profile a loner who needs friends. a law-abiding rebel. a rigid hippie. a mediocre prefectionist. a walking contradition. likes travelling the world | rainy days | sleeping in | a good book | cliched romantic comedies | singing in the bathroom | looking at clouds | daydreaming | babies | people watching | late night buses | rooting for underdogs | smell of fresh linen | being alone | when karma works . tag links avril | cam | issac | jovi | leigh | manda nina | the cranky flier | cruz | the satorialist archives May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 May 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010 credits skin by: Jane |
Wednesday, September 3, 2008 | 11:51 PM
the very-long bangkok post okay this i've got to admit. the following entry is SO late that it should be renamed the way-overdued bangkok post instead. but, as a firm believer in the art of procrastination, being late is always better than never. the best friend might be complaining that i'm behind the deadline (by today) but hey, if not for an unexpected break, this post might not even happen at all. spent half my day in bed and the other half photoshopping these collages, so i only want to hear the good stuff.. hahas! enjoy!
day 1 - thursday, 24th jul 08
considering that we both have airport experience, we were fashionably late at the check-in gate since seats were already reserved and singapore airlines (theoratically) can't fly off without us. yea right. unfortunately, being law abiding and considerate ex and current airport staff, we weren't so late that our names had to be paged over the intercom. "mr XXXX and ms XXX, pls haul ur a**es over to gate E4 now!" that would have been a nice start to the holiday though.
touched down at suvarnabhumi airport slightly after 6 and hopped onto a taxi immediately. travel tip: pls ignore all the touts clustered around the arrival hall and head straight out and turn all the way left to the official metered taxi stand. a trip to the city shouldn't cost you more than 500BHT and for god's sake don't blow your money on airport limousines that costs more than double the price. you'd still get to your hotel in the end and bkk's cabs are relatively new.
then it's off to the trendy thong lo, which is the bangkok equivalent of our holland village. maybe cuz we weren't there at the right time, or the happening spots were located too far away from the bts skytrain station, but we spent a good part of the night walking the streets. (as it turns out we'd be doing a lot of walking in the days to come. good way to slim down though.)
okay, this is where the blow-by-blow account of our bangkok trip stops. i'm gonna post up random things that are actually worth posting about instead of taking you through what we did from 9am (sleep) till 2am (getting ready to sleep).
well details aside, chatuchak was in short, huge. well, i don't expect you'd get away with calling yourself the biggest market in the world without actually being any less do you? reached at around 8am (as per travellers' tips), just when the shops were opening. personally i'd suggest heading down slightly later, say 9.30ish as that's when most shops would be ready, as opposed to watching them get ready for business.
the goods on sale were pretty much the same as everywhere else, the mass printed tee-shirts, lacquerware, buddha potraits but there were some treasures to be found amidst the monotony. got myself some not so bling-bling tees which were a steal at S$15 and 2 pairs flip-flops for the baby at slightly more than S$2. prices like these wouldn't even exist in singapore.
had a quick lunch of funky fried chicken hips (yea hips) and a mango salad with fried papaya when the weather got slightly unbearable. both dishes actually turned out really nice and with the tangy dips and an ice cold cola, provided a much appreciated relief from the unrelenting sun and also the humidity.
got ourselves outta there at around 2pm when it was really too hot to go persist in our shopping quest. took the bts to ari station in a bid to lose ourselves in the air-conditioned mall and ended up at iberry, which was akin to our bakerzin, only cooler. had a refreshing iced raspberry tea with a sinful chocolate banana cake while the bf absolutely refused to share her strawberry shortcake. the audacity. baywatch since the bf got herself 2 pairs of bikini at chatuchak, she decided to make the best of it by taking a dip in the hotel's lap pool. i, for one one would hardly pass up on a chance to swim but while she indulged in her mermaid fantasies, i took the opportunity to snaps some shots of the hotel in the daylight. the bf did her part by taking some shots in the pool while i was on edge about the possibility of dropping my beloved ixus into the water.
couldn't resist the inviting waters anymore so i took the plunge in my brand new red fisherman's pants. (was rather afraid of staining the pool red though since it hasn't been washed before) the water was f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g, something which the bf casually mentioned (casually as in "you might find the water a little cold." -.-) but it was good to work off some of the phat thais and tom yums that we've been ingesting over the past few days.
suan lum night bazaar
really enjoyed myself at the night market when i was here in oct 07 so imagine my sadness when it was reported that suan lum would cease operations in may 08. largely thanks to the inefficiency of the developers and the can-do mindsets of the vendors, suan lum was still very much in business when we headed there after our swim.
went with the intention of getting a bedside lamp but this lighthouse series of candle holders really caught my eyes. after much deliberation (and running between the 2 shops), finally decided to heck it and get the latter instead. while i'm still in need of a reading light in bed, the lighthouse is sitting very comfortably on my bedside table as i type. :)
had dinner at this alfresco restaurant that screamed "tourist trap!" but the food was surprisingly good, if a bit expensive. their calamari (whiche we always seemed to be having no matter where we go) was one of the freshest i've ever tasted and it had a really airy battertoo. so people, next time you're headed for suan lum, don't miss this place. directions might be sketchy, but they're under this huge ass tree that keeps raining pods on you and right by the roundabout. can't miss it. can't take the heat maybe it was a combination of the heat from chatuchak, the sudden switch of temperature at iberry, the swim and the tom yum from the day before, but i wasn't in the best of conditions when i woke up the next day. nonetheless, gung ho us trudged down to hit the malls again. managed to get my wall clock at a rather reasonable rate while the bf got more stuff for her bf (not me). blew a combined S$300 at loft, a lifestyle megastore but it was money well spent (at least to us) for we both gotten things which we liked.
things got really so bad at lunch (which was nothing to write about) that we had to head back to the hotel. felt really shagged and vomit-y so popped 2 panadols courtesy of the bf and knocked out soon after. i think this is my body's way of telling me that i've overshopped and need a rest for both the body and the wallet. woke up feeling starving, so at least that's a good sign. so it's off again to mbk, where the bf managed to pick up the latest enrique iglesias cd. dinner was at fuji japanese restaurant, another must eat whenever i'm in bangkok. overordered and overate as usual, but since the bill came up to like S$40, it was worth feeling like a bloated balloon. i think.
food food food!
way back home
having been caught up in all the shopping and time-wasting, we were running late for our return flight for real this time. with no thanks to a law abiding taxi driver in a country where hardly anyone heeds the traffic rules, we arrived with barely enough time to check in. was kinda hyperventilating on the drive there as we got really cheapo tickets which cannot be changed no matter the circumstances.
thanks to the ingenious idea of prebooking seats online, i still retained my window seat, which led to pictures like these:
the flight back was way more enjoyable, both service and food wise. i was just happy with my window seat, and was grinning away into the sunset.
granted, bangkok wasn't a soul-searching, life-changing kind of trip (that honour belongs to south africa) but this being our way overdue "graduation trip", it was certainly enjoyable. crazy and random stuff that only us can do like promising to go get our nails done (never happened), heading out in tees, shorts and flipflops to get supper, talking way into the night/early morning are just some of the many things that made this trip special. next on the cards: visit manda in perth next mar/apr! phew. that was long. Labels: Travel |
