Sawadee-part 5

following thewet, we decided to go to khao san, the backpacker haven in Bangkok.
anyways we were stopped by this 'helpful' tuk tuk driver (who said he is a teacher at nearby sch) that told us to go to some wat and then to a govt handicraft fair ..he even recommended a tuk tuk for us.
anyways we knew it is the bloody gem scam when we arrived at the wat.
it was a tiny wat in a school. but since we were on the ride, we got the guy to take us to Vinnamek palace as I wanted to take a pic of the palace.



after that, he dropped us near a plaza frequented by Thais. it's like a wholesaler place ..
our tuk tuk ride costs 20Bht and took us 1-2 hrs. anyways after that, we decided to walk to democracy monument.

it took us almost 1 hr to get there. at some point, I told jake that we are on the wrong direction because there's not a single signage that shows the monument...he said to stick with where we are going because whatever direction that i said is correct is usually the total opposite :P hate to said he was right. we got to democracy monument which is a huge monument in the middle of a round abouts. interesting thing to note about this roundabout, it has a traffic light on the round about. HOW RARE.

some interesting things (ie light stand, interesting sculpture we came along on this governmental 'avenue'. i call it governmental as it has all the government buildings there.
finally the democracy monument. check out when it's free of traffic and when it's with traffic.


we then walked to khao san...and I went to used the most expensive toilet in bangkok at this hotel...it is a user-pay toilet ...actually it's only 5bht but considering you get to ride on tuk tuk for 20bht and MBK mall charge 1-2bht for toilet, 5bht is a rip off.

khao san road. it's the mecca for all backpackers.

we decided to go to the KING's PALACE since it was close by according to the map...we walked for what seems like forever (20minutes) and finally reach the palace but we found out the palace is closing in 5minutes.
so i decided that i wanted to go to the pak klong talat since it's open 24 hrs a day.

luckily we could take the boat to pak klong talat ..anyways the majority part of pak klong talat is a vegatable market. we walked and jake kept prompting me and asked me where are the flowers as all we see were veggies and more veggies :P finally we did come to the flower section and there were really lots and lots of flower. there were rows of flower shops...
bridal bouquet are for sale as if people were selling kueh..but mostly is flowers that people use for worship at the temple ..pak klong talat is also the place where hotels, restaurant source their flowers from.

baby roses sold in big bunches. i didn't ask for the price but i think they are less than 100bht.


this dendrobium orchid intrigues me. i have never seen blue dendrobium before. on closer inspection, i was disappointed to find that the blue was spray painted, and so is the rest of the pink and orange dendrobiums.


what you are seeing are not veggies. we are used to seeing bunches of kangkong wrapped up by the veggie seller in the pasar. here, it's actually stems of baby roses all bunched up and thrown to the lorry to be delivered somewhere.

Sawadee - part 4

prior to me going to bangkok, i researched on the flower market available.
found two mentioned in Lonely planet and Rough guide. they are the pak klong talat and thewet market.

the guide book didn't really give awful lot of details. upon googling, i found that the best way to get to the markets were via WATER transport.

anyways, we took the BTS to Saphan Taksin and started from there. With BTS and MRT, there is some ENglish spoken so it was really easy. our challenge started at Saphan Taksin. There is no English available. there were 2 tour operators there but none of them list Thewet. And I refused to be touristy and wanted to travel the "LOCAL" way.

after reading the map very carefully, i took down the pier number for Thewet'.
we tried to ask somebody how to take the 'local' boat but to no avail. we decided to just wait for the boat and tell the conductress where we go. that worked. the boat ride was 13Bht for any length of direction. Took us about 30mins to get to thewet which is the 15th stop.


(Saphan Taksin station, there were stalls, seller of all sort like hair accessories, fruits, this particular lady is selling kuehs; ppl going on the 'local' boat. there were a variety of boat at the pier. note the one with fancy roof, those are provided by the hotel to their guests . there are some famous hotel that are located across the river, ie the Hilton ..finally a charter boat that will take you 'anywhere' i imagine' i see westerners chartering them and going up stream and downstreams )


sights we see along the chao phraya.

anyways Thewet is just a little place by the river. It has its market and the flower market is just two minutes walk from the pier.


saw these fishes at the thewet pier. i saw thai feeding bread to this fish. wonder if they will cook them or it's an offering thing?



stalls selling eels/water snake? No idea what it is. There's also 'escargos' for sale.


the row of flower market is made up of about a dozen of stalls with plants neatly arranged in very small area.
there were also shops selling fertiliser, pots etc..i was very impressed at how tidy everything is.vendor makes full use of space available to them.have to say some of the stuffs that they sell are quite rare in Sibu.

check out orchids and how creative Thai go, growing them in shells. cabbage plant that looks like a huge flower. i thought these are only available in gardens with 4 seasons.
ball of hanging plant, more orchids, cannas, water lily, me with various orchids.

