Bangkok: The Land of Perpetual Traffic Jams
Thursday, December 6, 2007
WARNING: Relatively picture-heavy
Okay man, back from Thailand and with enough energy to recount what happened in the past week. So here goes everythin'
Day 1
The flight to Bangkok was at 5 pm so there was no need to get up any earlier. So I got up at my usual late time of 11 plus am. And then went to pack up some final stuff before we went off at like 1 pm. For the first time, we were taking public transporto the airport so that was pretty interesting trying to lug around bug luggage in the train. Nonetheless we got to the airport pretty early and went to visit Terminal 3. Nothing much there really, but it looks pretty nice anyway. You could pay like 1 dollar per person for a guided tour around T3, even inside check in points. So anywaywe had a light lunch at T3's Dian Xiao Er. Your usual chinese cuisine, not toofantastic in my opinion. Then later on we got on the plane, Thai Airbus A300 to Bangkok, darn old plane, it's like all rickety and all with less comfort. Okay so it wasn't rickety but you get the idea, it's old and not so nice. After that it was a 2 hour flight to Bangkok butthe flight's pretty manageable, I still remembered what I had: Lamb with rice on the plane. And I still can't figure out why people like to sleep just before the plane takes off. Pressure in the ears maybe? I'm not really affected by it though, hmm. And my arms were also hurting thanks to gymming from the day before. Bleh, aching muscles on a vacation, so original.
Gold!
Reached Bangkok at like um, 7 plus pm, THEIR time. Bangkok's time is 1 hour behind us. And like, their airport's so plain. It's like just white all over, so bleh. We made it to our hotel and then went out to walk for abit. The hotel staff said one of the night markets was like what, 2 km away so it's just a short 10 to 15 minutes walk there. But bloody hell, we walked in one direction for like 40 minutes before reaching the stupid place only to find that the shopping centre is closed and the night market's so small. Nothing there, so we took the tuk tuk back to hotel. Boring night there I'd say.
Day 2
It's Thursday! Or rather, more of a visiting places in Bangkok day. We met this nice tuk tuk taxi driver who gave us many recommendations as to how we should spend our day. So we were like to go to the train booking station to book our train to Chiang Mai on Saturday. Sadly the train was darned fully booked thanks to the King's Birthday, so we had to settle for the stupid bus. Sucked. =(
Anyway we first went to visit the king's palace, then had lunch and then visited like the 2 main temples located in Bangkok. I'm not really much interested in temples and stuff, but looking at the intricate designs and all that gold, it's pretty much an eye opener. The temple across the river was fun as well. Temple of the Dawn I think it was called. The steps up were so freaking steep that you had to hold the handrails to get up, and to get down. My feet were like sweating when I looked down the steps from the top. So bloody steep! I don't wanna imagine what would happen if I fell. But it was fun! Wahahahah!
View from below.
View from above, look at the steepness. It's even more steep if you view it in real life. That's my dad in blue and my bro in white.
After that we took boat taxi all the way down the river to the train station, kinda like our MRT. The boat ride's pretty darn cool since you get to feel the cool wind breeze as you speed down the river. I was enjoying it, even though my leg hurt until it was numb already. Took the train to one of the largest shopping centres over there, the MBK centre. Damn huge and damn cool. I was like buy buy buy and bargain bargain bargain. They have like everything there from clothes to handphones to laptops to un-original (lol) CDs and DVDs to food, you get the idea. It puts Singapore's shopping centres to shame, seriously. And their food centre's weird. You had to change your money to coupons to pay up at the counter, I dunno why but that's the way it is. I had quite a good night sleeping after that, my legs were about to break from all that walking.
Day 3
Sucks to wake up early eh. Woke up at like 6+ am THEIR time. Which means waking up at 7+ am here in Singapore. For what? For a trip to the floating market way out of town. The drive there by a 11 seater minivan was like about 2 hours. So boring, we all were sleeping in the van. We reached there like mid morning, but the temperature was like cold man. I think it was below 20 degrees. First time I actually shivered in Thailand. Then we boarded some longboat to reach the floating market, this one really damn cold. The boat was speeding over the river and the wind was just freezingly freezing cold. Cold wind is cold you know. Then we reached the floating market, sat on another boat and went around the floating market looking, and buying some stuff. Food mostly, like coconut juice drank from the coconut, love it! Too bad I had no spoon to eat the coconut flesh, and I had to throw the coconut away, boohoohoo! =(
Floating market.
