back from Thailand (Chiang Mai/ Chiang Rai tour)

hmm.. well i am back finally.. let's see... what has transpired while i was gone... Italy beat Germany in the semis.. (yeah. my suay mouth work.. germany realli chui-ed) and France beat Portugal. And Italy beat France 5-3 at penalty shoot out today (1-1, 5-3 pen) and yeah.. always like Italy and Argentina.. so was pretty happy they won. Oh the lites in my room mysteriously came back.. haha

so let's take a look at the thai trip (seriously, i realli dun feel like penning them down.. super long.. tmd)

let's make this a bit more formal .. yeah? haha

1. introduction
2. duration/ places of visits
3. booties/loots/treasure from the adventure
4. experience gain/level up?
5. Pros, aka the goodie good good parts
6. Cons, aka fucked up parts of the trip
7. conclusion

INTRODUCTION

On 5th July 2005, wrong.. 2006 i was "forced" through soft methods to accompany my Mum to go on a overseas trip on Chiang Mai/Chiang Rai + all those side trips.. various tribes, etc etc. Took the 0750 flight from silkair. Not much probs, save the part tat i have to wake up at 5 to get ready, blah blah. Spend 5 not veri interesting days and 4 rather cold nites there. supposed to come back on the 9th July 2005 local time of around 2130. But damn it.. the s2pid plane was supposed to depart at 1900 local time. but due to some technical issues, it was pushed back for 30mins.. after a few moments, they said tat the flight is delayed till 2230. and when it was arnd 2130 (ie, time to board the plane, etc) an announcement (in thai -_-) said it will onli take off at 2330... and ended up.. i reach singapore at around 0230 the following morning, plus the usual wine shopping etc, i reach home as a PACK MULE at 0330, juz in time for the last 10mins of the Italy vs France game.. LUCKY got extra time and penalty kick... if not i watch sai sia.... damn it.. pwee... tmd.. nabeh...

Duration / places of visits

duration 5th to 9th July. Places of visit.. mostly boliao areas (will upload fotos when i am done with them, and if i feel like it).
first day, shd be zo bo lan day, but the tour guide pushed the program. So end up eat some weird tribal food together with some boring cultural show. All of us left halfway thru it to go back hotel rest after a long flight.. almost all tat is. Promptly after reaching hotel.. (PORNPING HOTEL, haah interesting name eh?) and even b4 tat, i had a rather bad headache. I inform my mum aredi, but sadly.. for me, she sort of insisted to visit the nite market for she scared skarlie our 5days stay everyday rain cannot buy anything. (typical singaporeans anyone?? kiasu + kiasee = poor edric with a splitting headache put to the mill.. ) tat trip was a bad one, we were drop of at another hotel the rest of the tour group is staying at and walk to the mkt with absolutely no info on how to return to our own hotel. and mind u, it is abt 9pm (thai time) aredi. She (my mum) walk arnd as i grumble and complained... eventually, we din buy anything much and made our way back hotel. only to realise we lost our ways after 40mins of treading in the dark. Fortunately for us, i managed to get a local taxi (u all noe, the james bond advertisement with the tutu car, yeah, tat's the vehicle i am talking abt) and managed to get back to out hotel in one piece. and my mum was asleep (she bathed first) when i was done with my shower and as a result,, i din get to scold complain etc at her =(

day 2. morning we go to some interesting places, elephant farm where we took an elephant ride. Not the most pleasant of rides, but to be so close to nature is a welcome change for city breed me. The 1hr plus trip was "rocky"and fully of shit and urine (literally) the elephant we took was an emo fella, he took a hilly path which is away from the rest of the group. Make side visits to catch a few bites of vege, and even went to a nearby river to drink -_-. that visit ended with a show where it show cases elephants drawing, building and playing the soccer. ironically, the made up penalty shootout between france and italy ended in 1-0 in favour of italy. haha talking about ominous. perhaps these elephants knew the outcome aredi =x we had lunch and visited a temple (atop a hill, nice air , nice scenery). a brief note on the temple, it has an inclined elevator of abt 30 degree to ferry ppl up and down. costing a nominal fee to take the lift.. haha (if u did read the mrbrown column on today b4 he got suspended u will get the joke). the temple itself is supposed to have 302 steps (if memory serves me well) making it abt a 15storey high HDB flat. oh ya, after these trips we went back to the hotel for dinner and supposedly to rest for the next day (as we are supposed to wake up veri early, at abt 0530 in themorning) However, as with most girl.. my mum included, she insisted to go to the nite bazaar again... saying she din managed to see all of it. Well at least this time we start of from our hotel and hence i cld see and make our pathes as we explore the nite bazaar. bought quite a bit of clothes, esp my mum... but was ripped off by quite a bit as we will find out on the 4th day.

