Hey ya everyone! I'm back from THAILAND, the land of smiles. In Thai, their country name means 'land of the free' and I literally felt quite free. Well, sort of.
Anyway, I had a fun time in Thailand :) Here's a brief of what I did:
Day 1 - 4
I woke up freaking early in the morning to prepare for early morning flight via SQ. Hahaha the last min decision to go Thailand had left us with no choice but to take Singapore Airlines. Felt a bit cranky cos I was tired from late night (naughty me)
We went to the airport and it was quite cool cos the WHOLE family (except my uncle) were there. I've not travelled with the whole family for a long time. I don't even know when was the last time we did that.
After check in, we started to board the plane and flew our way to Bangkok. Upon arrival, we went straight through immigration and went straight to our hotel. The fun thing about the immigration is that... it's the 1st time I actually went through immigration (from Singapore) at the new Suvarnabhumi airport (although I'm not loving the new airport).
The hotel was a shock. The outlook was boring, Internet service was sucky, staff were too casual. Ah!!! Sometimes I wonder why Auntie Phua book such a hotel. But don't really blame her. She was looking for the best deal. But, we eventually spent more on taxi (duh, my grandma can't walk much). Don't book Bangkok City Suites
Immediately went to Central World Plaza for a start of our shopping. Next few days were shopping and meeting extended family in Thailand for dinners. It was nice to see the whole family getting together, although somewhat... I felt a little out of place. I mean, I want to be as close to my Thai family members as possible, but I just don't know what to do.
We went to Kanchanaburi on one of the days. It was near disastrous because we had like a van which has an aircon that didn't work well. Imagine. 11 people in a small van with lack of aircon. And we did that for an entire day. Imagine.
We went to River Kwai, Death Railway and Tiger Temple. The biggest disappointment was Tiger Temple, because the tigers didn't look as free as we thought they were. Although we got to take really nice pics of them, they look lethargic. My aunties suspect a bad case of... commercialism. They suspect that they were tranqualised so that people can take pics with them. That's kinda cruel, I feel.
I mean the reason why we came to Tiger Temple was to see tigers roam around the temple freely, just like when the monks 1st found the tiger at his temple. Just like.. when he wanted to adopt it and have more tigers. I don't know. It's just too fishy to me.
River Kwai and Death Railway was more interesting because I've never expected myself to be there and I did want to go there. Was really cool.
Shop, shop, shop... I bought so many things man!!! On the 4th day, we went to the salon, which acts as a hairdressing salon, manicure, pedicure, facial and massage parlour all rolled up into one. I wanted a cut and colour, so they started on the colour 1st. Upon hearing my younger bro complain, I didn't want a cut already. Was scared, but my father was being very stubborn and told me not to give attitude. What attitude?!?! I was just trying to be on the safe side.
Didn't go well in the end because my father misunderstood me and there was a big commotion (that I made) and the whole freaking salon was so scared of me, it was like a volcano was going to erupt!!! Well... it did, considering that my hair looked like lava! They redye the hair (so that the roots were coloured) as they didn't do so and I wasn't that happy. Gave a big tip to cover up for my terrible drama. But, seriously, if not for my father... ahh forget it.
My parents, elder bro, cousin Jacky and my auntie Applelyn went off 1st, as they were spending less days in Thailand, while my grandma, aunties Phua and Mary, younger bro Sean, cousin Julian and I took the overnight train to Udon Thani. Gonna meet my maid :) although my mood was kinda sucky because of the hair incident. I mean, I looked in the mirror and I saw Ronald McDonald, so what did you expect?
Day 5-8
Woke up early, as the train arrived in Udon at around 7am. I had dinner and breakfast on the train. I was tricked. My dinner cost THB70, but my breakfast was THB 210. Xiao. I wasted my money man.
I stepped out of the train and looked around.
"Ron!" screamed my maid.
"Auntie Rian!", I shouted with exclaim.
And both of us run towards each other, like long lost lovers who haven't met for eons. (Oh my God the drama)
We went to the hotel to check in before leaving for our maid's village. We received a warm welcome from the villagers and we went straight into her house for another round of breakfast. Ai yo, we kept eating and eating! Nice, warm porridge :)
We left for Nong Khai, which is a town near the border, so we were able to see Laos (which was so cool). We had dinner at some hawker centre in Udon. Udon is a very small town, so we were able to get around much easier than Bangkok. Oh, and things are a little bit cheaper. Haha!
Next day was back at the village and we got to see my maid's farm. After retiring from us last July, she went back to the village and got herself land and do farm stuff. Corn, tomatos, fruits...she planted a few things around. It was cool.
More and more food for us. We just kept eating non stop (oh God I'm so fat). Too nice lah, they. After that, we went back to the train station for our overnight train to Bangkok. It was sad to go, I wish I could stay longer, but yea... what to do?
Anyway we went back to Bangkok and it was time for me to add on to my luggage already full of my purchases. I don't know why I like to shop in Bangkok (esp Mah Boon Khrong). Maybe cos it's cheap lah. Haha
We went back to Singapore the afternoon of the last day. It was irritating to think about work, but I have work to do, so we had to go back.
Overall
Throughout the trip, we had ups and downs. It's like, at every moment, someone is complaining or having their bad moment and you can see like everyone's bad side and stuff... and then my grandmother would suddenly worry about the things in the luggage when we are like out of the hotel. So random.
Other than that, the trip was good. It might be hard to organise a big group like that, but yeah... I'm happy that we did it :)