After that it was off to have lunch but first we stopped at a war memorial. I took a couple of artistic shots there, but the shots were all thanks to Claire's shots in deviantart. I stole her idea, but sssh, she won't know if you keep quiet about it.
I'm sorry Claire, I didn't mean to steal your picture concept. =)
Lunch was a total washout. Total washout! I thought the lunch was cool. You know you get to eat on a floating platform. But what the heck, the food was like, only 3 things. Rice, sweet and sour pineapples and cucumber, and soup. WTF? They were saying it's all in the package and you're gonna get some good buffet lunch. Buffet indeed, but with 3 types on food. Way to go!
This is the sucky lunch place we had. And that's my youngest bro. He's getting fat no doubt. Wahahaha.
After the sucky lunch, we went to visit part of the Death Railway and the museum there. Well, the walk across the rebuilt bridge was a little scary, especially when you are trying to be daring and walk on the side of the bridge and what's below you is 40-50 feet to the water. We went home to Bangkok after that, but not before visiting another temple with a super large statue of Buddha made of GOLD. Like wow, that massive thing is made of pure gold! Dinner was at one of the eating houses near our hotel. For the first time I finally ate (or drank) Tom Yam soup. Good thing we could communicate to the lady boss there, by means of speaking teochew. Thank goodness there are lotsa teochew's in Thailand, which makes us the same people, or gaginang. Wahaha. Tom yam soup was a blast! Seriously it was GOOOOOD! Yum!
Good tom yam soup. It's not even that hot or sour. Everything's just right.
Day 4
Day FOUR, our last day in Bangkok! It was more or less a free day for us actually. Woke up much later and when we went out of the hotel, guess who we saw, the friendly tuk tuk guy we met on Thursday! He brought us to a gem shop to look around, so he could get free petrol coupon, and so we won't be charged as well. So fair exchange, everyone gains the most out of it. =) He was so nice again, giving us recommendations as to where to go. We went to some bazaar in the morning and got more clothes. Then it was back to the hotel during noon for check out and I had to use the free internet cafe access. So yeah, 30 minutes free for my manga fix and I saw Alvin's tag on my tagboard. I was laughing so bad at the internet cafe when I saw the manga chapter that the people over there must have thought I'm some crazy ass dude. After that it was time to go to MBK to shop again. But bloody hell, I realised no matter what damn time you are on the streets of Bangkok, save maybe in the early hours of the morning, the whole place's like TRAFFIC JAM ALL THE TIME! Traffic jams are like their way of life. So terrible. Bleh. Anyway after shopping at MBK and lunch there. Oh and I bought these cool drink bottles as well. Wahahahahahahahaha.
Cute aren't they? Awww. I'm so gonna be killed if she ever discovers my blog.
At night we boarded the night coach to Chiang Mai at 8 pm THEIR time.Well, the seats were okay, but they were so cramped. And we were given some stupid super hard head rest that after 30 minutes hurts your neck. So I dumped it at one corner. Super uncomfortable ride it was. My legs were hurting as usual from all the walking and stuff, and the cramped conditions weren't making things any better. I kept waking up every hour or so, realising how slow time had passed. And they awoke us in the middle of the night, like 1 am plus for supper. Simple meal of porridge with meat with gravy and salted egg, but very tasty. Reminds me of the porridge meals I had back in primary school. After that it was back to the bus again, terrible ride. I couldn't feel my legs at one point, very peculiar sensation. We only reached Chiang Mai at almost 6 am their time. And it was coooooold at that time in the morning.
Day 5
So we arrived at Chiang Mai and the temperature was COLD. Should be close to 10 degrees. Then this tuk tuk taxi driver came up to us to tout for a ride to the hotel. He claimed his vehicle was a minivan, so we were like okay. And then when we crossed the road we saw this tuk tuk vehicle, which was a minivan. My expression was like this:
The "minivan".