day 3 - Chiang Rai tour (the first 2 and the last 2 days are at chiang mai)
to say chiang rai tour will probably give u an impression that the whole day is touring arnd chiang rai and some time on the bus.. but unfortunately, this is not the case. we were supposed to set off at 7am and be back at 8pm. it din started well as we left our camera in the room and the mini bus has to uturn to get our camera, making us a bit late.. we left at arnd 0720 or so... the journey to chiang rai from chiang mai take 4hr plus.. we reached there and took a look a various tribes there from the longneck karen tribe to some other mae dono wat tribes... oh ya it was drizzling and we tredded in mass mud.. i had the "honor" to assist cleaning my mum shoes.. lol altho it was a voluntary effort. One thing to note that, these ppl seems to be living in poverty... makes me feel rich and blessed. Haha next we had lunch at a simple restaurant overseeing the river dividing myanmar, thailand and laos (which form the golden triangle for those ppl who dun no) which a small section of housefly trying to find holes to penetrate our food defence. After tat which we took an optional tour to laos part to do a bit of shopping. the cigarette there is DAMN CHEAP... and it is 50 bahts for 1 carton... 50 bahts is like 2dollar plus as the xchange rate tat time is 1sgd to 23.7bahts.. we den have a short foto taking session at the nearby area before visiting a places, namely, the rare stone/jade factory, which i bought a cheap souvenir for a fren, the Shiniwatra silk factory (tat is the Thai PM family business, PM Thaksin Shiniwatra, sounds familiar?) cashew nuts and standard localies shop and oso the orchid farm and butterfly park. (i forget to mention, every where we stop, my mum will never fail to shop and be the LAST one to leave while MAKING EVERYONE TO WAIT FOR HER) damn, i feel so evil saying those stuff tat way... but hey, it's the truth and i feel veri awkward. This nite we went to the nite bazaar again, and due to the poor food quality we had all these days, and a abnormally bland dinner, we bought some good stuff from the local food store. Bought grilled fish, deepfried prawns and mixed seafood omelette which we find to be the tastiest stuff we ate throughout the trip.

day 4 - supposed to be a half day event but somehow the tourguide pushed everything to the first 3 and promoted an optional tour, which we din buy it. We went to the day mkt instead, my mum happily went shopping again while i was the unwilling packmule waiting for her. there was even one of this buddhist shop, where i stood like a log for at least and hr waiting for her to finish getting her stuff.. not her fault actually, is theshop efficiency jinjia low... cannot makie it. We bought loads of stuff, mainly clothes and buddhist accessories. buy and buy and buy until noon, where we met for lunch to eat.. den... we went BACK AGAIN TO BUY AND BUY AND BUY... nabeh.. poor me... buy until evening, we visit the nite bazaar for food... haah no more buying.. cuz the nite bazaar stuff is damn expensive, up to 250% mark up.. even if u haggle, u wun get a price better than the day market. So if u wanna buy stuff, go day mkt, no need haggle much, good price, plus u get to shop in the morning, safer... haha oh ya, oso went to the super mkt at the central airport plaza (or issit shopping centre) to buy some stuff as well. and ALOT OF FRUITS, from lychee to durian to custard apple to pomelo, etc etc.

day 5 - last day, managed to persuade my mum to shop less, we went to the day mkt again, to finish up watever shopping tat needs to be done, haha not much, juz some clothes for my bro and a monk's outfit as a gift for a local (singapore i mean) monk. check out at 2pm, sit like a kuku until 4pm, take bus to airport, settle boarding pass etc etc, by 440pm, den sit like a cock until 2230 (note this is thai time, which is 1 hr "slower" den singapore) den take plane back to singapore.

p.s. i was having headache for the first 2nd and third day. namely first day evening, 2nd day whole day and third day morning.. >.< SO WITH A TRIP LIDDAT, HOW CAN IT BE ENJOYABLE FOR ME... the last day of sitting like a cock for more den 8hrs is like.. nabeh cb.. tmd knn.. etc etc

3. booties/loots/treasure from the adventure

i bought

clothings
3x tshirt
3x 3 quarter pants
1x jeans
2x shirts

souvenirs
2x notebook make of elephant dung paper.. haha no worries, no stench
some complimentary free gifts from buiying stuff at the elephant camp
1x jade elephant handphone thingy
1x small neck sling pouch
1x wooden frog

food/drinks
4x methos chewing gums (and i tot they were sweets 0_0)
1x absolut vodka1x pork floss
1x dry longan
1x friedpig dono wat (i think is skin)
1x thin fried pig dono wat (i realli dono wat)
1x mixed black white sesame dono wat
5x bags of cuttlefish (1 to my mum, 1 to my dad, 1 to my dad's fren, and only 2 for me =( haha)

(stuff for my dad)
2x pork floss
2x thin fried pig dono wat
2x dried longan, bigger den mine, haah
2x cuttlefish

misc
calculator

4. experience gain/level up?

dun go with my mum to such places again.. i will shorten my life span i think

Pros, aka the goodie good good parts

1. coming close to nature
2. looking at scenes of developing places, ie.. old singapore
3. i brought 4k thai baht(abt 170 sgd), i bought stuff worth perhaps up to 250 - 300 sgd (rest my mum pay)
4. free lodging, food and accomodation for 5 days

Cons, aka fucked up parts of the trip

many.. damn many.. super many.. main thing is boring, excessive shopping, excessive test of patience and tolerance, excessive carrying (now i pity pack mules), and the worst part.. flight delay. actually there is another one , f-up tour guide, right now i think my mum is complainin, out package was alter without out knowledge and we oso had stuff not visited and money charged for "extra" sightseeing which werent really extra as it is in our package.... wtf...


conclusion

will most likely not go chiang mai with my mum again
will most likely not go to namho travel agency next time
will most likely faint due to excess exhaustion in writing all this stuff.. haha