Thailand Trip part 1
Got back from Thailand on Sunday. Well, it’s been quite an experience down there. Get to see things you don't in Singapore and see things you always see in Singapore as well.Let’s start from the preparations.
4 of us went over. CSN, Shev, David and myself. Since CSN is the only one who had went before, we entrust the planning and logistical support to him. Plane tickets, hotel lodging and places to go. Plus the fact we all lack something call a credit card, we have to turn to his brother for help.
Big mistake...
First thing is, CSN is a person with no sense of urgency at all. He's one of those who wait to rush, not rush to wait type. So we all gathered to talk about the plane tickets only 1 week before the trip. We couldn't get all the best deals around, those economy class tickets that go for S$130 round trip. So in the end, we settled for 2 tickets from Tiger airways, total $261 per head. Hell that's expensive by budget airways standard.
Next up is lodging. CSN told us he booked 1 room in Asia hotel. That was like the week before we flew over. So I told him, try to get another room in the same place. Three days before we flew, he sms us at 2am, telling us he cancelled the room and tried to book 2 rooms. Couldn't get them anymore. I almost went ballistic when I saw the sms in the morning when I woke up. In the end, for the 2 days before we flew, I took over the nonsense he left for us, and I cleared up the mess. In the end, we got ourselves a lil hotel near the same place. Motel/Hotel, what ever you called it. I think the price is pretty alright, basically cheap. So I was ready for any nonsense they are going to throw us. But when I got the confirmation, I heaved a sigh of relief. We shall see how the hotel looks like when we get there.
The night before we were to fly, I called CSN to confirm with him as to if his dad is driving us there. Shev has told me CSN said he told his dad to drive us there. So at 12+ I called him. He said he don't know the flight time, and told his dad not to drive us there. I almost blew my top at him over the phone. After all the shit he threw me, he still didn't know the flight timings. And he is saying we should meet to take the MRT to changi airport! Say it is expensive to take cab! My goodness... my insistence to take cab was replied with a reluctant yes. My goodness...
Lessons learnt:
1) If you want to go overseas, get yourself a credit card or debit card. Makes things easier.
2) If you are clueless how to do everything by yourself, find an agency to do everything for you.
3) And be early. At least 2 weeks in advance.
4) Plan early.
5) And do not leave important issues to people who just aren't cut out to handle them.
First day was alright. After we got all the rough ends smoothen out, we just went all out to enjoy ourselves. Forget about all the nonsense of pre-travel planning. We got our butts off to the airport and reached pretty early. We got our tickets from the efficient counters in changi airport. Excellent job. Headed off to MacDonald for a simple $2 breakfast since we've all eaten before heading out. And it seems like the 4 of us all didn't sleep much the night before. I've got 3 hours, Shev about the same, David about 2, so did CSN. So we were all a bit groggy in the early morning hours of our flight. We cracked jokes mostly and things seem pretty good. We got to the gate pretty early and saw the people gathering really early there too.
On the way there...
Then we caught the glimpse of Singaporean trait of Kiasuness. There was this elderly couple who were very near to the entrance of the door. Then this flight stewardess came along and went pass them, through the gate and towards the plane. The two senior citizens just stood up, cue for the rest as well. Then the whole bunch of people was crowding the entrance. It was an ugly sight... Just like MRT doors during peak hours. Ugly...
Boarding wasn't that bad, we managed to get a window seat despite not being the first few to go in. First time on an A320 for me. Its small, 3 seats each side of the aisle. Shev didn't want the window seat so I took it. I just love the looks of clouds and stuff. There were parts where there were no clouds at all. So I got to see clouds and the river system down below.
It was outstanding...
Now here are a few pictures of the clouds I caught outside.
Think this one looks glorious, with the sun shining and all...
This picture simply fascinates me. I think you can never see clouds like this from the bottom. It looks just like land, but it is all cloud…
Then the places where there are sparse clouds around.
Get to see the huge river at the bottom. Beautiful…
Here we get to see the meandering river snaking to the sea at the top... brilliant isn’t it? Sometimes you’ve got to appreciate geography.
Here’s one where two big rivers merge to become one. I think the reflection of the sunlight really brings out the brilliance of nature in this picture.