The ride was freezingly refreshing. Imagine speeding in a relatively open tuk tuk vehicle at almost 10 degrees. I could say the wind was biting cold and cutting to the bone that I was almost deep frozen when I reached the hotel. We checked in and then slept for like 3 more hours. After that it was out of the hotel to explore. Though we were intercepted by a taxi driver, with a real minivan this time, asking to show us around the place. We were like okay so we went to visit some ruins of the temples nearby. We sat on a horse carriage and I felt like an exhibit as tourists took pictures of us. Hello? We are tourists too? But the countryside horse ride was pretty nice, love the feel of the countryside. After lunch with some weird thai food (seriously weird, those food were not conventional), we went up the mountain to some temple, again. Climbed up some super long flight of stairs, I think it was like 200 steps and then walked around the temple. Again it was pretty magnificent, seeing all the spires were made of pure gold. Really nice when you see shining gold in the back drop of the piercingly clear blue sky. Dinner was okay also, we went to a night bazaar for dinner and it was pretty tasty. Good restaurants there, the vegetables they served are very tasty and in large amounts, and very cheap too. Aha, and another good thing here, no traffic jams! Woot!
Yep, about 200 steps up there.
Day 6
I should say, this is my favourite day and favourite trip of all. The same taxi driver with the minivan drove us all the way up to Thailand's highest mountain. Actually we foreigners had to pay 400 baht each for entry to the mountain. But he helped us and said we were locals, we only had to pay 40 baht each. 10 times cheaper, man, they really are out to rip the foreigners off their money. (For your information: The exchange rate is about 1 SGD = 23 THB currently.) The journey up the mountain was beautiful, trees in winding valleys with streams, makes you feel like you're somewhere up in beautiful Switzerland. I was enjoying my way up the mountain to its summit. And the summit's way cold. 6 degrees up there, and I just had long sleeves and jeans with my No Eye Deer jacket. Water vapour was coming out of our mouths when we talked. But I had a cup of hot chocolate there so it wasn't too bad. After that we visited one of the king's palaces up in the mountain, with a nice flower garden in his palace to boot. My brother was taking some close up photos of flowers and I can say some really turned out well. I took a couple of artistic shots with my k810i as well. Heh.
Artistic shot! 100% original. But way too bright, can't tweak the lighting much on my k810i sadly.
Then it was pagodas again. I was pretty bleh with pagodas at that point in time. But anyway there was a nice valley over there and overlooking that valley is fantastic. You're at the top of the valley and it makes you feel so insignificant, yet great, since you're at the top of creation. Beautiful. It just makes you think about your place in this vast universe and how God is so perfect in the things he does. Lunch was midway down the mountain and the tom yam's here's overkill. It doesn't look hot at all, doesn't look sour, but it was so darn spicy and strong tasting (one of the herbs) that I was pwned by it, didn't finish my bowl of soup.
Looks can be deceiving.
Anyway, after that we went some way down the mountain to a waterfall. Again, it was beautiful, and very wet as well. The spray from the waterfall made it feel like drizzling in any case. Dinner was at another restaurant in the night bazaar again. And somehow I convinced my mum to buy this pair of cute salt and pepper holders that were shaped like humans hugging each other. Actually she was already half-convinced herself so yeah. Blah, I was in a night bazaar while you guys were at Seniors' Night.
Magnificent waterfalls!
Day 7
The second last day in Thailand. A free day again. In the morning we woke up late again. And then went to check out from the hotel, leaving us with no place to stay for the night. Originally we were supposed to take the train back to Bangkok so it was an overnight ride. But since the train's full's we had to stay in Chiang Mai and take a domestic flight back to Bangkok. We went to another hotel to check in and while waiting, my parents wanted to do massage. I was like pretty afraid of the massage. (Not so much of the pain I guess, but of the tickle.) In the end we didn't do any massage at all. Hahahahahaha. This day was seriously boring, after lunch my mood for shopping literally just plummeted to zero and I was floating around like some ghost, until, we somehow managed to look at watches and that made me interested. I found this super cool Seiko watch at about 770+ SGD after discount. Too expensive! Or I would have bought it. Anyway I took an interest to one watch that cost about 76 SGD. Too bad the prices there were more expensive than in Singapore so I didn't buy it. Blah, I'm so looking forward to finding that watch in Singapore and buying it! I don't care! It's cheap and looks good! Rawr! (I'm becoming more materialistic aren't I? That's a bad thing isn't it?) Dinner was at the night bazaar again but yet another restaurant. This time the tom yam soup tasted darn good! I've developed a love for tom yam soup over a week, when previously I would stay away from it with a six-foot pole. Hmm, says something about how good the food is over there eh? We returned to the hotel and we had like four free coupons for a free drink. My mum didn't want to go so it was my dad and my two brothers down at the bar for the free drink. Very awkward with four guys there, listening to music and sipping on the drinks. And when I came back I found my 100% pure grape-flavoured valencia drink was missing. My mum drank it, boohoohoo. Lawl.