1st row: more pics on thewet flower market. there're cactus of all sizes and types for sale. check out the colourful sand/mix sold. imentioned before the massive variety of plant for sale. there's also trailing plants that looks really beautiful and the shop make it look like caring for those plants are easy.

2nd row: i never seen these plants before, they are like cactus/succulent of some sort. probably similar to euphorbia. more orchids. cattleyas seem to thrive in Bangkok. cactuses from different angles.

3rd row: more orchids. i wonder how the vendor transport everything home. or whether those plants stay day in day out at the same position. tropical green plants were abundant in thewet.
finally jake taking pic of one of the stall. notice the utilisation of every inch of the space available. there's no real boundary marking one stall from the next.



we then proceed to the market. there is both dry and wet sections. we bought some rambutan and ventured into the market.

pics: dried,smoked fish of all sorts for sale; me in the wet section while jake in the dry section;
varieties of tomatoes for sale; as we walked out of the market, we crossed a bridge and on the bridge, more fishes left to dry; the man was also smoking the fish (the short walk wasn't pleasant to smell) the river that separates the market (left) and the flower market(right); one of the Wat at Thewet and the monument in the same compound.

Sawadee - part 3

After we were finished with Ancient City, we were feeling real hungry. We asked our driver to bring us somewhere for lunch. He quickly insisted that we should go to Crocodile Farm and that we can find food there. I wasn't all that excited about it and it wasn't in our itinerary, but since the Crocodile Farm is close by Ancient City, we thought why not..

we got there and there were this guy doing show with two monkeys. one of the performance was having the poor monkey to jump through a blazing hoop. poor thing survived.


we then quickly went to catch the crocodile show. two guys were performing.
the only disappointing thing is the commentator was commenting in THai and I understand not a single word he utters.

jake sat there and faithfully snapped lots of pics. i really appreciate that coz if not, i will have nothing to blog about:P one of the guy pulled the crocs' tail and the other poked it with sticks. then he puts one of his hand into the wide-opened MOUTH!!! nothing happened..then this other guy put his HEAD Into the crocs' MOUTH !!! his head was intact. then they manhandled the reptiles. Show ended and viewers have the opportunity to have photos taken with one of the crocs for 200Bht. Jake and I went for it. we were surrounded by heaps of them. I wasn't at all keen!!!! but we walked into the den anyways and I was terrified for the whole time worrying if I would lost my limbs. luckily we came out in one piece.

then it was the elephant show.

there were two elephants. one was a baby elephant and one was an adult elephant. They were very talented. they drew, walked on thin wires, ride on tuk-tuk, and they even danced..(wiggling their bodies) the show ended with thai walking underneath the elephants and petting them. It must be a blessing thing to walk underneath the big mammal.

I bought a bunch of banana and fed one of the elephant we were about to ride on. i was so stingy and only gave the elephant one banana before we went on our ride :P apparently they eat by the bunch.


anyways this is us on the elephant. the ride went real quickly...our guide is very nice...after our ride, i rewarded the elephant with the rest of the banana giving him the whole bunch this time:P

The crocodile farm also has a zoo section. There's tiger, tortoises, goats, camels, wild boars, snakes, birds, peacocks...etc..This two creature from two complete different world attracted my attention. a Dog and Tiger cohabit together. What's in their mind? Did the tiger thinks it is a dog or did the dog think it's a tiger ...


We also went on a horse carriage ride. I like the sound of the horse galloping. the HOoves hitting the ground...the driver took the pic for us and lent his cowboy hat to jake and asked him to hold the rein. hehehe.


I think karen has taken pic with a white tiger in Thailand too. Anyways, we took one with this tiger (it's a different tiger from the one in the cage).


we were so graceful in our thai dance. Only it is a painting in front of us ..teehee..

