked away from it (Xiu Ru are you Regretting?) Perhaps it is the influx of tiny small stalls that we had taken in on the days before but when faced with a huge department stall, I suddenly got very lost and did not know where to start.

Using the intricate series of overhead walkways, we visited Gaysore and walked to the Four Faced Buddha to pay respect to the big guy upstairs. I looked through the Balenciaga store window at Siam Paragon longingly. Man, the store is huge in comparison with the one at Hilton back home. Siam Square for Boots overload. It is interesting how the British drugstore brand has not infiltrated into Singapore (I mean even Sephora has arrived, albeit without the more interesting brands.) Then it was across the street to visit the little stores ala a very diminished Soho (in size and scale) (as you can tell, I have no idea what this area is called) but filled with so many gorgeous finds, like a polka dotted scarf with hearts, a bandage skirt to be worn with bondage shoes. A sweet Thai boy (abit er girly) shown us how his sequined skirt could change colours with a wave of the hand. We stayed there till late.

We visited Suan Lum night market the night we watched Muay Thai. Suan Lum is a little like Platinum and a little like Chatuchak, with intriguing wares. I should have bought this bag at a little stall there. I could not bring myself to touch it more after checking the price tag because it is after all the first day of buying. Yes, I regret! Hopefully Huileng who will be going to Bangkok in 2 weeks will be able to bring it back to me. The lady behind the bags is so clever! Can I purchase crafty genes? Yes, I really like that bag. Regrets, we had so many.

Clubbing:
The girls at the tiny clothes stall at Chatuchak told us to go to Funky in the Thong Lor area. We hailed a cab to bring us to the area on a Rainy Saturday night but had zero idea where it was and just told the cab driver to go to Thong Lor and wished for the best. We figured we could spot it from the road. We were a little too hopeful. The poor cab driver was clueless when we asked him whether he knew where Funky was, we made up a story about how he is very poor and needed to come out to make a living and never been clubbing in his entire life. He drove around up and down Thong Lor, while we passed Japanese restaurant and cafe after another, it was a little Japanese town. It was quite a torture because we were actually ravenous as we had not have any dinner yet. When we finally found it not along the main road of course but having to turn into one of Bangkok’s infamous Soi-s, the full name is Funky Villa with the word Villa on the sign infinitely times bigger than Funky. The kind cab driver was very sweet and tried to drop us off nearest to the entrance of the club but we still got drenched. Funky Villa’s carpark is Huge. Like 6 times the one of Zouk’s. They did have umbrella boys carrying huge canopies to shelter the clubbers from their car to the club. There was no cover charge, but ID is always checked. Upon entering, the waitress brought us to the front of the stage, unbeknown to us, she was showing us the available table on the ‘dance floor’ because as we will realise later in the night that the only way to be able to dance in a Bangkok club is dancing around your own table. At that point, we were befuddled and just said ‘No’ politely and ran out to get a cab to the main road to one of the little Japanese places to placate our empty stomachs.

The Japanese place we picked randomly was a huge disappointment even with our great hunger plus we were wet especially me with my not waterproof at all Stella McCartney for Adidas (Dizzy, you know which shoes I am talking about, it was Horrible). Bangkok does not have a very efficient drainage system, hence, whenever it rains it floods.

As we hailed yet another cab and discussed whether to to go back to Funky Villa, our spirits were quite low. It was not a very good start to the night but as we told the cab driver to head to RCA things got better very soon.

The cab had to stop us in the underground carpark of RCA and judging from the very very full carpark that was also very very large, we realised that the Bangkok residents really do come out in full force. Xiu Ru had heard about Route 66 and Slim from her hairdresser when she was held captive in his chair as she had gone to get her hair cut and coloured the day we left for Bangkok. We made for Route 66 first and realised that foreigners had to pay a 200 Baht entrance fee. What discrimination. However the club was very swanky with two large rooms for what sounded like R&B and hip hop with popular music (Lady Gaga was playing when we entered) and Thai music in the other. For some reason, we decided to go to the loo first before anything and boy was I glad. The toilet of Route 66 was like a highlight of the trip.

When we entered, there was a powder room with a sofa running the length of the curved wall with a 2 man band serenading the girls who were taking a break from clubbing in the toilet. I just stood there and stared at them, speechless. When I finally got to the actual toilet stalls (by the way, of course the ladies’ toilet was colossal, they had 2 ladies for crowd control. They were not the Zouk aunties who wiped the sinks and passed you paper after you washed your hands. Their main call of duty was to usher the next girl in the queue to the next available toilet stall. Man, were they efficient.

We got some drinks with our 200 Baht vouchers and sat at the ‘North’ area of the club. The girls did not like the place much (not happy to pay cover charge) so they decided to go to Slim which was next door.

Slim was almost the same layout as Route 66 except there were 3 rooms instead of 2 and one Trance room called Flix that Seow rather enjoyed. (Crazy hands! Points to Seow.) The hip hop and Thai music rooms were full but the patrons were not packed shoulder to shoulder (like *cough* Phuture *cough*). We could not find any space to dance and hung around the bar until Mel and I got fed up and caught hold of a waiter. He was very sweet and obliged to our insistence to get a table even though we could see there was none available. He gestured to us to follow him with his limited command of English and brought us to a table which was surrounded by people but after talking to one of the guys, they moved their drinks to one side and viola, we had a table, a third of a table also good. After a little bit of chicken and duck conversation (me english, waiter thai plus only english words he knew) enlisting the also limited help of one of the guys whose table we were sharing whom we would make friends with later that night, we ordered a bottle of Johnny Walker with mixers. (Alcohol cheap! Mixers expensive! Their green tea really weird tasting.)

And then we danced and danced and danced from twelve-ish until two thirty. The DJ repeated the songs but we were busy having too much fun to notice. We had space, no persistent stream of people trying to get past us and we laughed and danced and drank…. case in point, the darling Miss Chng. In a bid to finish the bottle as the night closed (what were we doing girls!), Xiu Ru drank and toasted to our neighbours and in the end, convinced Charn (our new friend) and us that we were coming back the next night (Sunday night but Xiu Ru says: They club everyday of week!).

As the lights were turned on and all was bright in the club as the clubbers filtered out of Slim, the following transpired between Miss Chng and our new friend:-
Xiu Ru: Tomorrow we come back here to the same place, you coming!
Charn: Tomorrow night?
Xiu Ru: (someone whispered into her ear that it is tomorrow being two thirty in the morning): Tonight Tonight! Sunday Night!
Charn: Tomorrow night? Monday?
Xiu Ru: We will be here, you are coming too, ok on?
Charn: …..
[Anyway, he did appear the next night, waiting for us at the same table in Slim on a Sunday night and yes, they do club everyday and we got a bigger bottle of Walker (for some reason) and we still stayed until closing though we were not intending to.]

Jas, Xiu Ru and Mel took pictures with the DJs who informed us that they were playing at Double O and Zirca the next weekend. They asked them, how about Zouk? As we stumbled out of the club, Xiu Ru being a little high made random conversation with random strangers, eating random junk food she does not usually eat when she is sober but surprisingly still managed to give the correct amount of Baht to the return home cab who drove like the devil. But back in the hotel room, she was a Dead Block and refused to sleep on the Dirty Bed. I cannot say what other eeeeee things that she refused to do that have to do with personal hygiene.

Above: Bangkok Troopers at Slim