SUNSET AND SEAGULLS AT BANGPU + SEAFOOD!!

The sunset is a bit more special here

Have you ever watched sunset with hundreds of seagulls flying around?

Every place, sunset has its own beauty. Sunset at beaches, sunset in the mountains, sunset from a window of your bedroom.. The place I’m showing you in this post is special in its own way.. How special are we talking about here? I randomly found out about this unique place on a Thai facebook travel page. Just seeing the photos of the place and I thought ‘Tomorrow we’re going there’ and there we went..

Sunset and seagulls at Bangpu

We just went to the area outskirt of Bangkok called ‘Bangpu‘. To be exact, we went to ‘Bangpu Recreation Center (สถานตากอากาศบางปู)‘ located in Samut Prakan province (จังหวัดสมุทรปราการ).

On the sign says 5 things about this Bangpu Recreation Center

Eat crabs, Watch birds, Dance, Walk a mangrove, Stay in a beautiful resort

We ended up doing just 2 things as we didn’t plan to spend a night. Walking toward the sea, you will see a nice long walk way that will bring you to the sea and end at a seafood restaurant. On the walk way, there’s no way you would miss these beautiful seagulls flying around and hanging out.

They’re not afraid of humans and sometimes, you would even feel like they fly so close that they might hit you in the head or something. No worries! I don’t think it happens or at least, not often.

Some rules been written only in Thai

Don’t touch seagulls
Don’t feed pigeons
Don’t feed seagulls on the road

After that we had lunch at the one and only restaurant around Sala Sukjai Restaurant (ร้านอาหารศาลาสุขใจ). As it’s just right on the sea, of course most of the menu items are seafood. Great food (Meh, a bit bland), great view and reasonable price.

After the meal, we walked out to the same spot where all the seagulls were hanging out. The sky colours changed. Pastel rainbow..

One side that’s closer to the land has a mangrove. There’s also the trail to walk and learn about it though, the time when we’re done with the seagulls around 6ish, the mosquitos already started to come out and do their things so it’s a no no. Be warned, the mosquitos around here are so aggressive! They bite hard and there are sooooo many of them. We freaked out! We really did!

We also saw quite a lot of the mudskippers just right around the mangrove area.

I found Bangpu Recreation Center (สถานตากอากาศบางปู) a great place to come relax a chill for an evening or a day. Totally a great short Bangkok-getaway as it’s just 1.5-2 hours ride from Bangkok, depends on where you are. Easily get here by taking the BTS Skytrain Station to Kheha Station. Then, take a transportation called ‘Song Thaew’ for 20 mins to get to the spot

‘Song Thaew’ means ‘Two rows’. It’s a vehicle adapted from a pickup and used as a shared taxi/ bus. In the back has 2 two bench seats fixed along either side of the back of the truck.

I recommend you come check out this special sunset at Bangpu Recreation if you have time. Also the nice seafood restaurant just right there. Please note that the seagulls only come out during the certain seasons.

How does seafood right on the sea sound to you? Bangpu has that to offer!

Sala Sukjai Restaurant (ร้านอาหารศาลาสุขใจ), Bangpu

Sala (ศาลา) means Pavilion
Sukjai (สุขใจ) means happy

This place, a seafood restaurant located on the sea. Very close to Bangkok but not exactly in Bangkok. Samut Prakan, to be exact. ‘ Bangpu reacreation doesn’t have just the beautiful sunset with load tons of seagulls flying around ( super cool, check it out! ) but they have one restaurant at the end of the only pier called ‘Sala sukjai (ศาลาสุขใจ)‘.

An open air restaurant where you get a pretty view of the ocean and maybe the wild animals to see at times. Like, this time we went in the evening and that one crane was already there hanging out.

Seafood at Bangpu

Bangpu is a district located in Samut Prakan Province off the coast. No doubt the seafood would be just so fresh and good. We, of course, went for a big meal while visiting Bangpu reacreation. Let’s eat some seafood! !

I will probably write down starting from my most favourite to the least. Once, again, they were all fresh and good! It’s just my personal preference here. Here’s how we Thais eat seafood!

Scalded cockles (หอยแครงลวก)

This is totally one of my favourite type of seafood. Sometimes, we grill them and another time we scald. They are usually not fully cooked and eaten with Thai style seafood sauce (Garlic, lime juice, chilli, fish sauce). I love them bloody!!

Egg squid with spicy chilli and lime sauce (ปลาหมึกไข่นึ่งมะนาว)

Some of you may go against this as it’s like, we eat the whole bunch of future squid in one dish. True that but hey, it’s already become a part of our seafood eating culture or something. To be honest, it’s one of the dishes l like a lot. I love the texture of its egg combined with the hot and spicy of the sauce. Spicily delicious!

Stir fry crab meat with yellow curry powder (ปูผัดผงกะหรี่)

It’s just hard to not make curry powder with crab so good. Every place so far I have been eating in Thailand for these many years of living here. Wherever you go and order some, you can’t be that disappointed.

Raw shrimps in fish sauce (กุ้งแช่น้ำปลา)

Yes! It’s raw and it’s in that good smelling fish sauce you all love! It’s always been my favourite as somehow I love all the raw seafood. Eat with fresh garlic and the seafood sauce just make it so flavourful and alive!

Tom yum fish (ต้มยำปลา)

One of the most world famous Thai dishes ‘Tom Yum’ or the hot and sour soup. We could order any type of meat with it but we went for fish as we didn’t have any fish in the dishes we ordered. Thai style simply delicious. The fish is as fresh as it could get when served in a restaurant.

All the food as mentioned, fresh and good. One thing about Sala Sukjai restaurant, Bangpu is that, they don’t make the food taste too intense. I usually prefer it real spicy, extreme sour and all that. This works too and maybe some of you might like it more, I would guess so. The price is pretty reasonable as all the food we had including rice and drinks, total of 1050THB ($35).

Also, f you care about a great view while eating at all.. you sure will like the place. Here’s the view from a table we’re sitting. Simply beautiful. It doesn’t really matter where in the restaurant you sit, you get pretty much the same view.

This place is sure worth a visit! Give it an evening.. Go eat fresh seafood and watch seagulls at Bangpu reacreation.