icon siam, siam discovery, m..., empirium..., level21, escape the tropical heat with the fantastic cool buildings/airconditioning
All over the city centre in Bangkok you will find the modern shopping centres. Most of them have the same shops inside, but there are always a few special ones that it is worth looking for. Also every single one of them has an eating area, mostly on the top floor, where you can get typical dishes for a very low price. It might not feel quite as authentic as the street food stalls, but it doesn`t actually taste any worse.
Additionally, there is a great air conditioning in all of them which makes escaping the tropical heat of Thailand easy. You`ll definitely appreciate that during the afternoon sun!
Luckily, some of the shopping centres offer something more than just the stores inside. Sure, a lot of them have a cinema, but this is not the kind of thing I am talking about.
First on my list is the IconSiam, which is the newest in the family of the Siam shopping centres, next to the Siam Discovery, Siam Paragon, Siam Center and Siam Square One. By the way, around those you are also going to find the MBK, which is famous for the fake products you can buy in here.
But let`s get back to the IconSiam: Here you can see a waterfoundain? 3 times every evening, there are light installations on the outside which are perfekt for photos, especially when it is dark.
On the inside the immersive experience continues with fantastic decoration, like a temple-like gate, a little lake and ?. The stores in here are all pretty expensive including several well known luxury brands such as Chanel and Gucci as well as Asian brands that do hand made art pieces and responsibly resourced household items.
One more interesting shopping centre is Level21. Here every single floor is designated to a different place on earth. So for example, you will find Istanbul, London and San Francisco all in this building. With the airport like design and the for the respective cities typical decorations everywhere you really do feel like in a different world with every floor you go up. The shops are relatively cheap and there are quite a few that do not belong to a bigger chain of stores, but authentic single shops.
Another area with 2 special shopping centres is Sukhumvit. Here the Emporium and the EmQuartier are located. The shopping centres are one with luxury brands and one for us normal ones. In there they divided the mall into 3 sections again. Additionally you have several water installations, like a water fall and a little lake in here. Also you can have amazing views over the city from the top level which in other shopping centres are only possible from inside an expensive restaurant.
Another idea for going shopping are the large number of night markets around Bangkok. They are undeniably more authentic than the big shopping centres and you still get the proper trading experience. One of my famous ones is the Ratchada Train Night Market with really cheap offers all around.