Again, us manhandling the crocodile..hehehe

Finally, our super late lunch. we went to try out crocodile meat. I opted for the Crocodile burger. It is quite nice...Nothing funny...Jake asked for the hottest crocodile dish they serve.
The waitress and waiter both pointed to the curry dish. Anyways, the verdict, i felt like my tongue was stung by 1000ants when i tried the crocodile curry!!!! jake laughed and laughed but he can feel the stinging too. I rushed out to the drinks shop across afterwards to get ice cream to numb my mouth. hehehehe.

we left and went back to our hotel. i was very happy with the crocodile farm. Didn't expect it to be so fun. I was really only expecting smelly crocodiles ..

Sawadee -part 2

blogger finally forced me to change to the new setting. i find the new log in very annoying.

anyhow, moving on my short trip to bangkok, the next destination is Ancient City.
we went on a private rental limo that the hotel concierge arranged for us. as it turns out, it is a Volvo :P


Ancient City (Muang Boran in Thai) is located in Samut Prakan , which is outside the Bangkok CBD. The park/area (approximately 320 acres) is actually made up of the shape of Thailand and has replicas in smaller scale most of Thailand's important buildings and placed on the spot as on the real Thailand. Some buildings are reconstructions of buildings that no longer exist.

One of the replica temple...i have forgotten the name.

one of the carvings the people were working on.
i was impressed with the level of details..

water lily plant that attracted my attention.. the leaves are so huge.





Pretty ceiling in one of the temple. was amazed by all the detail ...imagine the restoration work involved, having to look up the ceiling the whole time the restorer paints it.



The throne or rest of the king in one of the temple. Ooops, or was it for the Buddha. Excuse my bad memory. Either way, it's an important throne, and it shows the opulence of the Thai in their construction.


One of the replica temple in Chiangmai ( I took the exact same pic in 1987 in my first trip to Chiangmai, Thailand).

The area also has domesticated deers panting for water. I also see buffalo grazing...(pics not uploaded)

This is a replica temple at the Cambodian border.

This is a musuem as the backdrop.


The Kuan Yin..according to the literature on site, the Kuan Yin is the female version of BUDDHA. ie they are the same thing. But all the while I tot Kuan Yin is another deity.


This temple has many Laughing Buddha in it. I also recognise it as the venue for the finale episode of America's Next Top Model Cycle 6 where Danielle Evans and Joanie Dodds have to walk on the extra long runways.

The traditional floating village/market...Jake checking out the village..thought the floating market was very well constructed ...there's even generator to generate the noise of the streams.

All in all, I do recommend visiting Ancient City. It's like seeing the whole of Thailand in one day. having said that, be prepared to be exhausted from the walking. We were fortunate we pay for our driver to drive us from one site to the next. Even then, it is still really hot...
and walking is still needed to climb up stairs etc..

Sawadee - part 1

i never finished blogging my US trip. (slacker me)..

we decided to transit @ bangkok this time on our way back to Sibu in Feb. it was my 2nd trip and the first for jake and my memory of bangkok was traffic jam , tom yam soup and the exhilarating ride on the tuk-tuk.

after we arrived at our hotel, we ventured out to Patpong market which is just across from our hotel. it's a huge pasar malam with heaps of designer knock-off goods and of sex-show peddler. patpong is also the red light district of bangkok much like kingscross in sydney..they usually try to get jake to the show. even when i am walking together with him, they just treat me as invisible.*GRRR our challenge was to look for food that nite. i was wanting some brothy noodle soup thingie. we walked up and down the market and only see very few food stalls. we eventually picked one we thought is nice and 'clean' enough for street standard. it was almost 1am in the morning. no pics as it was too dark and I was exhausted.

day 2 was sunday so we caught the MRT to Chatuchak -the mother of all market.
i find it too big to my liking! despite that i did enjoy the plant section although not every stall is open for the plant section on Sunday.

we made a side trip to a nearby farmers market while we were at Chatuchak.


the market has its wet and dry section...then food stalls at the back. there were kuehs etc for sale.

we had breakfast there...i opted for the wonton noodles and jake tried the pork satay balls. they came with sticky rice and salad greens ...see right pic. i think they are also called MO Peng.

after that, we walked around the market and jake decided to have DURIAN! at 8 3oam!!!
the vendor was very helpful and chose us this huge A grade thai durian and then escorted us to a bench with serviette..




we then went back to chatuchak. day was getting hotter and hotter.
below are my snapshots of chatuchak market.

