bangkok in a nutshell...

i know i promised to put up a proper post on my recent trip to bangkok... but things have been really crazy in the office! 4 days away and my work has piled up higher than gunung kinabalu! that's why i'm a bit lemah (malay for "weak") to do up a proper one. so you guys will just have to live with this... for those of you who are my friends in facebook, hop on over there for more photos!

lodging

i had this idea that we should all stay in an apartment. this way will be more fun than staying in separate hotel rooms... but for once, google failed me! so my cousin asked a thai acquaintance that she met for 10 minutes in US to recommend a nice apartment that we can stay in. so she gave us the url to evergreen place.

from their website, they looked ok lar... but when we saw the front of building from the main road, it looked quite dilapidated and sleazy that i was worried that the members of my group will start complaining. then our driver went past the "main entrance" of the building and turned a corner (to our shouts of, "it's here! here! STOP!"), we saw that the service apartment's main entrance is actually in the side street. turned out, the front of the building that we saw from the main road was like a shop front that they lease out to other operators.

the service apartment itself turned out quite nice. clean and spacious... again, for more photos (especially of the interiors of the apartment) go to my facebook!

main entrance...

lobby area...

another side of the lobby...

transportation

my cousin's hubby used to work with a company that has a branch in bangkok. so they're always hiring the service of this guy, shonn, who provides transportation around bangkok and its surrounding area. his price is quite reasonable, even though my cousin's hubby told us to bargain with him some more! but we did not, coz he's a very nice chap, who not only chauffeured us around, but also accompanied us shopping, helping us in the translation and bargaining as well as carry our shopping bags! his most frequently uttered phrases are, "ok lah", "can lah", "i think so lah"... coz most of his customers are malaysians and singaporeans.

the van we traveled in for the 4 days we were there... very spacious inside!

the notorious bangkok jam!

food

oh, the food there!!! even the roadside food stalls are enough to make our mouths water. our driver was very amused when all of us pressed our noses to the windows, peering out and going "wah!", "woo!", "wow!", "oohh!" at all the delicious looking food from the roadside food stalls in the many side streets that he likes to take as detour to avoid the jams.

while there, i think we never stopped eating! we're always buying food from the food stalls, which are everywhere! grilled meat in satay sticks, grilled chicken wings (for the dirt cheap price of only RM0.50/stick!), grilled cuttlefish, mango salad and all sorts of dunno what kind of other salads (coz all of us can't read thai), fried oyster, fruits, grilled sausages, more fruits, all sorts of kuih, grilled tiger prawns in to-die-for sauce, coconut water, etc etc... so even tho' the main meal portions are relatively small, we did not go hungry, coz we're eating all the time! hehe...

i'm always hearing about how sweet and fresh the fruits are in thailand... 

and now i believe it! gosh, their fruits are really out of this world. and cheap too!

the bestest tom-yam i've ever tasted! no more photo of food 

from our dinner, coz we were all famished and i was too busy eating!

siam house... all of us unanimously voted this restaurant as serving the best food in our 4 days there. it's just a minute's walk away from our apartment. but too bad, they will be closing down at the end of this month to make way for a new apartment building... :(

we were passing by a night market and excitedly called out to our driver to stop. i think we bought from most of the food stalls there, coz everything looked absolutely delish! but then we had nowhere to go to have our food! it was about 5pm and we were scheduled to go watch the cabaret show at 7pm, so it doesn't make sense to go back to our apartment and then come out again. after cracking his head, our driver decided to bring us to his mom's little roadside drink stall in a little side street... hehe...

their tea is in a weird orangey colour...

some noodles we had at the morning market in jawalak. 

something like "hee-kiaw" mee, but not as nice... and the portion was very small!

sightseeing

my cousin and i reckoned that we should slot in some form of sightseeing to the trip, instead of it being just shopping and makan trip. so i pre-booked our tickets for safari world and marine world from MATTA Fair. so that's where we went on our 2nd day...

unfortunately, we didn't really see the whole place, coz we were rushing from one show to the next. if it were up to me, i'd have skipped a few of the shows and just walk about the place more. and my cousin thought we shouldn't spend the whole day there, coz she wants to continue her shopping *rolls eyes*.

the marine shows were ok. i really enjoyed them... this is the sea lion show...

on the way to the next show venue, we passed by this space filled with these colourful birds, where you can buy some bird seeds and coax them to feed from your hands... but i found out that we can actually just stretch out our empty hands and trick them into thinking that we have some seeds there! hehehe...

