Day 6: Bangkok Art & Culture Centre and Chocolate Ville (Oct 2014)

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Thursday, 23rd October 2014

I was off to Bangkok this morning. From Hua Hin, I took a mini-van to the Victory Monument BTS Station in Bangkok for 180 Baht. It took more than 3 hours to cover the entire 199km due to frequent stops along the way to pick up passengers and fuel breaks.

Upon arrival in Bangkok, I wasn't too bothered to check out the name of the restaurant where I took my lunch. All I remembered was that I was really hungry and badly needed a toilet break. The noodles were forgettable - tasted pretty bland for the most part. There was a tuk-tuk vehicle in the interior of the restaurant which was really amazing.

Before checking in, I took a peep at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC in short). This fine art institution was located right smack in the heart of town, linked to the National Stadium BTS Station.

I didn't had an opportunity to visit BACC when I was in the city in December 2010 as it was closed for the new year's holidays. Within the BACC, there were niche cafes, shops and interesting art galleries. The best part of it was that the admission was free and I could make use of the luggage storage facilities at no additional charge.

Unlike the usual mayhem of downtown, the crowds were thin in BACC and this was a perfect place to spend some quiet time unwinding in the afternoon. From BACC, I took the BTS to Bangkok Loft Inn at Thonburi where I was going to spend 2 nights before heading back to Singapore.

This was a hotel that I had gotten quite familiar with and it was always nice to stay with them again.

P came by at 4pm to fetch me to Chocolate Ville, about an hour's drive from Thonburi. This is basically a Dutch-inspired Theme Park with no rides and no admission charges (explains the huge crowds on a weekday afternoon). The grounds were relatively small but it was a great place to spend time taking pictures in an un-Thai environment. Food was expensive in Chocolate Ville and we decided to head somewhere else for dinner.

P brought me to one of his favourite restaurants for meals where we had a good time catching up. Ever since P returned home to Thailand in 2013, we had not met up until now. The night passed by quickly and we decided to call it a day as P needed to be back in the office the following morning before his trip to Japan.

This was a brief meet-up session with P but I'm pretty sure that we would have other opportunities to catch up again in future.

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