During my trip to Ayuttaya with mikey on May 2006, we passed by this shrine... but i cannot remember exactly the name of the place now, i just remember how hot it is that day, and the sky was cloud-less. When i took out my camera, i suddenly saw this rainbow appear directly on top of me, so snapping this photo was not hard at all.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Ayutthaya, Thailand
Monday, May 8, 2006
BKK102
Day 1 (part 2)
8 May 2006
Monday
Right after our lunch by 3pm, we were recharged, we decided to take a walk from KhaoSan Rd. to the grand palace. we simply walked out to the main road, and walked following the walk path. the truth is, we can't seems to find the way to cross the main road to the opposite side, which is the Sanam Luang park... after walking up and down, we decided the risky move - "don't care, just walk across it like that..."... hahaha, considering the main road is something like a highway, and imagine the heavy traffic in central bangkok, i believe it's kinda crazy move!!
only later we found out, further up, there's a zebra crossing, hehehe!
so, ok, finally we reached Sanam Luang, we were already like sweating nonstop, coz the weather really is too HOT... like an oven! the park is very much like the size of Merdeka Square, very huge. but this time around, the park was surrounded by stalls covered in brownish yellow cloths. we walked into the swamp of stalls only to realize they were actually celebrating Wesak. only different is in Malaysia, we have 1 day holiday for wesak, but here in Thailand, it's a whole week celebration and holidays!!! wow!!
Here you can see the yellow color stalls and a monk just walked past us.
we do not understand thai language, so those stalls didn't appeal to us, but we could not resist the stalls selling cold drinks! Mikey walked over to 1 stall and bought a small bottle of herbal drink. at first we tried to ask the young lady what exactly was the drink... but soon we realized we are wasting our time bcoz she can't seems to understand English. which kinda surprised me, coz i thot most Bangkok ppl know English. but maybe, only maybe, it's a national celebration and food fair and exhibition, so most of the hawkers and ppl here are not local Bangkok ppl... well, i think la! hahaha.
back to the drink bt.10, it tasted like "kekhwa" (chrysanthemum) drink, but of coz it's not lah. but it's sweeter and actually quite good and refreshing. so we continue our walk. we saw a lot of students, teenagers in uniforms, a lot of ppl. wow, they being so religious amazed me. i mean, the celebration here at Sanam Luang Square was not at all entertaining, but rather educative and informative... i doubt Malaysians would actually turn up for religious activities like this. hehe!!! ok, i'm being prejudiced, sorry! back to the uniform things... hahaha, we noticed that the uniforms of Thai are all so tight, especially at the waist line there... ketat gila babi!!! so all the shapes and sizes of all these uniformed men could be clearly defined!! :D
After a "not so short walk", trying to avoid local aunties who were busy searching for tourists to sell some seeds to feed doves, we reached another main road facing the entrance of the grand palace. YES, we were finally here... BUT the sad thing is, the grand palace close by 3.30pm as stated at the entrance. looking at the watch, it's already 3.20pm, we chose not to go in. a funny thing happened is when i approached the guard which was surrounded by few tour guides or tuktuk drivers, one of them started talking to me in thai... i was like "what the hell??" and i politely told him, "i'm not Thai, sorry. but is the palace closed by 3.30pm"... then he laughed, "ya, as stated at the board. i thot you are Thai, coz you look like Thai ppl!!"... i was like... speechless. Mikey thought that was funny! -.-" WTH, i look so "cina pek", how can you mistaken me as THAI!! :(
This is the side door of the Grand Palace. pretty isn't it?
originally we planned to go to Wat Pho & Wat Arun, but we were afraid if the same thing happen again if we are to walk there, it will be a total waste of time. so we thought, it might be a good idea that we just walk back, rest and relax, and gather more information then will only explore this area tomorrow morning. moreover the hot weather was really killing us.
so we turned back the same way, and decided since we were here, why not just walk inside the Sanam Luang park and looked around their exhibitions...
These were like the flower-decorated carnival car for their parade i supposed. and of course the Buddhism theme, with little Buddha one hand pointing the sky and another pointing to the earth.
We can't help but took photos of one of the parade car... notice that it was decorated with all sorts of vegetables. fascinating! :)
This is the central part of the park. it's said that there was a buddha's relic stone (or whatever...) inside the little container. Thais come from everywhere of the country to worship here. the 3rd pic is the main possession of the stage.
a stall where ppl can choose a small print out for fortune-telling.
