Bangkok Dinner Cruise

 December 18, 2010

Senne's Summary: We did a little bit more wandering around today and then took a dinner cruise down the river in the evening.

Today we were having a bit of a lazy day, because yesterday was quite busy. (Steve laughed when he read this… please don’t hate us). We decide to go check out the mall that we had seen from the Skytrain (I saw the Jimmy Choo sign from the Skytrain… my eyes are like magnets to that sign 😀)

When we arrived at the mall I decided that even though we were hungry and should have lunch first, that we would do the ice cream first. This is one of the perks of being a grown up… if you want to have dessert first you can! We both had delicious ice cream sundaes filled with a variety of chocolate sauces, maltesers, nuts and whipped cream. Mine even had a chocolate covered cherry on top! In order to burn off the immense amount of calories just consumed we walked the mall and did a little window shopping.

When we found the Jimmy Choo store I found the shoes I liked best right away (they had a high sparkle factor!) When we did the money conversion it seemed like they were more expensive than they would be at home (maybe it costs more to export them over here??). No. I didn’t buy them. They seemed to be a little overdressy for the types of clothes I’m carrying around in my backpack...

We also played our favourite game while window shopping the jewelry stores. We look at a display and we each have to pick our favourite thing in the window (two things if there is stuff for men and women), and then we compare to see what we picked. Usually we pick the same thing. (Don’t tell Steve… this is actually a tricky training exercise so that when he goes out on his own to buy me a present he can predict which one I’ll like best 😉) Anyway, we had quite a bit of fun playing that game until we worked up enough hunger to eat real food for lunch.

After lunch we headed back to our hotel for a little down time before our dinner cruise tonight.

Later that night…

Our driver picked us up 15 minutes early again (different driver!) and we headed off to our dinner cruise. He dropped us and two other couples off at a pier without any instructions. We really had no idea what we were supposed to do, but stood around with a bunch of other tourist type people 😀 I saw a few boats pull up (river ferries) that were bobbing in the water quite a bit so took  some motion sickness tablets just to be on the safe side. It’s one thing to feed the fish when it’s just the two of you in a kayak… it’s a whole different humility factor when you are on a fancy dinner cruise.

After a while, a boat did come that had tables and chairs on it, so we knew we were in the right place. The boat was very authentic looking (the guy who runs the dinner cruise later told us it’s the oldest dinner cruise boat on the river… hence the most authentic 😉).

View from the dinner cruise

A performer on the dinner cruise

We really enjoyed the dinner cruise. I know it’s a touristy thing to do… but we’re tourists. We like doing touristy things even when we’re at home!

Wat Arun at night

As we sampled the delicious food (loads and loads of food, and quite a few things we’ve never tried before) the boat cruised down the river. I think it was particularly beautiful because of the Christmas decorations and lights. There were many temples and historic sites lit up as we travelled along the river. The staff gave us a little map of the things we were seeing along the river including an explanation of what the site was and a little bit of history on it.

Another performer

A couple of times during the cruise two girls in traditional Thai dress did a traditional Thai dance. I thought this was a nice touch. They were also playing some sort of instrument (looked a bit like a harpsichord) periodically, but they were too far away from where we were sitting and we couldn’t hear them.

The food just kept coming!

About three quarters of the way through the dinner cruise the Dramamine kicked in. Uh oh. What’s more embarrassing… throwing up over the edge of the boat or falling asleep sitting up at the table?! Anyway, Steve kept pinching me and I managed to stay mostly awake 😉

The dessert tray!

As the cruise ended they gave all the women a flower as we left the boat. It was the same flower we had seen people dipping in water and then spraying the water from the flower on their head at a temple yesterday. I’m not sure what it’s called… it’s a flower I hadn’t seen before Thailand.

Clearly the dramamine kicked in… suddenly the flower looks very interesting!

We really enjoyed the cruise and would highly recommend it if you like doing touristy things.