Friday, September 12, 2008
Let me first introduce the cast.
(from left to right) Chan, natalie, me, black lim and white lim.
I spent S$511 in bangkok.
this is excluding S$311 for flight and accomodation!
btw i changed my sing dollar to thai baht at a lousy rate of 23.5.
over this 5 days i've learn 5 sounds which i called them sounds of thailand. Due to so many request of wanting to hear them again, i've decided to put them on this post.
Day 1 (thursday)
We met damn early at the airport. was it 6am? White lim gave us an early scare by not being able to find his passport!
We took the budget airline jetstar to bangkok. as nageb would put it, BARCHET. the trip was 2 hrs. and after landing, the plane made a lot of funny noises. sounded like 'yee eek yee ekk yee eekk'
Sounds of thailand 1: Aeroplane
We took a cab that took us to our airport. and the cab cost us farking 700 baht. No meter and no negotiations allowed. Though it is a big cab, i think we were overcharged.
We settled down at our dormitory. it's called take-a-nap hotel. throughout the trip we have a hard time going back to the hotel because none of the cab drivers know where it is!
[this is me reading the book i borrowed from library. the leg belongs to white lim.]
There were 6 beds in the dormintory, 5 of them were arranged in order, much like army style.
the 6th bed is at the 2nd level. we called that platoon 2.
I am very satisfied with the hotel service. it's damn cheap too. only S$15 per night! and most importantly it has wifi and also 2 computers downstairs. unfortunately there is an ang moh lady who hogs 1 of them.
After we unpacked our stuff, we headed to platinium shopping mall for some shopping.
It was a terrible shopping trip for me. The whole shopping centre was full of girls stuff.
I ended up buying a sunglass and 3 t-shirts. All of these were not rational purchases.
Worse still, the t-shirts turns out to be too small!
The only plus point was the KFC. their devil wings totally rock! i eat 1 and i was sweating all over. somehow i managed to eat 3 in the afternoon and 2 more for dinner!
The trip back to the hotel was insane. driven by this tuk tuk driver who was damn high and drove damn fast
the tuk tuk driver isn't me of course!
brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
sounds of thailand 2: tuk tuk
Day 2 (Friday)
luckily white lim also find his shirt too small. so we went back to platinium to changed it. during the cab journey there, the cab was tuned in on some radio talk show. Everytime the dj acknowledge something she would say kap. it's some sort of 'ya' i guess.
no offence, but krapkrapkrapkrap stringed together do sound a bit like cookie monster!
sounds of thailand 3: krapkrapkrapkrapkrap
later we walked 1+km to MBK.
[MBK - My Brother KING]
MBK was a shopping heaven for me
i bought 2 pairs of shoe, another sunglass, 2 polos, and a belt.
really like a king there. of course the happiness was short lived when i found out the stuffs are selling cheaper at the night market! expecially so for this shoe that i bought for 1k baht.
Had a wonderful steak for dinner at a marche styled food court. cost me roughly S$16 but worth every cent.
later we took a tuk tuk to suan lom night market. we bought a thailand singlets, like those chang beer etc 1. We wanted to bargain cheaper but the lady told us '100 baht gib me goot luck.'? maybe there was really good luck since we avoided the riot throughout the 6 days!
sounds of thailand 4: goot luck
one guy offered to sell me exactly the same shoe that i bought at MBK for 800 baht :/
Day 3 (saturday)
We took the MRT to the cha tu chak weekend market.
[buying chips to get in]
In my opinion their MRT is better than those in SG. it is newer and most importantly, not crowded at all!
Cha tu chak is really an eye opener. though it's a bit like the night market we visited the day before, this is more crowded, more happening and serveral times bigger.
after walking here and there for damn long, we finally found the portion of the market that caters more to young ppl.
There were every kind of stalls, even pets stores
[puppies in cages]
[1 ang moh took this for us]
I bought 3 very nice berms here!
I saw the shoe i bought in mbk. I cannot resist asking how much is it.
Later he kept asking me how much i offer, when i walked away he shouted 200 baht then later shouted 100 baht. Not sure whether he is joking, but OMG la. I bought it for 1k baht.
it is also here that when this guy gave us directions on how to get to block 21, he made this sound wooooooooooo and pointed straight ahead.
sounds of thailand 5: wooooooo
Day 4 (Sunday)
sunday was sight seeing and we went to the grand palace.
we took the sky train to the ferry terminal.
the sky train beats our crappy LRT hands down!
[bts sky train arriving]
the ferry terminal reminds me of the ferry terminal to pulau tekong though
after waiting for 20 minutes, our ferry finally arrived.
the ferry is part of their public transport service
the sights from the ferry were quite amazing.
you could see the different faces of bangkok just in 1 ride
from slumps to high rise to many temples
[Slumps]
[big temple that could be seen from quite far]
grand palace was walking distance from 1 of the ferry stops
u could see the temples from outside. but the catch is, u have to pay 200 baht roughly S$9 to enter.
it was a terribly hot day. luckily there were water coolers to refill our bottles.
.
after we came out then we realised what is grand palace. it wasn't all those temples there, but this damn big building that is guarded.
we found our way back by cab that refused to on their meter.
They are called TAXI-METER by the way!
Later that night we went to RCA which is supposed to be their most happening clubbing area.
however it was quite dissappointing. not sure whether because it was sunday.
we watched tottenham vs chelski match. the clubbing scene was not really what i had expected.
Day 5 (Monday)
day 5 was the last day we had in bangkok and we went to do some last minute shopping at.. PLATINIUM AGAIN.
white lim was searching for some dresses for his gf. Later as the girls went to do some more last minute shopping, we got quite sick of platinium and we went to the nearby pratinum market. wasn't as fantastic as chatuchak or sailom. and i still couldn't find the thing i was looking for. (pirated arsenal jersey) LOL.
we had some nice seafood at chinatown for dinner.
everybody was scrimming and saving on wat to order in case overshoot budget.
later that night, black lim found 1000baht in his pocket -_-
DAY 6 (Tuesday)
according to natalie, the flight back on tuesday morning was s$100 cheaper than a flight back on monday night.
so it was ok considering the hotel only cost $15 per bed a night.
[no trouble at the airport]
that morning, the state of emergency was called, and lucky we didn't face any flight delays or anything. maybe the shirt really did give us good luck :S
During the flight, we saw Thomas Ong. Even he also take 'BARCHET' airlines and witness the yee eek yee ekk sound!
White lim's gf limin came to meet us at popeye's for lunch. no thanks to her, i learnt that exam results were out that morning. It was a very uneasy journey back home from airport.
1:05 AM
