Bangkok Tuk Tuk tour with Expique

Tuk Tuk tour? Are you crazy? And how much? 1700 baht a piece!!!

That’s what I yelled to Tim when he came up with the idea for a Tuk Tuk tour. Why? Because I’m a local who normally ride the Tuk Tuk for transportation, not for tours! And I’m used to paying 20-50 baht per ride.

But we did it and it was GREAT!!! It was fun to go with a local guide.  They took us to places we don’t frequent, but maybe we will now! Overall, if you are a visitor a night ride (safely)in a tuk tuk and tour guide will be a perfect tour while visiting Bangkok.

Let’s start the trip, I found Simon and his tour company on www.expique.com.
Expique is a difficult word for me to remember, I thought it was French or German, but when I asked the tour guide he told us that Simon made up this word by mixing “Experience” and “Unique” to become Expique – sounds cool!

This tour company is truly unique, they have “Walking Tours”, “Tuk Tuk Tours “ and “Bike Tours”. I can tell you that not many tour companies want to do this kind of package because it’s more work than other normal tours.

I think Simon and his team do what they love to do which really showed during our tour… Lots of smiles! It was also nice when I started contacting them with questions, they were nice and polite on email with no pressure for payment.

Back to our trip, we booked a tour on Friday night for Saturday, which is a little bit on the last minute side. But for 6 of us Simon set up a private group tour and even gave us a little group discount (1,675baht per person) from the regular group tour price (1,750baht/person) which included:

Tuk Tuk ride, food, drink (soft drinks), desert, a fun tour guide from 6.30pm – 11.30 pm, and a ride home!

We met our group at the meeting point at Krung Thon Buri BTS Station (one station after Center Pier), and rode our Tuk Tuk to Klong San Market, Wat Prayoon, the Giant Swing, had Pad Thai at Tip Samai, past Democracy Monument, Wat Pho, Flower market, Chinatown and then took the Tuk Tuk home.

Each stop was about 10 minutes but we were never rushed and the guide encouraged us to take our time.

1. Starting point

One good thing for a private tour is that we can start anytime we wanted. But Simon advised to start about 6.30pm before the group tour which will start at 7pm.

Tonight, our group included me (Jam), Tim, Dave & Linda and Troy & Candice. Also, our tour guide “Esso” and “Simon”, the owner of tour company who came to say hi and take another group tour tonight as well.

Esso (which sounds like our competition since the people in our group work for Chevron!),  is very good tour guide.  Tim taught me a new word, “personable” to describe  Esso because he is friendly and easy to get along with.

When we’re ready, the Tuk Tuk lined up and waited for us and we were off…

2. First stop – Klong San Market

It looks like a normal Thai night market but the tour guide told us many interesting stories and some background about how this market started.

I’ve never been to this market before and even my Thai friend who had been to this market, said she didn’t know that they have a big monk statue in this market. This monk is well-known among Thais and his amulet/statue/picture is very popular.

At this market, Esso made us try the PANDA balls! No worries, it’s nothing like the name… Go find out!!

Next we rode to the back of the temple called “Wat Prayoon” from which you can see a nice view of the Chao Phra Ya River and the Memorial bridge.

3. Wat Prayoon “White Stupa”

By the way, during the tour Esso always asked some quiz questions for us like… Do you know that what this milestone on the river signifies? He kind of gave me a hard time for this game because the group expected me to know all the answers! Come on, don’t pressure me LOL.

At the peir Esso found us some Thai deserts “Softbread with Pandan Custard”, seems like someone in our group loves this treat so much – LOL… He also found us some Thai peanut crispy which we ate while walking through the Temple.

Tonight the temple was busy with three funerals but we still could visit the white stupa and walk around.

Next Next Next, we rode the Tuk Tuk to the Giant Swing.

4. Giant Swing or “Sao Ching Cha” in Thai

It was my first time to stop and take pictures here.

Oh…over here Tim won the quiz! It wasn’t that fair because for all the questions that Esso asked, Tim kept trying the same answer. But finally, it matched with the question… He was just lucky, because I’m wayyyy smarter than he is!!

And a short ride for our main meal…Time for Pad Thai!!!

5. “Pad Thai” at Thip Samai

We have been told NOT to eat too much for lunch because they will feed us all night tonight. I know that they will take us for Pad Thai. For me it’s just Pad Thai and I wasn’t too excited because in my home town they always make huge bowls of Pad Thai for all kind of ceremonies, and I’m not a big fan of Padthai.