I was really having my head pasted to the window through out the flight. Well, unfortunately the seat wasn’t the most comfortable one around. For me that is. Tall people take note, especially tall and long legs. Here’s how I fared through out.
With slight leg space, for movement. Wriggle the toes a bit to get the blood flowing man. And the aisle is so tiny, when the cart they are pushing is in the middle, there isn’t anymore space for people to walk through. So get ready for a squeeze.
Sinister smile for the records...
Wholesome one from Shev
Sleeping 86’ kid
West Brom United
We touched down, look around and saw the big bunch of people looking for their visitors. We settled down by some seats and try to locate our hotel on the map. Seems like it’s so small, it’s not even on the map! So we asked the info counter lady and she located the road. She then proceeds to write the hotel name in Thai and passed to us, saying just pass to the taxi driver. Before we got to the queue, someone ambushed us halfway. It is one of those hawks. Anyway, we just followed him to his taxi area. 700bahts, a bit more on the expensive side. But their cabs are not those corollas. They are minivans. So for extra 200bahts, we get plenty of room for each person through the horrendous Bangkok jams.
We reached about 45minutes later. Well, the hotel kind of off the main road a little. Got to walk about 3minutes to the BTS station. Well, isn’t that bad. The rooms aren’t the best around, but alright for 25/pax/nite. Not really the best view either from the room.
We reached, bathe and went off in about an hour’s time. First place is of course, MBK for the beef noodles which everyone talks about. We decided to take the sky train over for the first time.
A train rolling in
Each station has such guards. Both sides of the track. Almost everywhere you get guards like them, subway, hotels, and shopping malls. They are everywhere. And they are not like Singapore security guards, who look like they can’t even withstand a punch from a kid. These in Thailand all look like Thai fighters… don’t even try to outrun them.
I heard the sky train system, or BTS is designed by a Singaporean. That explains the similarity to our MRT. The card they use is the one we used before ez-link came along. Those magnetic card or whatever you call them. As for their subway, or MRT, it’s just like our very own NEL. Amazing…
Isn’t it just similar?
The ticketing machine. It dispenses a small black round coin like ’card’ for single trips. For the subway, there are stored value cards. They also enter by tapping. So it’s the same as our system. But for the single trip, you tap when you get in, but you slot into a ‘coin slot’ when you exit. Minus the hassle of getting a refund. How smart these people!
The best part of the sky train and subway is the commuters. The people in Bangkok actually queued up for the train. They form 2 queues by the side of the door from the beginning. The four of us were like standing in a bunch beside the door area. We only realized the queue when it got longer and with the training approaching. I was quite impressed by their courtesy. Next, they waited for the commuters to alight before boarding the train.
Where the hell is that scene in Singapore?!?!?!
The image of the pair of elderly couple during boarding pops into my mind at that moment. Sad…
Anyway, we made our way to MBK, or what Mah Bu Kong. Sometimes I just can’t get those names in, so I just use short form. MBK, CTC, so on and so forth. We popped by the famous beef noodles store to get our lunch. It’s simply delicious! 50baht I think, or is it 40. Can’t really remember what the value was. But it has to be the best beef noodles I’ve ever eaten. We were even contemplating employing the cook, and set up our own store in Singapore. I’m sure that’s going to be a great venture.
We didn’t walk around much after that good meal. We proceed to the Erawan Shrine, where the Hindu God was, better known as the 4-face Buddha. We bought some flowers and incense for 20baht and offered our prayers. It was kind of rainy that afternoon and the crowd was sparse. But there are still quite a lot of people in the small shrine. Smoke all around. And despite the rain, the place was still hot and humid. Perspiration was raining down all our heads after we finished the rounds.
The famous Erawan 4-face Buddha shrine.
We found ourselves in another mall somewhere after that. Can’t really remember what the name was. Think was something like city central mall or something. Got ourselves a coke each before thinking of what to do for the day. We walked around and eventually decided to catch Star wars Episode III at the theatre. We got to the booth, but we couldn’t see the pricing of the tickets. We were looking around when we spot this LED board with all the listing. The pricing is moving across at the bottom. 120baht for each normal seat. Pretty cheap we thought. So we got CSN to buy the tickets.