Day 8
Last day in Thailand. We arrived at the airport early in the morning and had a boring two hour wait for the budget AirAsia plane to Bangkok. First time sitting a budget plane, but it's not really budget anyway, after all the taxes here and there. Then a sucky and expensive lunch and another 2 hour wait before taking a Boeing 777 from Bangkok to Singapore. Was pretty boring, so I was looking at watches again. =) As well as playing tennis on my k810i, darn, I'm getting addicted to that game, lol.
So on the plane, I decided to test my youngest brother on his geography. Pretty bad of course. New York's in China eh? Meh, I think he needs to buck up on his general knowledge man. And then came dinner, and I asked for red wine. Oh ya, the flight stewardesses kept asking whether I was 18. I'm like OMGWTFBBQ YES! I'm almost 19 already! Blah, they said I don't look eighteen, and probably they didn't believe I am 18. Hmm I look young eh, hahahahahaha, I'm just the opposite of Paul! Guess looking young has it's many advantages. Who cares anyway, I got my red wine. Meh. Arrived in Singapore at about 8 plus. Then took a maxicab back home. And here I realised something, Singapore really has MANY MANY trees. It just made me feel good looking at all the trees. In other countries you don't get this. I remembered I had this same feeling 4 years ago after visiting Melbourne. Garden City, maybe. Well that's about it for my trip.
More photos:
Me!
Sparta anyone?
Something I found on the minivan on the trip to the floating market and the death railway. No farting?
Pretty artistic shot by my bro.
Yeah I know, not very flattering. But it's hard to do much with a simple camera.
That's about it, between me and my bro, I think we took close to a thousand pictures but some don't look good and I'm tired already. So here's the end. Lol. || posted by Kuan Hui
Okay man, back from Thailand and with enough energy to recount what happened in the past week. So here goes everythin'
Day 1
The flight to Bangkok was at 5 pm so there was no need to get up any earlier. So I got up at my usual late time of 11 plus am. And then went to pack up some final stuff before we went off at like 1 pm. For the first time, we were taking public transporto the airport so that was pretty interesting trying to lug around bug luggage in the train. Nonetheless we got to the airport pretty early and went to visit Terminal 3. Nothing much there really, but it looks pretty nice anyway. You could pay like 1 dollar per person for a guided tour around T3, even inside check in points. So anywaywe had a light lunch at T3's Dian Xiao Er. Your usual chinese cuisine, not toofantastic in my opinion. Then later on we got on the plane, Thai Airbus A300 to Bangkok, darn old plane, it's like all rickety and all with less comfort. Okay so it wasn't rickety but you get the idea, it's old and not so nice. After that it was a 2 hour flight to Bangkok butthe flight's pretty manageable, I still remembered what I had: Lamb with rice on the plane. And I still can't figure out why people like to sleep just before the plane takes off. Pressure in the ears maybe? I'm not really affected by it though, hmm. And my arms were also hurting thanks to gymming from the day before. Bleh, aching muscles on a vacation, so original.
Gold!
Reached Bangkok at like um, 7 plus pm, THEIR time. Bangkok's time is 1 hour behind us. And like, their airport's so plain. It's like just white all over, so bleh. We made it to our hotel and then went out to walk for abit. The hotel staff said one of the night markets was like what, 2 km away so it's just a short 10 to 15 minutes walk there. But bloody hell, we walked in one direction for like 40 minutes before reaching the stupid place only to find that the shopping centre is closed and the night market's so small. Nothing there, so we took the tuk tuk back to hotel. Boring night there I'd say.
