Bangkok Trip Day 1 | Platinum Fashion Mall

Being a Thai food lover and shopping addict, I know that Bangkok is definitely the place for me! I know that BKK is such a common traveling place, (don’t laugh at me), but I haven’t been to Thailand ever since I was a few years old!

My parents specially asked my bf along for this short trip. It is actually the second time I travelled with both my family and bf, the previous time was at Legoland and Hello Kitty Town at M’sia. I was really looking forward for this trip because of the food and shopping too!

Prince Palace Hotel

We stayed at Prince Palace Hotel and it is located just beside ChinaTown. My dad booked a suite and there are 3 bedrooms! SHIOK. It includes a living room, open kitchen and 2 toilets. The master bedroom was also huge, probably bigger than the standard hotel rooms.

Home

I planned most of the itinerary for this trip as I wanted to cover the best shopping places, while my dad picked most of the dining places.

Platinum Fashion Mall

First stop – Platinum Fashion Mall, which is almost similar to Bugis Street in Singapore, except that it’s a few times bigger and the stuff are cheaper! It is also known as Thailand largest wholesale and retail shopping destination. The mall is so huge and is separated into two different buildings, each roughly has about 6 levels of shops.

IT IS A SHOPPING HEAVEN.

My parents left the three of us – me, bf and my bro to shop while they went to Healthland to enjoy their massage. We tried to maximize our shopping but it’s such a pity that we still couldn’t finish all the levels. Almost half was left untouched.

Platinum Fashion Mall offers a great variety of stuff ranging from women, men, kids, jewellery to phone accessories. Sad to say, but the mall caters mostly to female. But fret not, because my bf and bro each bought quite a number of stuff from Platinum and they did NOT just stand there and wait for me to shop.

I initially thought that the levels are splitted into female and male sections, which I thought was really inconvenient for a gender-mixed shopping spree. I cannot imagine having them wait for me throughout the entire few levels before ending up with me doing the same afterwards.

Thankfully, there were a mix of different shops catered to both on every level, although the women fashion holds a larger percentage, the both of them are able to look around for their stuff just beside while I am digging through the racks to do some guilt-free shopping.

If you’re wondering, the clothes are so cheap ranging from 100 baht to 250 baht (SGD 4-10), will the material be lousy as well? You will be surprised that the material is worth it. Some of the clothes that I bought have similar quality to some blogshops which usually cost at least $20 in Sg. And I can get them here at $6-8.

I find it quite tough to bargain with the sellers at Platinum Mall. Maybe the issue is due to our lousy bargaining skills, but most of the sellers are insistent on their marked price which they state as “Wholesale price”.

E.g. Get 1 piece for 290 baht, 2 piece for 250 baht each.

To be honest, the prices are already quite cheap, so if I am satisfied with the product and price, I wouldn’t be bothered to argue with the seller about the price.

My friend told me that it is hard to find repeated clothes at Platinum Mall. And it’s true. The variety of clothes they offer is really so diverse that shopping is never-ending at this place. You’ll probably find a few similar designs here and there, but it will never be as repetitive as those in Bugis Street.

We went insane just shopping here.

I took a photo of this LV inspired phone because it looks really cute!

There is a food centre located at Level 6. But we decided to have lunch at Jeffer Steak. Here’s my Wagyu Beef – which isn’t really Wagyu but honestly the quality is quite good for a decent price of about SGD 16.

Mango Sticky Rice for dessert!

And shopping continues..

After an entire morning-afternoon shopping, we made our way to Chocolate Ville for dinner (Which was really super far away from Platinum Mall). Cabbing is known to be the best transport method if you are a tourist as the cab fares are really cheap ranging from 100-250 baht only.

But PLEASE BEWARE OF THE SCAMMERS.

Some advice for you..

1) Pick the yellow-green cabs as most of them are honest, MOST, not all. I am speaking this from experience and friends’ advice.

2) Always negotiate at the start to ensure that they will go by meter. Or if you are comfortable with the price they offered to you. If you don’t make a deal at the start, they might just quote an unreasonable price when you have reached your destination.

3) If you have data (just buy their Sim card at the airport, it’s quite affordable – 300 baht for 1GB), remember to switch on the Google maps to ensure that they are going by the correct route

Really upset with one of our experience.. A person at the taxi stand helped us got onto a cab and informed the driver of our destination. Thought that there wouldn’t be a problem but the cab driver ended up not knowing where he should be going! And he cannot speak English. Got off the cab and had to walk to the other side just to find a cab AGAIN!

So… Just make sure you negotiate first!

Chocolate Ville

Chocolate Ville has a dining-in-the-park concept. Beautiful place for photo-taking and for couples to enjoy a romantic dinner. No doubt it’s a great place for family an friends gathering as well. From the entrance you stepped in, you will be greeted with pretty decorations like cottages, windmills, and small ponds with real living ducks waddling around.

We ordered quite a number of food but didn’t manage to snap every single one of it as I was already so tired and hungry by the time we got there. Thanks to the cab scam and heavy jam.

Food quality is just average but the pork ribs were quite delicious. There is a variety of international cuisines served at Chocolate Ville.

I love the ambience, but I don’t prefer dining outdoors as it is really dark and there are some small insects since we’re seated beside a pond. Definitely not a good idea if it’s raining.

My mum decided to give a surprise to bf as his birthday is just 2 weeks away. Initially, we wanted to order a whole cake but they have only 1 flavour which I knew that bf wouldn’t fancy.

So we settled with 3 slices of cake and I picked the Choco Banana for him. His fave!

Should have taken a video of his stunned look haha.