Shev and I sat down on one of those chairs they have by the counter. Then I realized something. There was this voice over the PA system which is rattling away in Thai non-stop when we reached. I was thinking it was one of those pre-recorded voice stuff. Nope… it isn’t. There is this young lady who’s got a headset attached with a mic. She was the one who had been rattling away all the while! I was just plain amazed… and it reminds me of those pasar malam sellers who always talk non-stop, but they always have some audience. This young lady is simply talking to thin air. And from her smiles, it seems she thoroughly enjoys her work. Top marks for professionalism!
CSN got back with the tickets with a puzzled look. He said he was ‘chopped’ by the counter, brandishing 4 170baht tickets. We realized he had bought the platinum tickets. Now we are going to be watching a movie equivalent to Singapore pricing. So much for our plans of a budget trip.
When we went up to the theatre, we saw some huge wording over one of the entrances. It’s written ‘Platinum screen’. I think the attendant saw us with our puzzled look and requested to see our tickets to clarify our doubts. He gave us a wide smile and ushered us to the platinum screen. There, waiting for us is a welcome drink! Wow…. For 170bahts, it seems like its becoming a really good deal. We went in, and saw a medium size theatre. But the good thing is the leather seats and room for the legs! The seats can even be reclined a little. It’s super comfortable…
Now comes the interesting part of the whole experience. Before the show we have all the customary advertisements and stuff, while the 4 of us are getting kind of sleepy. And at that moment, a message flash across the screen, ‘Please pay your respects to the King of Thailand’. Then we saw the Thaïs in front of us standing up in attention. Immediately we shot up like our butts had been jabbed by needles, even though all of us are half dead like zombies. They played a clip, about their king and the love and respect the people showed him. It was about 5-6mins, and all the while we just stood there. Now that’s definitely something new…
After the show, we proceed to Chinatown to grab some sharks fin. They have this 300baht sharks fin in clay pot. It was pretty nice, better then most you get in Singapore. Then came another interesting thing. They served the sharks fin with bean sprouts. There was this big plate of bean sprouts that came along with it. Kind of a weird way to eat sharks fin I suppose. As the trip went on, we realized that eat every damn thing together with bean sprouts. So, if you ever go Thailand, don’t be surprise if they serve you a plate of bean sprouts for something you’ll least expect to go with it.
There were some screwed ups with our orders. Apparently the ladies had given our orders to some other people instead. So it’s like we ordered 4 plates of fried rice, but only 1 came. After like 20minutes of waiting, we called the lady to ask her why it’s so damn long. She said she’s going to check it out. So she asked another lady who took our order. Then they started laughing and the first lady pull the one who took our orders away, sneaking peaks at us and laughing all the way. At that time we were damn sure they misplaced our order. Well eventually it came along and we all had our final fill.
Shev and CSN
David and I
It was like 9pm when we finished our dinner. We had decided to go for a Thai boxing match. There were two locations on the map which has Thai boxing and we asked one of the ladies when there were matches. The 2 places have different match days. So the lady circled the places and wrote down the days of the matches for both places. When we got down to the roadside, we hailed a cab to get over there. CSN did his usual stunt and pointed to the wrong place! And when we got there, it was dark and deserted. Once again we feel like hammering CSN. Lucky for us, there was a night bazaar down there, and the mistake eventually will turn into a blessing for our Saturday night. We walked around the place, and felt that the place was meant for tourist, with all the prices relatively higher than other places. So we left pretty early and reached our hotel about 11pm.
My three traveling companions are weird people. Instead of sleeping, they wanted to play cards. So we proceeded to the nearest 7-11 to buy cards, and to buy some drinking water. We bought 8 bottles of 1.5l bottles, much to the astonishment of the cashier. She was looking at us bring 1, 2, 3….8 and broke into those astonished laughter. We just smiled at her and brought our stuff back. Eventually, it became a nightly event, our card game that is. We called it our dai di season. And I’m proud to announce KS united won the first season! After catching up on CSN for most of the game. Not bad for someone who isn’t much of a dai di player huh? Hahaha…
That about sums up the pre-tour and first day. I think I’ll leave the other days some other time. In the meantime, do stay tuned!
posted by luxy @ 4:58 AM
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