Bangkok: There is no question that you can really feel the tourism industry in Bangkok. Not because we can see so many foreign tourists in the shopping malls or in all of Bangkok’s famous tourist sites, but generally it’s because the Thai people are very friendly to tourists. The Thai government goes out of its way to give incentives to tourists. For instance in most of the shopping malls we went, tourists had an automatic 5% discount and best of all, Bangkok offers a VAT refund for tourist at the airport, something we don’t offer to our tourists. We should follow them.
There is no doubt that the recently launched direct flight between Cebu to Bangkok by Cebu Pacific Airlines, launched last April would also be a boon to Bangkok’s tourism growth which is why our flight was more than 90%. This gives us an idea how many Cebuanos want to see Bangkok and for a very good price too.
Arriving at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport Terminal gives us the impression that no matter how hard we’ve tried to make tourism a major program under the Arroyo government the Philippines is still getting behind our ASEAN neighbors. We once looked up to Changi International Airport in Singapore, but I believe that Suvarnabhumi has beaten Changi. Ho Chi Minh City also has a spanking new airport that brings our airports to shame. While we do have a brand new airport in Manila, we’re not yet operating it so it just rots away, thanks to government indecision, bureaucracy and judiciary delays.
When we got in last Monday we learned that it was Bangkok’s cleaning up day so the city streets were all spanking clean and neat. Cebu is the country’s premier tourist destination. Do we even have a once-a-week clean up day? I don’t think so! It’s so wonderful to see on early Monday morning all the Thais cleaning up their surroundings.
Being a tourist in Bangkok, we did the usual tours and saw the flower market, a street full of jasmines, roses and marigolds. Then there are so many temple tours. We went to the Sukhothai Trainmit Golden Buddha Image, the largest Golden Buddha image in the world and the famous Buddha image in Wat Phra Kaew. In the Philippines we do have our famous “Golden Buddha” that was allegedly stolen during the Marcos Dictatorship. I’m sure that the Yamashita treasure should make a great tourism curiosity.
Bangkok can boast about grabbing the title of being Asia’s shopping capital from Hong Kong. We dropped by the MBK Mall and it was teeming with tourists from all over the world shopping to their hearts content. I met some Pinoy “compradors” there too, shopping in bulk in order to sell it to our shopping areas back home. Bangkok has become a shopper’s paradise, where you can find the most exquisite carvings, paintings, clothes, watches (fakes of all kinds are in open display) and a lot more, which is why our Cebu Pacific Air flight was nearly full!
But for shoppers who want to buy something fancy or expensive, just across the MBK is Siam Paragon, which offers all the top name brands you can find. This is the only shopping mall that I know where if money is not the object, you can purchase a brand new Ferrari, a Maserati, a Lamborghini or an Aston Martin. They don’t allow any fake merchandise in this mall because they know you can get it at the MBK just across the street.
What we found very amazing is that on the basement of the Siam Paragon Mall is the Siam Ocean World that proudly proclaims to be Southeast Asia’s largest aquarium. You can see all sorts of sharks, sting rays and barracudas from three floors inside glass aquariums. And if that’s not fun enough for you, you can don on a lifejacket and ride on a glass bottom boat and see them up close especially during feeding time. This is a very unique and unexpected experience seeing all this in the heart of downtown Bangkok for only about 650 Baht or close to P700 per person. They will even throw you a free 4-D 12-minute movie of the undersea world in pre-historic times.
Indeed, there are a lot of things that Bangkok offers to tourists. The ubiquitous Tuk-tuks are still running the streets of Bangkok, but I noticed that this time, most of them are already using LPG as their main fuel source. This goes to show that the high prices of fuel has also hit these low-income drivers, yet they managed to find ways to solve their problems. This should be an eye opener for our tricycle drivers.
After all the shopping and all the eating (food here is still cheap) a tired shopper needs a respite from a hectic schedule. You see in almost any corner the famous Thai massage parlors. For 200 Baht, you can get a foot massage or a full body massage. Of course there are a lot of night shows in Bangkok like the night markets of Pat Pong. But most of them are not for a family of tourists. Bangkok is indeed a great tourist destination!