Day 2
It's Thursday! Or rather, more of a visiting places in Bangkok day. We met this nice tuk tuk taxi driver who gave us many recommendations as to how we should spend our day. So we were like to go to the train booking station to book our train to Chiang Mai on Saturday. Sadly the train was darned fully booked thanks to the King's Birthday, so we had to settle for the stupid bus. Sucked. =(
Anyway we first went to visit the king's palace, then had lunch and then visited like the 2 main temples located in Bangkok. I'm not really much interested in temples and stuff, but looking at the intricate designs and all that gold, it's pretty much an eye opener. The temple across the river was fun as well. Temple of the Dawn I think it was called. The steps up were so freaking steep that you had to hold the handrails to get up, and to get down. My feet were like sweating when I looked down the steps from the top. So bloody steep! I don't wanna imagine what would happen if I fell. But it was fun! Wahahahah!
View from below.
View from above, look at the steepness. It's even more steep if you view it in real life. That's my dad in blue and my bro in white.
After that we took boat taxi all the way down the river to the train station, kinda like our MRT. The boat ride's pretty darn cool since you get to feel the cool wind breeze as you speed down the river. I was enjoying it, even though my leg hurt until it was numb already. Took the train to one of the largest shopping centres over there, the MBK centre. Damn huge and damn cool. I was like buy buy buy and bargain bargain bargain. They have like everything there from clothes to handphones to laptops to un-original (lol) CDs and DVDs to food, you get the idea. It puts Singapore's shopping centres to shame, seriously. And their food centre's weird. You had to change your money to coupons to pay up at the counter, I dunno why but that's the way it is. I had quite a good night sleeping after that, my legs were about to break from all that walking.
Day 3
Sucks to wake up early eh. Woke up at like 6+ am THEIR time. Which means waking up at 7+ am here in Singapore. For what? For a trip to the floating market way out of town. The drive there by a 11 seater minivan was like about 2 hours. So boring, we all were sleeping in the van. We reached there like mid morning, but the temperature was like cold man. I think it was below 20 degrees. First time I actually shivered in Thailand. Then we boarded some longboat to reach the floating market, this one really damn cold. The boat was speeding over the river and the wind was just freezingly freezing cold. Cold wind is cold you know. Then we reached the floating market, sat on another boat and went around the floating market looking, and buying some stuff. Food mostly, like coconut juice drank from the coconut, love it! Too bad I had no spoon to eat the coconut flesh, and I had to throw the coconut away, boohoohoo! =(
Floating market.
After that it was off to have lunch but first we stopped at a war memorial. I took a couple of artistic shots there, but the shots were all thanks to Claire's shots in deviantart. I stole her idea, but sssh, she won't know if you keep quiet about it.
I'm sorry Claire, I didn't mean to steal your picture concept. =)
Lunch was a total washout. Total washout! I thought the lunch was cool. You know you get to eat on a floating platform. But what the heck, the food was like, only 3 things. Rice, sweet and sour pineapples and cucumber, and soup. WTF? They were saying it's all in the package and you're gonna get some good buffet lunch. Buffet indeed, but with 3 types on food. Way to go!
This is the sucky lunch place we had. And that's my youngest bro. He's getting fat no doubt. Wahahaha.
After the sucky lunch, we went to visit part of the Death Railway and the museum there. Well, the walk across the rebuilt bridge was a little scary, especially when you are trying to be daring and walk on the side of the bridge and what's below you is 40-50 feet to the water. We went home to Bangkok after that, but not before visiting another temple with a super large statue of Buddha made of GOLD. Like wow, that massive thing is made of pure gold! Dinner was at one of the eating houses near our hotel. For the first time I finally ate (or drank) Tom Yam soup. Good thing we could communicate to the lady boss there, by means of speaking teochew. Thank goodness there are lotsa teochew's in Thailand, which makes us the same people, or gaginang. Wahaha. Tom yam soup was a blast! Seriously it was GOOOOOD! Yum!
Good tom yam soup. It's not even that hot or sour. Everything's just right.
