The Bangkok Mall-Crawl or "Where to buy trecking equipment in Bangkok?"

My first days in Bangkok where dedicated to get done some administrative issues such as booking an apartment and selecting courses. In addition, I had to buy some additional trecking equipment for my trip to Vietnam: a raincoat which should be as light as possible and zip trousers. Although the shopping possibilities in Bangkok are almost unlimited and incomparable to any other city I have ever been to, this turned out to be  a rather difficult task. Thus, I completed what Martin Schacht calls the "Mall-Crawl". Around the Siam Square there are no less than 9 shopping malls. I found this quite fascinating and thererfore decided to gather some facts about the Bangkok "Mall-Crawl". The tour starts at the MBK and heads on East until it reaches the Amarin Plaza and finishes at the Platinum Fashion Mall:

1. MBK Center
   The MBK describes itself as the "most visited" mall in Bangkok. It has 8 floors with around 2,500 shops and 140,000 sqm sales area.
2. Siam Discovery
   Right across the junction is the more inconspicuous Siam Discovery. Unfortunately, I could not find any detailed data about this rather midsized mall.
3. Siam Center
   The larger twin of Siam Dicovery is currently closed but will be reopened in December 2012. It has 4 levels.
4. Siam Paragon
   Passing by Siam Center you will reach the glamourus Siam Paragon which is connected with the Siam BTS station. With 8 floors, more than 250 shops, a huge department store and more than 500,000 sqm sales area in total it is a real heavyweight among the shopping malls.
5. Central World
   Even bigger than the Siam Paragon, the Central World is the Queen of shopping malls in Bangkok. 18 entries, 7 levels with more than 500 retails spread on over 550,000 sqm. I lost orientation in here a couple of times.
6. Erawan
   If you cross the Ratchaprasing junction, you end up in front of the Erawan. Although the location is probably more famous for it's shrine, the Erawan nervertheless comprises 13,000 sqm sales area on 5 storeys.
7. Amarin Plaza
   Linked to the Erawan via skybridge the Amarin Plaza as well has 5 floors. I could not obtain more reliable data about this mall.
8. Gaysorn
   On the opposite side of the road you can find pure luxury on 5 levels, in over 100 shops of 12,600 sqm. If you want to get rid of your money, go there!
9. Platinum Fashion Mall
   A little walk over the Central World Plaza and across the Khlong Saen Saeb takes you to the biggest fashion mall in Bangkok. On 7 storeys with more than 110,000 sqm you will find all you need to dress up.

Just to give you an idea of the size of these facilities: If you calculate 200,000 for both Siam Discovery and Amarin Plaza, you get a total of 1.5 million sqm which is more than 200 football pitches. Without the Siam Center being opened of course. For comparison: the KaDeWe in Berlin has 60,000 sqm sales area and the Lafayette in Berlin 70,000 sqm.

So what does all this have do to with my trecking equipment.?Well, besides the two very expensive North Face stores in the Siam Discovery and Central World I was unable to locate any proper trecking store. A quick search on google revealed that I was not the first person facing this issue. However, I finally found a blog entry that send me to the right place: the Amarin Plaza. As it is a smaller mall compared to most of the others I had not noticed it before. So that's where you can buy your trecking equipment in Bangkok.

Happy shopping!

PS: I know it might seem strange to some of you that this post is written in English. However, as there are some international readers of this blog as well I decided to vary between German and English on this blog.