But if you read some of the reviews on Trip advisor about this Tuk Tuk tour, you’ll see that the reason they wanted to do this tour was for the Pad Thai at Thip Samai. They even named this the Tuk Tuk food tour!

HOLY MOLY… this Pad Thai shop is so amazing!!! Once our Tuk Tuk got to the Pad Thai shop the first thing we noticed was the big line, but our group had a reservation!  As Simon brings in a lot of business and we got to skip the line! (which was good for us).

Oh…poor me, I’ve never heard about this pad Thai resturant before but it looks like the shop is very famous. They were on CNN, Reuters, Nation Geographic, BBC news, Trip Advisors, and it looks like everyone has heard about this place but me!!!

The recommend menu is Pad Thai in a kind of omelet shell, but don’t forget to order orange juice that they make daily… It’s fresh and really chunky (and delicious).

I think it’s one of the best Pad Thai that I’ve ever had. Reasonable price (even though they are very famous), only 50-60 baht.

If you would like to try Thip Samai Pad Thai, for more info you can visit their website at http://www.thipsamai.com , but I don’t think I will make it if I have to stay in that Line…!

After we had our fill of Pad Thai, we rode around the Democracy Monument and Grand Palace to Wat Pho.

6. Wat Pho

Oh hey! I didn’t know that the temple is open at night!! Actually, the temple is open 24hrs but most tourists’ go to see the Reclining Buddha or for the Thai massage which is only open from 8am-6pm. So I was kind of right!

Wat Pho is stunning at night and so quiet, different from the day time which is very hot and crowded. I don’t think you’ll see many Thai’s here at night as this is the resting place for the ashes of kings and nobleman. Most Thai’s are superstitious and avoid gravesites at night.

Walking through Wat Pho and listening to the stories about the stupas and kings of Thailand at night, make the temple really memorable.

But be careful of the Tuk Tuk outside the temple, their scams are becoming infamous.

(Read more on my blog about Wat Pho at: https://www.somethingjam.com/wat-pho)

From Wat Pho we rode our Tuk Tuk to Flower Market.

7. The Flower Market or Pak Klong Talad in Thai

Ops! Ops! it’s another place that I never stopped to walk around. Many of my foreigner friends asked me about the Flower Market, it sounded funny for me though, flowers are everywhere and why would people want to come here to see flowers for sale?

It’s not just a flower market, we found lots of things to look at, even vegetables and some LEMONS!!! Candice was so happy to get her lemons at 110 baht per kg (she said it’s 85baht each in the Villa market) and I found my salad which is so darn expensive in the grocery shop at 30 baht here!  Funny what you get excited over when you get older!

The most popular flowers for tourists are a kind of Jasmine and another flowers that we make a kind of wreath as an offering, or to hang on our rear view mirrors (Puang Ma lai, in Thai).

Fresh flowers and Roses are so cheap, and start at 50 bath for 50 roses!

This was a nice walk and good to help us digest that Pad Thai. But be careful, carts are everywhere in the market as they are getting ready for the morning rush which will start about 1am and will be crazy busy, good thing that we left before that happens!

Last stop for tonight is…

8. China Town

Where we will get a chance to cool down here with the desert in herbs and ice…

It’s a traditional desert for Thai/Chinese, sesame dumpling in hot ginger tea (try the hot one is better). But if you are not sure about something healthy, I mean herb. Try the one with coconut milk. 

Chinatown is good to visit at the day time too, read my post about Golden buddha and Chinatown at https://www.somethingjam.com/goldenbuddha_chinatown

And tonight, Esso took us on a short walk before he dropped us for our Tuk Tuk which took us back to Ari (BTS station where we live), it was quite far from we started.

It was just over a 4 hours trip at night in Bangkok, and I ate so much!!!

One of the things I was surprised about was how safe our Tuk Tuk driver was. I’m not sure where they found these courteous drivers. Most of the Tuk Tuk drivers in Bangkok are crazy but not here. They are very polite and smile (even took pictures with us!), I wish that more of Thai Tuk Tuk drivers in the city were this nice…

By the way, accident can be happen anywhere, that’s why we call them “accidents”, and the package also includes insurance. Ask Simon for more information!

Well, we strongly recommend everyone to try this tour.

You can find this tour at http://www.expique.com/tour/bangkok/bangkok-night-lights-tuktuk-tour/ or contact them at Bookings@expique.com, I’m sure that Simon will read and reply right away!

Date: 7 Mar 2015