Staying in BKK’s Din Daeng district.

[Jimbob]

When visiting Central BKK from overseas I usually stay along the Sukhumvit road. However as my Thai GF wanted to go to a ‘beauty treatment’ clinic in the Din Daeng area, I booked a serviced apartment close to the clinic on a soi behind the Grand Mercure Fortune hotel. ‘Unfortunately’ the clinic emailed a few days before our arrival to say the appointment was switched across town to Khlong Toey. My easy travel plan was shot.
At least from the apartment it is a short walk to Phra Ram 9 Metro station and so use the station’s access to go under busy Ratchadaphisek road and on to Central Plaza Rama IX. The mall is massive and eliminates the need to go to places like Siam Paragon Mall. While walking around the mall, beauty marketers, or ‘body snatchers’, got the GF to sit listen to their spiel for their clinics products. She ultimately signed up for a laser session the next day instead of the previously mentioned clinic. (In fact there were six beauty clinics on the top floors of the mall.)
I also visited the Fortunetown mall with its dozens of eateries for office workers and the adjacent IT mall where I was gobsmacked by five vinyl record shops and a number of Stereo/ AV shops full of top of the market equipment I only drool over.
While there were Asian and Farang expats evident in the malls it was good to be away from tourists and all the ‘services’ they attract. The GF also had dental work done so she was happy with the area. I did however find a great Mexican restaurant/ music bar further up the apartment’s soi. It is called OMG, run by a Thai-Indian called Guru. It is frequented by expats and English language teachers.
Easy access to the nearby MRT line and airport rail line make this a great alternate location for my next trip to BKK

[Nereus]

I also visited the Fortunetown mall with its dozens of eateries for office workers and the adjacent IT mall where I was gobsmacked by five vinyl record shops and a number of Stereo/ AV shops full of top of the market equipment I only drool over.

I have always thought that the IT Mall there has always been the best one in Bangkok. Much more so since the MRT opened for easy access. One of the few places in Bangkok where you can also buy replacement laptop batteries.

At one time Thai Airlines used to use the hotel there for onward connection stopovers. Not sure if they still do so.

[Jimbob]

I did go down to the old Pantip plaza for a look. It's basically empty with only courier offices. A man did step out of the shadows to say 'Pss, you want porn DVD?' Maybe it was a ghost.

[caller]

Fortune Tower is great for music. I learnt about it some time ago when a fellow Thai/Bkk based aficionado of a band we both like told me about it. Happy to go and browse for ages and pick up some hard to get albums from time to time.

Many Malls all over Bkk cater for Thais and the main advantage of the big central malls is simply the volume of specialised items you can buy there. Paragon has the best selection of brand name watches under one roof compared to anywhere else I know of in Bkk. But the most profitable Mall owned by the same group is not one of their high end stores in Central Bkk, but the Mall in Bang Kapi, which is absolutely huge.