Day 4
Day FOUR, our last day in Bangkok! It was more or less a free day for us actually. Woke up much later and when we went out of the hotel, guess who we saw, the friendly tuk tuk guy we met on Thursday! He brought us to a gem shop to look around, so he could get free petrol coupon, and so we won't be charged as well. So fair exchange, everyone gains the most out of it. =) He was so nice again, giving us recommendations as to where to go. We went to some bazaar in the morning and got more clothes. Then it was back to the hotel during noon for check out and I had to use the free internet cafe access. So yeah, 30 minutes free for my manga fix and I saw Alvin's tag on my tagboard. I was laughing so bad at the internet cafe when I saw the manga chapter that the people over there must have thought I'm some crazy ass dude. After that it was time to go to MBK to shop again. But bloody hell, I realised no matter what damn time you are on the streets of Bangkok, save maybe in the early hours of the morning, the whole place's like TRAFFIC JAM ALL THE TIME! Traffic jams are like their way of life. So terrible. Bleh. Anyway after shopping at MBK and lunch there. Oh and I bought these cool drink bottles as well. Wahahahahahahahaha.
Cute aren't they? Awww. I'm so gonna be killed if she ever discovers my blog.
At night we boarded the night coach to Chiang Mai at 8 pm THEIR time.Well, the seats were okay, but they were so cramped. And we were given some stupid super hard head rest that after 30 minutes hurts your neck. So I dumped it at one corner. Super uncomfortable ride it was. My legs were hurting as usual from all the walking and stuff, and the cramped conditions weren't making things any better. I kept waking up every hour or so, realising how slow time had passed. And they awoke us in the middle of the night, like 1 am plus for supper. Simple meal of porridge with meat with gravy and salted egg, but very tasty. Reminds me of the porridge meals I had back in primary school. After that it was back to the bus again, terrible ride. I couldn't feel my legs at one point, very peculiar sensation. We only reached Chiang Mai at almost 6 am their time. And it was coooooold at that time in the morning.
Day 5
So we arrived at Chiang Mai and the temperature was COLD. Should be close to 10 degrees. Then this tuk tuk taxi driver came up to us to tout for a ride to the hotel. He claimed his vehicle was a minivan, so we were like okay. And then when we crossed the road we saw this tuk tuk vehicle, which was a minivan. My expression was like this:
The "minivan".
The ride was freezingly refreshing. Imagine speeding in a relatively open tuk tuk vehicle at almost 10 degrees. I could say the wind was biting cold and cutting to the bone that I was almost deep frozen when I reached the hotel. We checked in and then slept for like 3 more hours. After that it was out of the hotel to explore. Though we were intercepted by a taxi driver, with a real minivan this time, asking to show us around the place. We were like okay so we went to visit some ruins of the temples nearby. We sat on a horse carriage and I felt like an exhibit as tourists took pictures of us. Hello? We are tourists too? But the countryside horse ride was pretty nice, love the feel of the countryside. After lunch with some weird thai food (seriously weird, those food were not conventional), we went up the mountain to some temple, again. Climbed up some super long flight of stairs, I think it was like 200 steps and then walked around the temple. Again it was pretty magnificent, seeing all the spires were made of pure gold. Really nice when you see shining gold in the back drop of the piercingly clear blue sky. Dinner was okay also, we went to a night bazaar for dinner and it was pretty tasty. Good restaurants there, the vegetables they served are very tasty and in large amounts, and very cheap too. Aha, and another good thing here, no traffic jams! Woot!
Yep, about 200 steps up there.
Day 6
I should say, this is my favourite day and favourite trip of all. The same taxi driver with the minivan drove us all the way up to Thailand's highest mountain. Actually we foreigners had to pay 400 baht each for entry to the mountain. But he helped us and said we were locals, we only had to pay 40 baht each. 10 times cheaper, man, they really are out to rip the foreigners off their money. (For your information: The exchange rate is about 1 SGD = 23 THB currently.) The journey up the mountain was beautiful, trees in winding valleys with streams, makes you feel like you're somewhere up in beautiful Switzerland. I was enjoying my way up the mountain to its summit. And the summit's way cold. 6 degrees up there, and I just had long sleeves and jeans with my No Eye Deer jacket. Water vapour was coming out of our mouths when we talked. But I had a cup of hot chocolate there so it wasn't too bad. After that we visited one of the king's palaces up in the mountain, with a nice flower garden in his palace to boot. My brother was taking some close up photos of flowers and I can say some really turned out well. I took a couple of artistic shots with my k810i as well. Heh.
Artistic shot! 100% original. But way too bright, can't tweak the lighting much on my k810i sadly.
