Sawadeekah! This new addition to my blog should be apparent that I’m back from Thailand. Yes, a ten-day trip in total. I’m still searching for the right word to best describe my trip this time. No words seem fitting in this case, since it’s a mixture of good and bad experiences.
I suppose I’ll just tell you the main things that happened during the trip.
The first day was like a clip from Amazing Race. According to AirAsia, we had to check out and check in again in Bangkok Airport to fly to Chiangmai. Alright, basically we did not fly to chiangmai straight from KLIA. Our flight to Bangkok was scheduled at 0750, so we should arrive in Bangkok at 0900. But as expected, we did not take off on time. And since the check in counters are closed 45minutes before departure time, technically we had to race across Bangkok International Airport to catch the 1000 flight to Chiangmai. Not forgetting the conveyor belt, which took SO long to deliver our luggage.
The rest of the days were more enjoyable then. We went to Sankampaeng, which is a home industry village in CM. Silk-making, umbrella-making, silverware and of course, the gems store! If you say diamonds are girls’ best friend, perhaps you’ll change your mind after you visit that gems store. There were just so many types of precious and semi-precious stones, some of which are bound to replace diamonds man.
On the roads you can see many ‘tuk-tuks’, which are essentially three-wheel motorbikes that carry passengers. It’s a cheaper form of taxi. The real taxis in CM don’t look like taxis at all. Why? All of them were Hilux! When I first saw them I went ‘whoa!’. One fun thing is you can negotiate taxi fares with the drivers until you get the right price for you. There were plenty of these tuk-tuks and ‘taxis’ on the road, that you don’t even need to worry about getting from place to place with the price you want!
But one depressing fact is that the only nice shopping places are the night bazaar and ‘walking street’. The latter is only available on Sundays, whereas the former is on every single night. Ha, and since our hotel is only opposite the night bazaar… I presume you are able to complete the sentence for me. Price cutting is something everyone does there, even though the price offered may be cheaper than what we get in our home countries. We, as consumers, always want to get the most out of our money, don’t we?
Shopping was not all we did when we were in CM. We went to this elephant camp with a witty tour guide by the name Maya. The elephants there were just so smart! And money loving too, I’ll tell you why later. First was the elephant show, where all the elephants did stunts they have been taught to since young. Elephants played soccer, basketball, elephant massage, and the most astonishing, elephants drawing! No joke here. Elephants drew elephants, trees, flowers, and even Thailand flag! Aren’t they cute? After the show they started to come towards us, and grabbed money from us! money-loving creatures they were!
Now I’ve come to my elephant ride. The one I got was still a young one. Every step it took sent me and my grandma rocking left and right. My elephant grabbed almost any plant it saw along the sides of the track. Haha so greedy. Then at one junction where there were ox-carts around that little elephant raced across the track with the ox-carts. How amusing. And my elephant was quite kiasu too. That was why he (coz it had tusks) raced with the oxen, and cut queue towards the end of the ride. So cute!
Bangkok was a totally different picture. The taxis again, were worth mentioning. No more Hilux, but Toyota Corollas instead! And mind you, their taxis looked like newly bought cars. Every single one of them. But unfortunately, they were either yellow, green, hot pink, or orange. What funny colours, but I guess that’s how they stand out from the mass of traffic on the road. In Chinatown Bangkok you see people doing business at every corner of the street. Correction, it’s on every street, just outside the shops. It was so packed with people that walking through one street alone took about ten minutes!
But I’ll never expect how the trip ended. Last night we went to the airport to fly back KL. That blur queen auntie of mine said the flight was at ten twenty at night, when the time printed on the tickets was 2020! She did not let us see the tickets, so I just assumed that’s the correct time. Anyway, who in the world will make such a mistake? We reached at 2045, and if I hadn’t pointed out that 2020 was actually eight twenty instead of ten twenty, she would still be thinking that we were early for check in! Can you believe it! Urgh so we missed the last flight for the day to KL, and ended up spending a night in the humongous freezer aka airport. Haiz, wasted so much money. To make matters worse, I had my infamous gastric attack during the flight back to KL! How bad can this get!
Well, at least there was still a cute guy to see during the flight. KL guy, with face of a mouse and gold highlighted hair. Hmm, at least something pleasant amidst the unpleasantness.
This is such a long post. And it’s not all yet. Perhaps I’ll fill in the blanks when I have time later.