jake finally got a pic of the guard on his cute 2 wheeler mobile thingie. check out the tray of worms for sale, thai seem to love to eat variety of worms!!! goldfish,worms, fishes are sold in plastic bag. there's crickets for sale ..and aquarium plants for sale. prices start from 20bht..note the chincilla ..they are cute..and the mini bunnies. they look almost unreal like furballs. finally the cockfights. finally the cockfight, people seem to be really interested in it. i had to shoo jake away ...what's so interesting about two fighting birds?


one can practically find anything under the sun at chatuchak. only problem is the place is so huge and the selection so huge that one either got lost navigating in the market or is too spoilt for choice. i got to the point where i was too lazy to snap any more pics at chatuchak.

beach volleyball tournament

sorry for the lack of news. i have been completely bogged down by work. by the time I got home, i only want to hit the bed.

anyways i had the opportunity to watch the international beach volleyball tournament in auckland in January 07. we were invited by ahmed to watch the tournament from his box.

the event was held in the asb stadium in town. it is also the place where they hold the annual Heineken Cup (tennis event). the tennis court was converted into volley ball court.

the one thing I noticed was how fit and well toned the players were ;) Hhehehehe.
they had washboard abs...

i happily sat and enjoy my snacks (below) while watching the player jumped and spiked and pancaked on the sandy court.




pretty soon, it's lunch time andi opted for prawn salad (above right) for lunch while jake went for the traditional steak sandwich and wedges meal.


the stands/box where we were sitting..

missing

argh. i just realised my fav undies went missing. there're few possibilities.
1. left in Sibu - rang back, mom said it's not where i think it is.
2. left in Hotel CapiTol in KL.
3. left in Bangkok.

it's driving me nuts.feeling rather upset. :S
i have to go and find a replacement now but a replacement can never replace the sentimental value attached on that old undie ie i wore it on my wedding, then i wore it during stace's wedding. it's just a really comfortable thing and i feel like a million dollar when I wore it.

hmmph.

excited & nostalgic

finally all the excitement is about to burst! i am going home for a month for several mega events!!!muahahaha.

this time i am flying via bangkok. stopping for 4 days. any ideas for sights and shopping?


okay better go pack now..the pic above makes me nostalgic!

fishing trip

the boys in my house have been busy going on their 'hunters' and 'gatherers' trip. they actually had to pay to hunt and gather.
nevertheless, they felt it was worth every cent of it.

they caught all sort of fish- red cod, snappers, little sharks, yellow tail (ikan kembung)
we have been eating sashimi, fish curry, assam fish, sweet and sour fish, and finally home made fish balls.

they left the boat at dawn and go to nearby island to fish. they seem to not mind the fishy smell and the sunburn they come home with..

i think the painful thing of the trip is all the gut cleaning they need to do ..fortunately, i only took part at the 'eating' part. *grin

Korean Jap Chae

This is an easy to cook dish.

Ingredients needed:
Korean cellophane noodle
Sesame oil
Sesame seed
Carrot
Spanish Onion
Capsicum ( I use yellow and green)
Spinach
Korean Soy Sauce
Pepper, Sugar to taste

First, boil the cellophane noodle until the noodles turn transparent.
Drain and coat with sesame oil.

Julienne the carrot, capsicum ( into match stick).
Cut the onions into thin wedges.

Heat up the wok with sesame oil and saute the onion wedges and veggies.
Add in the boiled noodle and stir.
Mix in the korean soy sauce, pepper and sugar to taste.
Spinach is cooked separately with sesame oil as garnish.
Toast the sesame seed before garnishing.

p/s: This is a vegetarian version. Usually in the Korean restaurant, Jap chae is cooked with beef and garnished with eggs. As usual, I took the liberty to modify the recipe to my liking. 

what's blooming now..

here's the bloomer this month.


This is allysum also known as sweet alice. The colour for the above is called Rose.
I bought them in November as seedling punnet and planted them into the garden bed.
Two months later, it's blooming. Allysum is a type of perennial and they are normally mass planted on garden bed as borders.

I have killed an anthurium before. This time I tried to make sure this one survive. I got them sometime in August and it wasn't doing very well in September. Even as I was being careful, the plant looked very limp/droopy.Then an orchid member told me, anthurium loves warmth and loves a good soak in the water. I went home and immediately immerse the whole pot in a bucket of water. When the bubble stops bubbling on top of the potting mix, I brought it back into my living room. The next day, the whole plant perks up.
In December, I saw a bud. (You have to look real hard on the left hand side pic). In January, the flower bloomed. It's a pink anthurium. In Summer, I have to water it 3 times a week.