Then it was pagodas again. I was pretty bleh with pagodas at that point in time. But anyway there was a nice valley over there and overlooking that valley is fantastic. You're at the top of the valley and it makes you feel so insignificant, yet great, since you're at the top of creation. Beautiful. It just makes you think about your place in this vast universe and how God is so perfect in the things he does. Lunch was midway down the mountain and the tom yam's here's overkill. It doesn't look hot at all, doesn't look sour, but it was so darn spicy and strong tasting (one of the herbs) that I was pwned by it, didn't finish my bowl of soup.
Looks can be deceiving.
Anyway, after that we went some way down the mountain to a waterfall. Again, it was beautiful, and very wet as well. The spray from the waterfall made it feel like drizzling in any case. Dinner was at another restaurant in the night bazaar again. And somehow I convinced my mum to buy this pair of cute salt and pepper holders that were shaped like humans hugging each other. Actually she was already half-convinced herself so yeah. Blah, I was in a night bazaar while you guys were at Seniors' Night.
Magnificent waterfalls!
Day 7
The second last day in Thailand. A free day again. In the morning we woke up late again. And then went to check out from the hotel, leaving us with no place to stay for the night. Originally we were supposed to take the train back to Bangkok so it was an overnight ride. But since the train's full's we had to stay in Chiang Mai and take a domestic flight back to Bangkok. We went to another hotel to check in and while waiting, my parents wanted to do massage. I was like pretty afraid of the massage. (Not so much of the pain I guess, but of the tickle.) In the end we didn't do any massage at all. Hahahahahaha. This day was seriously boring, after lunch my mood for shopping literally just plummeted to zero and I was floating around like some ghost, until, we somehow managed to look at watches and that made me interested. I found this super cool Seiko watch at about 770+ SGD after discount. Too expensive! Or I would have bought it. Anyway I took an interest to one watch that cost about 76 SGD. Too bad the prices there were more expensive than in Singapore so I didn't buy it. Blah, I'm so looking forward to finding that watch in Singapore and buying it! I don't care! It's cheap and looks good! Rawr! (I'm becoming more materialistic aren't I? That's a bad thing isn't it?) Dinner was at the night bazaar again but yet another restaurant. This time the tom yam soup tasted darn good! I've developed a love for tom yam soup over a week, when previously I would stay away from it with a six-foot pole. Hmm, says something about how good the food is over there eh? We returned to the hotel and we had like four free coupons for a free drink. My mum didn't want to go so it was my dad and my two brothers down at the bar for the free drink. Very awkward with four guys there, listening to music and sipping on the drinks. And when I came back I found my 100% pure grape-flavoured valencia drink was missing. My mum drank it, boohoohoo. Lawl.
Day 8
Last day in Thailand. We arrived at the airport early in the morning and had a boring two hour wait for the budget AirAsia plane to Bangkok. First time sitting a budget plane, but it's not really budget anyway, after all the taxes here and there. Then a sucky and expensive lunch and another 2 hour wait before taking a Boeing 777 from Bangkok to Singapore. Was pretty boring, so I was looking at watches again. =) As well as playing tennis on my k810i, darn, I'm getting addicted to that game, lol.
So on the plane, I decided to test my youngest brother on his geography. Pretty bad of course. New York's in China eh? Meh, I think he needs to buck up on his general knowledge man. And then came dinner, and I asked for red wine. Oh ya, the flight stewardesses kept asking whether I was 18. I'm like OMGWTFBBQ YES! I'm almost 19 already! Blah, they said I don't look eighteen, and probably they didn't believe I am 18. Hmm I look young eh, hahahahahaha, I'm just the opposite of Paul! Guess looking young has it's many advantages. Who cares anyway, I got my red wine. Meh. Arrived in Singapore at about 8 plus. Then took a maxicab back home. And here I realised something, Singapore really has MANY MANY trees. It just made me feel good looking at all the trees. In other countries you don't get this. I remembered I had this same feeling 4 years ago after visiting Melbourne. Garden City, maybe. Well that's about it for my trip.
More photos:
Me!
Sparta anyone?
Something I found on the minivan on the trip to the floating market and the death railway. No farting?
Pretty artistic shot by my bro.
Yeah I know, not very flattering. But it's hard to do much with a simple camera.
That's about it, between me and my bro, I think we took close to a thousand pictures but some don't look good and I'm tired already. So here's the end. Lol. || posted by Kuan Hui
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