while waiting for the cowboy show to start...

i would've loved to skip this, but since everyone else 

were so enthusiastic, so no choice, have to follow the crowd.

our tickets came with buffet lunch. i think this was nicely done, as most ppl will spend a full day here, and instead of cracking our heads on what to eat, our lunch are provided for... very convenient esp for large tour groups...

the show i've been looking forward to... dolphin show! gosh, i just LOVE dolphins! this is my 3rd live dolphin show, the first being the pink dolphins in sentosa island and 2nd at ocean world, hk...

then the beluga whales made their appearance! and i fell in love with them instantly! they're so big, yet so graceful... my first time seeing a real live beluga whale.

then it's off to the safari part of the park. here, all the animals roam free in a large open space and we just drove our cars through the park to look at them. of course, we were advised not to get out from our vehicles lar, coz not only were there docile animals like zebras, camels, deers and storks etc...

...there were also meat eaters like tigers, lions and rhinos etc...

a cute 'lil lost deer...

only in thailand... saw this next to one of the night markets. a mobile seamstress! how cool is that?

of course, no trips to thailand is complete without seeing their cabaret shows starred by cross-genders that thailand is so famous for... but since there were kids in our group, we went for a relatively 'mild' one...

we also found time to go to the dusit palace complex to see the vimanmek palace, built by the 5th thai king (current is the 9th). the whole structure is in teak and was built without any nails in them. no pic of the vimanmek palace, as cameras were prohibited there. this pic is from one of the outdoor museums in the dusit complex, showing the royal carriages thru the times...

we also dropped by this small temple of the 4-faced buddha, which was just next to their world trade centre... but as we have our own believes, we only stood around taking photos and be an onlooker, for the sake of learning and expanding our horizons...

some "puja" thing going on there. a family friend told me later that when someone has had their wishes granted and they come back to pay these dancers to dance... sort of like an act of gratitude to the buddha lar...

shopping

this is one of our main objective in bangkok! :P

apparently, this chinese shop in jawalak is very famous for their "kao sai" (hokkien for "dog shit"), a sort of blackish dried meat that takes on the colour and shape of "kao sai"! but it's said to be delicious, which was why my cousin asked our driver to bring us here... i dunno, i didn't try it, so can't attest to that.

morning market in jawalak...

all sorts of stuff sold there...

wholesaler mall in pathunam...

salesperson: "if you buy many-many, i give you cheap-cheap"

key word here is "many-many"...

open stalls in the maze of side streets of pathunam. also catering to wholesale buyers.

more upmarket shopping at bangkok world trade centre...

chatuchak weekend market... this place is really crazy! huge and selling all sorts of stuff under the sun. i think 1 day will not be enough to cover the whole complex. and they're opening up another new section opposite the main road!

to save time, my cousin and i split up with the rest of the 

"slow shoppers" and went off in search of good deals of on our own.

security

in the weeks leading up to our trip, we've been watching the news closely to monitor the political situation there. with all the big hoo-haa about the red shirts' demand for the thai government to dissolve parliament, we were all worried that things will get really ugly and our safety compromised.

but as it turned out, all the action were confined to certain parts of the city, outside the parliament building (shown in this photo) and the few streets around the area, and it was a relatively peaceful demonstration...

we even had our driver drive us thru the red shirts' camp for us to see for ourselves the real situation there...

nothing much going on. everyone were just going about their daily routine, cooking, washing, sleeping... only thing was it were all done outdoors on the street. according to our driver, most of the people demonstrating there don't really know about the cause they're fighting about. they're there because they get paid 60 baht per day... "if you ask them why they like the red shirts, they dunno. if you ask them why they don't like the yellow shirts, they also dunno"

still, security were pretty tight. lots of army personnel and policemen can be seen around the city...

however, on our last day there, the red shirts were going to march into the city. on our way to the airport, truck loads of army were all on standby, in anticipation of chaos. even when we got quite near to the airport, there were lots of army trucks and firetrucks stationed along the road. we were quite lucky that we got out early. a friend of my cousin's was one hour behind us in going to the airport and she was stuck in a massive jam!

so that's all for my bangkok trip. i MIGHT go back there again one day... but will try to include in a trip the death railway in kanchanaburi and maybe to some of the neighbouring provinces like pattaya, ayuthaya etc...