Monday, December 22, 2003

[trip to thailand-- e land of smiles]

wohoho. I'm back home! yEah~ reached home ard 8 plus yesterday! hah! Feeling happy now even though there were some unhappy moments during the trip.
Woke up this morning and had tang yuan for breakfast! Checked mail and think i should blog the events! Heh, i have bad memory, will try and remember what happened.

day 1 thurs
Scandinavian airlines|Genting Holidays Tour| tired| bangkok centre hotel| feeling excited|

day 2 fri
After our breakfast at the hotel, the four of us(mum, sis, grandma n me--notice all female) got on to the bus and headed for the famous four-faced buddah. It's somewhere in bangkok, quite near the hotel. I thought it would be a very big statue. Erm, but it turned out to be quite small.

On our way to DREAM WORLD, the travel bus was really packed, there were just enough seats. So i had to sit with a father, named Jeffrey, and his son Zacchaeus(what a special name--frm the bible). Both of them were so friendly, Zaccha was really talkative..10 yrs old, cute, slightly plum, innocent. He commented about almost everything about Thailand during the bus ride and started complaining about the roads, lack of trees, dirty, run-down.To me, he was just one of those typical Singaporean kid who is too fortunate to realise that we are so blessed to have what we have. I was once like that too. ignorant. He had a very good dad, Jeffrey tried explaining to him that he shouldn't complain because diffrent countries had different cultures and everything. We can't expect all countries to be like Singapore. They are just like friends! And Jeffrey was a big joker. I really envied the both of them. Happy and loving. I just felt pathetic. Can't even talk to my dad about anything and he can't even put down his work to go for a holiday with us.

The tour guide's from Thailand, his chinese and english was really bad that we can't really understand him. Sigh. And the tour group was quite big and they mixed the four-day, five-day, six-day pple all together which got very confusing. Mum was already quite frustrated that day.

Didn't know that Thailand had a dream world. Similar to disney land, but the rides are much simpler. Me and my sis took the coaster ride. Haha. wasn't that scary compared to the one in Japan. I didn't dare take the Hurricane. It was too violent and scary for me.Hmm. We went into the haunted house. I was really very scared. I hated stuff about ghosts and my sis was the brave soul, always getting me all scared when i had to go with her. It was all dark in there. had to climb some stairs. Then there was a ghost sitting on the steps. We decided to turn left and headed for the steps. By that time i was sooo afraid and horrified. And a knight suddenly appeared. I screamed. Really screamed. Then i saw the words "FAST EXIT". And erm, both of us decided that we should exit quick. What a joke. Yeah, i think i'm quite a chicken with such things. Come on, i don't even watch horror flims. Funny how i can take the world's highest roller coaster(King of Coaster in Japan) and not watch horror flims. Me and mum rode th Gold Kart. Racing car. Was so cool. Like Jimmy Lin! Someone kept bumping to me ON PURPOSE. Oh well, of course had to bump him back. When we came out, our face was like all black! The tar on the road 'flew' onto us. Thanks a lot.

Have i commented about the meals? Our lunch and dinner was the same everyday!I guess cheap tour's like that. Gai lan, sweet and sour fish, chicken, fried egg, soup... That's all. Same everyday! I went to Thailand to eat chinese food? Huh.

Took a 2 hrs bus ride to Pattaya, to the WORLD'S LARGEST JEWELRY FACTORY. Nothing much, was just some introduction to the mining works. No money to buy anyway. Was soooo expensive.

Went shopping! At Mike's Shopping Centre. The things are rather cheap. Didn't buy much. Just a shirt. My mum was really in a bad mood and was venting her anger on us.. sigh. yar, she sort of quarrelled with one of the shop keepers.

Lucky the TIFFANY'S SHOW cooled her down. Phew. Sorry, but I found the show very disgusting. All the 'ah guans'. I know most of them don't have a choice but. Still find it hard to accept them in this modern society. I don't know why. I just feel that is it necessary to change sex? I wonder why God made them like that. I can understand how the feel, the internal self-struggle.. really feel sorry for them. I guess it just can't be helped. Some quite pretty, nice figure and hair. Prettier than real females. *Coughs* That's sad.

We stayed in CAESAR HOTEL. The tour guide kept saying "See Sa" instead of "Caesar".Everyone was enlightened when we reached there. It's not any where near the beach. Was quite disappointed.

day3 sat
I'm quite amused by the things that happened on day3. The tour guide wanted to bring us to CORAL ISLAND. And there are 2 ways which we can get there.

