We spent most of our time combining food exploration and sight seeing but as first timers in Thailand, we basically focused on two locations for our food adventures: the Khaosan Road and Rambuttri Soi. These are the two roads that are popular for radiating so much energy at night.
Visualizing Khaosan Road
This road is a long stretch of food carts, restaurants, bars, shopping stores, flickering neon lights, loud music, drinking, party, Thai massage, and a destination for tourists and budget travellers. The energy of the place is very vibrant that you would really enjoy the night without noticing the time.
While in Khaosan Road, be sure to check out the shopping stores for a very affordable price of bags, accessories, clothes, and shoes. Of course, if you have enough time, you can always opt to go to Chatuchak Market, which is by the way, a weekend market known to sell wholesale items.
If you are the type who is adventurous, this is the best place for you to meet new people and friendly faces.
Don’t also forget to try different food carts especially:
Mango sticky rice
Coconut Ice Cream
Fresh fruit juices
Exotic Insects
Seafood feast
Visualizing Rambuttri Soi
The street next to Khaosan is also a stretch of food carts, restaurants, shopping stores, budget hotels, night market, etc., except that the vibe here is more mellow than Khaosan Road. Travellers can enjoy food and company of friends without being bothered by too loud music.
In Rambuttri, we highly suggest that you sit down in one of the restaurants here and order any local food, enjoy beer, try finger foods along the way, buy unique Thailand desserts and delicacies, and maybe, stopover for a Thai massage. Again, the keyword in this road is: “calmer than Khaosan”.
YTB Tips
Allot big portion of your budget on food and shopping
Food in Thailand is affordable, tempting, and very good so there is always this urge to try something new and different or to have some more. A budget of 3000 Baht for 3 days for food is recommended.
On shopping, 3000 Baht is the recommended minimum as well, especially if you’re the type who easily gets lured with discounts.
Tip on shopping: haggle by half the price always, you’ll be thankful if you do because you can really get the most out of your money. When I was there, I got a lot of scarves for my trip, beach wear, magnets, and t-shirts, and oh, you can also buy reasonably priced leather bags here too.
When hesitant in trying exotic food, go for the coconut worm
Since this worm feeds on coconut, it is guaranteed clean and not very gross. The texture is also similar to a fish skin but tastes like coconut-ty.
Visit Thailand not only once
Even before we left Thailand, we were already fantasizing of going back. Why? It is not enough spending three days exploring Bangkok and combining both food adventure and sight seeing. There has to be a specific trip that only aims at trying Thailand’s buzz worthy dishes: from street foods, to restaurants, to food markets.
Grab car is convenient
Okay, depending on what type of traveller are you, feel free to choose your preferred option. But grab car is so convenient friends. A hundred baht or so can bring you to your destination and for me, I would choose that over sweating crazily in 30+ degree Celsius heat, braving the traffic and pollution uncomfortably, and spending additional time on transits and waiting.
Place to stay
I rarely recommend hotels, but choose Tara Hotel, it is affordable, very clean, just walk away to Khaosan Road, located in a very nice neighborhood, and staff are very accommodating. You can book easily here.
I hope you are already full just by browsing the photos and reading this post.
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