A few of our cruise friends had been telling us about the great deals and wonderful selections they have been getting for custom made clothing in Bangkok. While Hong Kong and Saigon are also well-known for custom tailoring, the general consensus among those with whom we have discussed the issue agree that Bangkok is at least as good quality-wise and a lot better price-wise. Sooo…we took the plunge and a recommendation from a couple whose clothes we had been admiring on formal nights. We had the shore concierge call Tony’s Fashion House to arrange for them to pick us up at the ship and take us directly to the store.
The mini-van ride to the shop was interesting. We had forgotten just how much traffic there is in Bangkok. It makes Saigon and Hong Kong seem almost peaceful by comparison.It took us about a half-hour to get the roughly 7 KM (about 4 miles) from the ship to the shop. The amazing thing about Bangkok traffic is that the different types of conveyances – cars, trucks, busses, tuk-tuks, pedestrians, etc. – all seem to just flow around each other like water around rocks in a streambed. That amazing ability to move at seemingly high speeds and not hit one another is coupled with an almost total lack of horn-blowing. Later in the day we were to learn why that is unique to Thailand – especially so in a large metropolis like Bangkok.
As we entered the tailor shop, we were greeted by “Max,” our salesman/host. After the usual cordial preliminaries, we got down to business. Bonnie wanted to look for a jacket to wear on a formal night and a jacket that could be worn in more casual settings. She also wanted me to get a new formal dinner jacket.
After looking through hundreds of bolts of fabric and several books of designs, we managed to come up for air long enough to pick two fabrics for Bonnie and one for me. Hers are a red raw silk for the less formal jacket and a black and gold polished silk jacket for more formal occasions. I found a beautiful silver silk brocade material for my dinner jacket.
After working through the pricing, we settled on a package for all three jackets. Max asked us to return later that afternoon for a second fitting. They will pick us up at the ship again and return us.
In the meantime, we asked to be taken to the eight-story Central World Shopping Mall in the heart of Bangkok so we could look around a bit and be closer to several outdoor markets and food outlets. The Mall is not one which we would use for shopping since it looks like every other mall in the world and has many of the same stores, but it is a convenient drop-off and pick-up location.
They do have two entire floors of restaurants. We opted to stop at Nara, a Thai restaurant that was full of local people. We had a great lunch of Thai dumplings and a mixed seafood platter with a beer each for the munificent sum of about $27 including an obligatory 10% tip. Such a deal!
After lunch we wandered along several of the streets near the mall and saw genuine designer shirts on sale for only US$5 and Rollex watches for only US$7. Wow! These had to be much better than even the really expensive gold watches because they had an extra "L" in the name...
Since it was rather warm (35°C, that’s 97°F) and since we really didn’t need any more “stuff” we worked our way back to the mall and window-shopped until the ship’s shuttle bus came and took us back to wait for our next pick-up from Tony's for the second fitting.
Promptly at 5:30 the van from Tony’s showed up and whisked us away for our final fitting. Actually, whisked is not exactly how we went. The traffic was bumper to bumper to bumper all the way from the pier to the store.
While we were back at Tony’s getting our fitting, we mentioned the lack of cacophony to Singh, one of the tailors. He explained that since Thailand is primarily a Buddhist society, blowing one’s horn at another person is a sign of disrespect and is not tolerated among polite people. Another interesting aspect of East Asian culture among the Thai. we calculated that all day we spent about four hours traveling back and forth and about two hours in the shop.
Bonnie getting fitted for one of her jackets.
Finally, having been fitted and re-fitted, we were escorted back to the ship for dinner and an early to bed.
The next morning we were up and out fairly early. We tried to make a deal for a taxi to take us from the pier to the Tourist Boat dock, but they thought they had a captive audience and we walked away from his offer of US$30 for the ride. We took the ship’s shuttle to the same Central World Shopping Mall as yesterday, but this time we walked straight over to the Bangkok Train Service (BTS) main station and for about 50¢ each we rode the train five stops to the tourist boat dock on the Chao Praya River. Ha – thirty dollars, indeed!
The train ride was wonderfully smooth and just like the one in Disney World – NOT! Similar, but much more packed with locals going about their daily chores. A short walk to the dock and a short wait for the tourist boat (about $1.35 each) for the 45-minute ride up the river passing most of the temple and high end hotel sites. Another $1.35 from the ride back and then the highlight of the morning: a Bangkok taxi ride from the boat dock back to the Silver Whisper’s pier. Talk about Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (yet another Disney reference…)! Let’s see, a driver with very limited English, two passengers with absolutely no Thai, traffic that makes one hang on to whatever is handy, and only about four hours left to get back to the ship before it sails to the next port. Talk about a fun day!
When we got back to the ship (after a fast, but relatively uneventful ride), our custom-made jackets were waiting for us in the room. We tried them on and were quite pleased that they fit perfectly. I will post a picture of us in the finished products on a future entry.
Another adventure chalked up to success.
Tomorrow we are anchored off the resort island of Ko Samui, Thailand for a half day. Stay tuned as we take off on an elephant trek…
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