1) By speed boat which was much faster but we have to pay 200 baht per person (he didn't specify that it was 400 baht to and fro. That adds up to $20 per person!)

2) By big ship which is ultra slow and would take us 2hrs to and fro. However it is absolutely free. The catch is.. long hours, will get sea sick, had to transfer small boat to big ship then big ship to small ship, involves a lot of climbing up and down, which can be terrible during the high tide when the sea is choppy.

Singaporeans.. of course chose No.2. We totally ignore the tour guide's advice to take the speed boat. He would probably get commission if we take the speed boat. Nah, we were quite persistant. Trying to save money here. sorry! (personally i would have taken the speed boat.)

I got dizzy after a while. They brought us to this platform on the water where we saw pple parachuting. Not really parachuting but a speed boat pulls a parachuter. Cool right! Thought it was quite fun. Was very very safe. Me and Mum played it. At first i asked my mum if she could.. i was unsure whether is can make it. She proved me wrong! The sea view was so beautiful up there, could see the whole scenary! Nice breeze so windy! Too bad, it lasted for only 5 mins! I can't bear to get down!!

Had to take the small boat. Really horrid.
Then from there took another small boat and transferred to the big ship! Already felt like puking already. Wondered how my grand ma survived. Some pple started puking and getting sea sick. Thank God i didn't. It took us 1hr to get to coral island. Did i mention that we had to change from the big ship to small boat AGAIN? Horrid. YUp.

The worst part. I didn't see much corals. The base of the boat is glass, and we could look into it. Managed to catch a glimsp of the fishes and some coral but wasn't very clear. When we got on to the island we were like half dead. So shagged and everything. Everything on the island must pay! Wah.. wash hand, wash leg, even using the toilet, have to pay!! Madness. In the end we just spent half an hour there, picking sea shells and taking photos. No time to even swim because most of the time spent was on travelling. tsk tsk* Some chose to take the speed boat back and end up having arguments about the price.

We decided to take the long way, can save money on shopping. when we reached land.. i just felt that i spent my whole morning rocking in a ship. great man.

After lunch was a bus ride to watch a THAI CULTURAL SHOW AND ELEPHANT SHOW. That was the highlight of the trip. Show cased thai dance, thai boxing, fighting etc etc and elephants fighting during war with canon bombs. The elephants are so cute! Very very smart animals!! They know how to throw darts! Kick soccer! Paint! Basketball, bowling(it was a strike)! Massage! They totally rock! We bought a painting painted by one of the elephants. I wonder if it knows what it painted. It looked like flowers to me. How artistic!

Went to some honey factory. trying very hard to promote their honey. Tasted quite nice but it costs S$80 to buy a bottle of poppy plant's pollen grain. I am like.. ehhh. They made it sound like it can cure all illnesses. From tooth aches, diabetes, sore throat, insomia, constipation... ... WOw, as if.

After an unhappy dinner (not enough seats that our whole family almost had to stand and got split up), parted with the five-day and six-day tour families and headed back for bangkok. 2hrs ride again. The bus was playing BSB songs, it wasn't that bad. I got really excited. The hotel had a nice lobby! And they can speak english! We are left on our own. The tour guide left us already. Sunday would be just shopping.

day 4 sun
Woke up rather early hopping to do last minute shopping at Patunam. A bell boy came to collect our luggage that morning and we thought they were ultra efficient. Had breakfast and started shopping!! Yah~ And lunch was a Baiyoke Sky Hotel, the tallest hotel in bangkok! Had a very nice buffet lunch, as mum decided to treat us after eating the same food for 2days! Finally got to eat real Thai food! I love the tom yam!

When we got back to the hotel to get our lugguage, we realised that our lugguage was missing! I wasn't really bothered by it. It must be somewhere. Then we found out that the bell boy made a mistake and took our lugguage, thinking that we belonged to another tour group. Our lugguage went all the way to DREAM WORLD! We had so much problems trying to contact the bus driver and langguage barrier didn't make it much simpler. That was bad. Luckily that tour group was from the same GENTING HOLIDAYS and they are also leaving for Singapore on the same flight as us! Phew! What a huge mistake! Nearly had to camp in Thailand one more day. The hotel manager was really patient! Thanks to him!

Aftermath
Now that i am home, i feel relaxed once again. The whole trip was full of ups and downs. Glad to be home safe and sound. I miss home. ;)

shystar*;
x 12/22/2003 12:50:00 PM