As a first-time visitor to Bangkok, of course I must visit all the must-see places here. Since my second day was a Sunday, the only place to go would be the Chatuchak Weekend Market and also stopover at the Or Tor Kor Market nearby. Before that, we would make a visit to pray at the Erawan Shrine first. All these places are accessible by BTS, so we bought a One-Day Pass for unlimited rides in 1 day. To make full use of the pass, we would also visit the Asiatique The Riverfront night market.
BTS
This is a map of the National Stadium BTS station. See the red arrow I made in the map? That's how near our hotel is from the station. The hotel states that it is 90 steps walking distance to the station. Never counted haha!
If you notice, there's an escalator sign too. The escalator happens to be going upwards, lucky! Why lucky because after taking BTS for 1 whole day, I realize that there are only very few escalators at the stations. And the escalators don't come in 2 directions. For example at this station, only exit 1 has one escalator going up, other exits from 2-4, only stairs. As a result, we had to climb "a bit" of stairs. I must say my mum is really fit for her age. Although slow, she managed to climb all the stairs, I wonder if I can be as fit as her when I reach that age. Lol! Enough complaints, Singaporeans are very lucky right? But the good thing is all the BTS stations and shopping malls are connected by the skywalk. You can walk and shop all the way in the shelter and have a good view of the city standing above.
So first thing in the day, we got up the station and bought our One-Day Pass at 130baht (~$5.02) for unlimited rides on the date of issue.
You can check the fares and travel times online here.
For maps around the BTS stations (like the map above), you can visit here.
Erawan Shrine 四面佛
We were going to Erawan Shrine by taking BTS from National Stadium to Chit Lom. We had to change train at Siam station. Pretty easy as there are only 2 BTS lines. The view of Siam Paragon from Siam station. Can't believe we stayed so near but didn't have time to shop here and Siam Square in this trip! Good excuse to go back again!
After alighting at Chit Lom, look for exit 2, walk along the skywalk and take the stairs down.
Continue to walk straight until you see a row of stalls selling flowers and incense for praying and you are there.
We bought 2 sets for praying which cost 20baht (~$0.79) each. Each set comes with 1 candle, 12 joss sticks and 4 mini garlands to be offered to the four-faced God.
At the entrance of the very famous Erawan Shrine housing the four-faced Brahma God.
The neverending crowd of people coming here to pray, hoping for wishes to be fulfilled.
Lighting the candle and the joss sticks.
It is said that the four-faced God will grant all good wishes. So if you have a wish in your mind, you can pray and ask for it. Do be precise in what you want to get and also what you want to return if your wish is fulfilled. It is a must to come back to either make offerings from flowers, fruits to elephants or hire Thai dancers if your prayer is answered.
What each face of the God represents: 1 career, 2 love, 3 wealth, 4 health.
If you want to know more about how to pray, you can check out some YouTube videos in Chinese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLCxZn1EXOc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwYcO7TXASc
For us, as we do not have any wishes, we just pray for good health and safety for this trip. Not sure if it's the correct way. We place the candle at the first God, pray and offer a flower garland and joss sticks to each God. Continue praying in clockwise direction to all 4 Gods.
Offerings for the God.
Worshipping with the Thai dancers.
Toss some coins and wash your hands and face with the holy water.
BTS passing by.
From here, you can continue to walk to Big C, CentralWorld and even further to Platinum Fashion Mall. But we had other plans today, so had to skip these areas. Cos we were going to the biggest weekend market - Chatuchak!
Next: Chatuchak Weekend Market