Travel Diaries: Bangkok Day 2 (Safari World & Marine Park, The Marble Temple)

Our second day in Bangkok was super packed!  We were in Safari World & Marine Park most of the day then we passed by the Marble Temple and lastly, we passed by the first ISO certified jewelry shop and apparently its the biggest jewelry shop in the world.  Good thing our breakfast the whole time we were in Bangkok was a buffet breakfast.

Let me just say there were so many tourists!  When I got the itinerary and read that we had Safari World, I had thoughts of animals in their respective cages or animals free to roam and us transferring to a separate vehicle that would bring us around to view the animals.  But when we entered, still in the van, it took us a while to realize that we were already in the safari. Vans and buses were all slowly moving with tourists and school children viewing the animals that were free to roam the area.  It was quite a challenge to take photos.

Deers (? LOL) are so photogenic!

And that ends the actual safari.  It took us less than an hour I think to go around and see the animals.  After that it was actually time to enter the zoo and watch the shows.

First up was the Orangutan Show.  They were so human like!  They had a boxing match.  Its a great show for kids. 

Next was the Sea Lion Show who drew so much viewers.

Before the third and last show we watched, we had a lunch buffet.  Again, the noodle soup was present.  And it seems like Thailand is very much abundant with watermelon as we've been having it for dessert from the beginning of our trip (in the airplane).

This is me and the kids. :)

Yes, I am a scardy cat.

The amazing view of the safari!

 Finally, the dolphin show.  After this, we left Safari World.  Going to Safari World and leaving Safari World took a while because it was actually quite far and the traffic didn't help.

We visited the Marble Temple which was amazing, but I think Bangkok has much more stunning temples.  Unfortunately, we were only able to visit one. 

As I said earlier, our last stop was the jewelry shop.  I ended up buying a simple ring to remind myself of the trip.  It was interesting to see the people making the jewelry in action.

And that's that for our second day in Bangkok.  I have a few days more! :)

Travel Diaries: Bangkok Day 1 (Siam Niramit)

Two weeks ago I was invited to join a trip to Thailand and Hong Kong.  For someone who hasn't been out  of the country in a while I was super excited.  Eight days and seven nights to explore two different places, to get to try new food, and of course to shop!  Travel is a chance to get away from stressful things and for a while, be oblivious and carefree.  Fortunately, I had the chance to travel with a great family who were so accommodating and fun to be with.

If you live in the Philippines you'd think that it would be a breeze to get to Bangkok, which was our first destination, but in our case we had to go through a 6 hour drive from Manila to Baguio.  If you're up to date with airports, you'd know that our airport isn't one to boast. 

Well, the long trip was worth it.  Bangkok was great!  We had an itinerary and a tour guide, Tuk-tuk (Yes, she has the same name as their country's version of our tricycle.).  There are upsides and downsides to having a tour guide, but in this case we did enjoy having a tour guide.  We got to our hotel, Arnoma Hotel, rested a bit, and headed to the nearest mall beside us to grab something to eat.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take much pictures of what we've eaten there, but I should tell you we had noodle soup several times during this trip.  It was at every buffet.

Our first item in our itinerary was to have a dinner buffet and watch a popular show among tourists, Siam Niramit.  We enjoyed the show very much despite rushing our dinner buffet, which was our first amongst several buffet meals in Bangkok.  We got our first taste of Bangkok traffic and got to the restaurant about 30 minutes before the show.  We ate what we could and headed off to the show which ended around 10  or 11 PM cause there was a short delay.  There were so many tourists and to think it was a Thursday.  I really didn't analyze what the play was about (probably because we haven't recovered from the travel) but you could get a gist of it nonetheless.  There wasn't much dialogue, but their actions and choreography was great.  It was so colorful and creative that none of us got bored I think.  The set was amazing!  There was a part when the stage suddenly turned into a river out of nowhere!  Then a man dived and there were boats coming in.  And they had I think 2 elephants on stage!  Too bad you can't take photos.  I didn't even try taking any with my mobile phone.  I guess, its just something you should try yourself when you get the chance.

Instead of going on to the next day of the trip, I'm cutting this post short and posting the rest by pieces to make it easy.  I still have photos to fix.

Until next post! :)