After some time exploring the celebration/ceremony, we got so thirsty again and thinking of getting another one of those "kekhwa" drink again. but then when we passed by a stall where a lot of Thais qued up to take reddish water FREE, we also joined the line. mmm... tasted icy cool and good too, how nice!!! i think we must have taken more than 3 glasses. hehe!!! yum yum!!
so all recharged, around 5pm, we walked back to KhaoSan Rd., this time followed the correct way back. :) just when we reached the room, straight away we took a bath and slept like a pig! muahahaha! :P
BKK101
I have always been wanting to go Bangkok, even before i went to Bali. and yes, finally this time i'm all set to go! even more satisfying is that, this trip will last me 7days and 7nights, so frankly i was looking for a more relaxing yet fruitful trip! :)
Day 1 (part 1)
8 May 2006
Monday
Morning, i woke up around 6am to follow my sister's car to mikey's place, so it's lucky that i packed all my stuffs ready the night before. after picking up mikey, my sis sent us to Kelana Jaya LRT station, so that we can go KL Sentral to catch the airport bus to LCCT terminal. we were really lucky as the minute we reached KL Sentral, the bus was ready to go, so no need to wait.
We reached LCCT, KLIA around 8.30am. it took the airport bus less than 45min, and it cost us RM9 per person. i would consider this cheap compare to the ERL to KLIA, and definitely a good service by AirAsia!! God bless them! Our flight was 10.40am, so we still have 10 minutes to kill before the check in time, so we went to McD to have breakfast.
The flight was delayed for 20 minutes, so we only stepped into the plane by 11am... the plane only took off about 11.30am i think, but no complain, as we expected worse. the flight took 2hours & 5mins. by the time we reached Bangkok airport, the announcement said, it's 12.30pm Bangkok time. (Malaysia time 1.30pm)
when we came out from the airport, there are a lot of ppl asking us whether we want to take taxi or not. there were even officers telling us the counter to book taxi is over somewhere. but i know very sure that there is a cheaper airport bus, so me n mikey just walked past them. lucky for us, there are signboards everywhere stating "airport bus" pointing us out of the terminal...
outside, we saw a booth selling tickets, we asked the person inside the booth, the helpful girl there straight away pointed to a bus next to us and said, "you want to go KhaoSan road, that's the bus! faster, it's going to leave now!" so, we purchased 2 tickets Bt.100 each, and hopped onto the bus. hooray, everything seems going fine! in the bus, we took out maps that my sister lend me, and started to study it while looking around for landmarks.
mikey told me the price of cars here is kinda low, so we shall expect to see all hebat-hebat punya kereta on the road. true enough, there are so many toyota and honda here, all look really shiny and new. replace these cars with proton wira & waja, you'll got Malaysia roads! :P
we reached KhaoSan road around 1.40pm (bangkok time from now on), the sceneries, the traffic, and the people just overwhelmed me. i lost my sense of direction. instead of looking for the main road (khao san), we got ourselves into a small back alley (well, the reason was we saw many mat sallehs coming out from there). we walked pass few food stalls, few shops, until we turned into another alley, we started to see few inns. we walked in and asked about their rate... not too bad, most of them ranged around 150-350baht. but all the inns have only share bathroom. since mikey demanded private bathroom, we came to a conclusion that we shall look for something more expensive then.
we walked out of the alley, and finally reached the middle of KhaoSan Road, right in front of us, there's a big signboard "Khaosan Palace Inn"... the look of the reception area was impressive, when we asked the rate, it's a bit more expensive than others, but at least they got private bathroom. so tried to pick the cheapest one, which was fan and double room. but they kept insisting that they don't have double room available, only twin room (2 single bed instead of 1 queen sized bed)... it's 50baht more expensive. we said we want to look at the room first, so they handed us a key and show us the way... we walked in, mmm... what a small room. we were so tired (of looking around, and walking, and the HOT weather was killing us), so we decided to settle with this one for now. i went down to pay - Bt.420. oklah, not too bad.
The time we took this photos was a bit late lah. hahaha! just imagine them as in afternoon hot sun ok!! but yeah, look at the reception, quite impressive hor?? but so sorry we didn't take photo of the interior, not a pretty sight i can tell you. the truth is i won't go back there again! hahaha.
After we cleaned up and relaxed a bit... we decided that, it's time to take our lunch already. looked at the time, it's already 2pm, which is Malaysia time 3pm - OF COZ we were hungry no wonder! hehe! so walked down the street trying to find something to eat.
as usual the first day, we were a bit lost. so, we walked and walked and finally decided to dine in a restaurant called "Prakoeb's House". I ordered green curry chicken with rice bt.65, mikey ordered american fried rice bt.70, we also ordered a mushroom salad bt.40 and 2 glasses of mixed fruit juice bt.25 each. a bit pricey i would say cause i expected thai food to be a lot more cheaper... but maybe i'm just a poor malaysian guy lah, hahaha, the price must look ridiculously cheap to westerners. -.-"
1st pic showing the american fried rice sausage, fried egg, chicken n rice, closer is the green curry chicken with rice that shaped as "star". the 2nd pic showing the mushroom salad and the mixed fruit juice.
the food tasted ok, the portion was small. a bit lame to be our 1st meal in Bangkok i think! hahaha!
