Wat Arun temple and ICONSIAM – Day 89 – Nov 30, 2025

Day two at the Bangkok Moevenpick, and we want to go out for breakfast. I start googling options open before 7am, and soon discover that going out would mean paying 300THB per dish, plus drinks, when downstairs in our buffet breakfast, we pay 300THB per adult, Téa is 200THB and Maylin is free. So yes, back to the buffet we go!

After breakfast, we head out to explore. We are being picked up by a driver to take us across town, and here’s your hotel exterior view while we wait:

We are picked up by a lady in a pink exterior/purple interior car, and she expertly zooms us through the city. It’s chaotic to someone not used to this level of traffic, and the scooters and motorbikes and tuktuks are everywhere. It’s a long ride that takes us through Chinatown, and we get to see many interesting things along our way.

We finally get to the harbour and buy tickets for the ferry across to Wat Arun, our first destination of the day.

It’s a hot day, and we’re all wearing shorts. Then we realize we had to have knees and shoulders covered to get into the temple area, so now we’re hunting for pants for the family. The thin elephant patterned pants are for sale everywhere, and easily slip on top of our shorts.

Before we head into the temple area, we need to cool down. We stop at a local café to split some ice cream cake and some cold beverages.

Once we’re properly dressed and cooled down, we set off for the temple. There are tourists speaking all possible languages here, and lots of visitors have rented traditional outfits to get pictures taken within the grounds. There are photographers and people posing in all directions, sometimes blocking stairs.

The Wat Arun temple is also known as The Temple of Dawn, with spectacular views both at sunrise and sunset, however we are here in the middle of the day. It’s hot and crowded. The tile decorations are intricate and beautiful.

We entered the fenced in central spire area, and had to “fight” our way to the front of the line to get a shot of the spire with as few visitors as possible. Then we climbed the steps. They are really odd steps, with each step being very narrow, but about knee height, making it an actual climb to get up. You can only go as far as the first level, the stairs further up are blocked off. There are signs that tiles can fall down, and there’s evidence that lots of them already have. Broken fragments of glass tiles can be seen shimmering in the sunlight. We don’t attempt circling the spire, as the path is narrow and blocked by visitors. We climb very carefully back down. I can’t imagine doing this in traditional Thai attire!

It’s too hot, and once we’ve seen the main buildings and stood in a 20 minute line for the crowded bathroom, we aim for the river. There’s a boat about to leave down the river, and we hope to make it, against all odds. Joe sees the line of people trying to buy tickets at the regular ticket stall, and then he sees a tour guide person selling tickets to the side. We pay the guide and are swiftly shown past the entire line of passengers to the boat, and we set sail down the river.

The water is still brown, but this at least is a much bigger boat. It’s rocky on the water, and the boat makes several stops on its way to our destination. We sail past some really cool buildings, but the windows are not very clear, so no pictures from this part of our day.

We finally arrive at the ICONSIAM, one of the most impressive malls I’ve ever visited! It is not only big, it’s not only full of luxury brands, but it also has a makeshift floating market in the basement!

Inside is just as spectacular as outside, and each level offers something different to be awed by.

We walk around and decide it’s time for lunch. We walk up a set of stairs, as all tables on the market floor seem taken, and find a hidden and almost empty oasis, half a floor up. I grab a table and the others go shopping for lunch.

Joe comes back with an exciting looking dish, green papaya seafood salad. The first few bites of papaya are very tasty, but I look closer at the seafood, and it’s all… raw? Raw crab, raw shrimp, raw everything. I mean I’m sure it was fine, and we do eat lots of raw stuff when we eat sushi, but we just weren’t expecting all of these things to be so… raw.

For dessert, we all share the mango sticky rice he bought. It is so delicious. The coconut milk just slightly salty to offset the sweetness of the mango and the rice. The mango sticky rice we’ve had so far all have some cruncy rice sprinkled on top of the sticky rice. The slight crunch gives some more texture to an otherwise very soft dish. I think they are deep fried rice grains, but I could be wrong. Whatever they are, they add just the required oomph to lift the dish from all sweet and soft to perfection.

After lunch, we went up floor by floor to browse the mall. There were floors that were not quite to our liking/budget/needs, like the car floor. Who goes to a mall to shop for cars? Thai people, that’s who! But I did make a friend:

Then, we reach the top floor. There’s an outdoor balcony out here, with several water features, art, a Starbucks (Seriously? Why does it always have to be Starbucks? There’s Starbucks everywhere here, as there was in Japan too.), a Pop Mart, and a whole lot of visitors taking photos.

Climbing all the way to the very top of this mall has taken a toll, and we now need a treat. We head into Mil Toast House, a Korean dessert shop, and have a treat.

We take our time browsing on the way back down throughout the floors as well, and by the time we reach the market floor again, it’s time for dinner. This time Joe sits down, and we end up next to a couple of Canadians and he chats while the girls and I shop. We already saw the roast pork belly with crispy skin stall, so we start there. I buy way too much meat, because it looks (and is) delicious. The girls also want dumplings, so we get those. We also wanted to get some fried rice, but by now, our table is full of meat and dumplings, so there’s no need. But we do get a young fresh coconut to drink.

The atmosphere is warm, friendly, delicious. There’s staff coming around to clean up, there is no trash station, and when people get up to leave, the staff are there within a minute to clean the table for the next guests. There are so many different vendors, truly something for everyone!

By now it’s late. We locate the ground floor exit, and order a Grab taxi to come pick us up. It’s so easy to order through the app, and there’s even a QR code next to the door that will tell the app exactly which exit to pick us up from. There are rows of seats for waiting, and about three lanes of cars all fighting for a moment to pick their charges up by the front doors.

We have about half an hour in the taxi before we’re back at the hotel. On our way from the mall, we catch a glimpse of of ICONSIAM from a distance, and it’s still spectacular.

We get home around 6.30pm, and the girls and I head straight for the pool! And yes, even after a full day under the hot sun, the pool is FREEZING still. We spend about half an hour swimming, and then head back down to the room to defrost in the shower. After the shower, it’s time for blogging, watching TV and bed. We’ve all had a long day, and the girls fall asleep long before I’m done writing.