WE DESERVED BETTER THAN THESE!!! :P
but i always crave green curry, so hahaha i think the curry is fine... just not too worth the money. *call me stingy*.
Day 1 (part 1)
8 May 2006
Monday
Morning, i woke up around 6am to follow my sister's car to mikey's place, so it's lucky that i packed all my stuffs ready the night before. after picking up mikey, my sis sent us to Kelana Jaya LRT station, so that we can go KL Sentral to catch the airport bus to LCCT terminal. we were really lucky as the minute we reached KL Sentral, the bus was ready to go, so no need to wait.
We reached LCCT, KLIA around 8.30am. it took the airport bus less than 45min, and it cost us RM9 per person. i would consider this cheap compare to the ERL to KLIA, and definitely a good service by AirAsia!! God bless them! Our flight was 10.40am, so we still have 10 minutes to kill before the check in time, so we went to McD to have breakfast.
The flight was delayed for 20 minutes, so we only stepped into the plane by 11am... the plane only took off about 11.30am i think, but no complain, as we expected worse. the flight took 2hours & 5mins. by the time we reached Bangkok airport, the announcement said, it's 12.30pm Bangkok time. (Malaysia time 1.30pm)
Malaysia/KL | Thai/Bangkok |
RM 1 | Baht 10 |
8 am | 7 am |
when we came out from the airport, there are a lot of ppl asking us whether we want to take taxi or not. there were even officers telling us the counter to book taxi is over somewhere. but i know very sure that there is a cheaper airport bus, so me n mikey just walked past them. lucky for us, there are signboards everywhere stating "airport bus" pointing us out of the terminal...
outside, we saw a booth selling tickets, we asked the person inside the booth, the helpful girl there straight away pointed to a bus next to us and said, "you want to go KhaoSan road, that's the bus! faster, it's going to leave now!" so, we purchased 2 tickets Bt.100 each, and hopped onto the bus. hooray, everything seems going fine! in the bus, we took out maps that my sister lend me, and started to study it while looking around for landmarks.
mikey told me the price of cars here is kinda low, so we shall expect to see all hebat-hebat punya kereta on the road. true enough, there are so many toyota and honda here, all look really shiny and new. replace these cars with proton wira & waja, you'll got Malaysia roads! :P
we reached KhaoSan road around 1.40pm (bangkok time from now on), the sceneries, the traffic, and the people just overwhelmed me. i lost my sense of direction. instead of looking for the main road (khao san), we got ourselves into a small back alley (well, the reason was we saw many mat sallehs coming out from there). we walked pass few food stalls, few shops, until we turned into another alley, we started to see few inns. we walked in and asked about their rate... not too bad, most of them ranged around 150-350baht. but all the inns have only share bathroom. since mikey demanded private bathroom, we came to a conclusion that we shall look for something more expensive then.
we walked out of the alley, and finally reached the middle of KhaoSan Road, right in front of us, there's a big signboard "Khaosan Palace Inn"... the look of the reception area was impressive, when we asked the rate, it's a bit more expensive than others, but at least they got private bathroom. so tried to pick the cheapest one, which was fan and double room. but they kept insisting that they don't have double room available, only twin room (2 single bed instead of 1 queen sized bed)... it's 50baht more expensive. we said we want to look at the room first, so they handed us a key and show us the way... we walked in, mmm... what a small room. we were so tired (of looking around, and walking, and the HOT weather was killing us), so we decided to settle with this one for now. i went down to pay - Bt.420. oklah, not too bad.
The time we took this photos was a bit late lah. hahaha! just imagine them as in afternoon hot sun ok!! but yeah, look at the reception, quite impressive hor?? but so sorry we didn't take photo of the interior, not a pretty sight i can tell you. the truth is i won't go back there again! hahaha.
After we cleaned up and relaxed a bit... we decided that, it's time to take our lunch already. looked at the time, it's already 2pm, which is Malaysia time 3pm - OF COZ we were hungry no wonder! hehe! so walked down the street trying to find something to eat.
as usual the first day, we were a bit lost. so, we walked and walked and finally decided to dine in a restaurant called "Prakoeb's House". I ordered green curry chicken with rice bt.65, mikey ordered american fried rice bt.70, we also ordered a mushroom salad bt.40 and 2 glasses of mixed fruit juice bt.25 each. a bit pricey i would say cause i expected thai food to be a lot more cheaper... but maybe i'm just a poor malaysian guy lah, hahaha, the price must look ridiculously cheap to westerners. -.-"
1st pic showing the american fried rice sausage, fried egg, chicken n rice, closer is the green curry chicken with rice that shaped as "star". the 2nd pic showing the mushroom salad and the mixed fruit juice.
the food tasted ok, the portion was small. a bit lame to be our 1st meal in Bangkok i think! hahaha!
WE DESERVED BETTER THAN THESE!!! :P
but i always crave green curry, so hahaha i think the curry is fine... just not too worth the money. *call me stingy*.
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