Thailand trip Day 5

7th December 2005

Breakfast at the hotel restaurant was fabulous.There was a wide variety of food that my family could eat,like the mashed potato,danish, crossaint,vegetarian dishes and salad.I personally like the mashed potato (though some are not really mashed up) where i put an italian dressing and some salad dressings on it.It was perfect.The italian dressing made a bit of the sour taste while the salad dressing is healthy.But beware, don't take too much or you'll feel like vomitting.Yup. Not that i had vomitted though.We went back to the hotel to do what we always do;letting it all go.After that we left the hotel to start our tour around Bangkok.The streets of Bangkok hold many historic monuments and sculptures and decorations to commemorate the King's birthday. The streets were quite busy at that time and we passed several fast food restaurant including the ancient A&W.Unfortunately all of the fast food resturants aren't Halal.Now who the heck labelled A&W as a Halal foodstore on the internet?tsk tsk tsk.

Anyway we reached our destination.Surprisingly we had to take a long boat that could occupy about 30 people down the river.I was hoping a lot from this.The boat started moving and soon a tour guide started introducing herself and the river.It was the quite famous Chao Phraya river.The 'Phraya' isn't pronounced at it is.Instead it is pronounced as 'Phya'.That is if my memory did not fail me.The ride was a bit bumpy but all in all it was awesome.The tour guide was efficient.She ran through some key words to say during our stay in Thailand and introduced the significance of the river and the buildings we passed.There were many temples but I only remembered one.It was nicknamed as the 'James Bond temple'.No, James Bond did not build it but it was that temple that one of the episodes of James Bond 007 was shot at.Yup.We moved down the river and saw this place where we could feed the fishes with bread our tour guide gave us.It was catfishes that we fed to.The sign indicating the place where there is a lot of catfish was very funny.


Im so bad...

Anyway there was a lot of hungry fishes coming up to the surface as soon as we started feeding them.They must be really hungry!Soon we continued our journey where we saw this HUGE lizards on the edge of the river.They looked like komodo dragons, but a little smaller than that, probably half as tall and half as thin as me if they were to stand on 2 legs(in which they didn't). Later, there was a lady in a smaller boat that went against our direction.She was selling some handicrafts from her floating shop. There used to be a lot of such smaller boats that formed the floating market.The government then reduced the huge number to only a few as to make way for a passage for tourists like us.Yay. We stopped after a few minutes of travelling once again where we visited a local shop selling local merchandise like souveniers,clothes and handicrafts.The half an hour long break was a necessity to shopaholics and tolietholics.What a coincidence!My mom found out that one of our boatmates is my aunty's friend(with her family)!haha.What a small world.

Soon we boarded the boat again and stopped later at the local snake zoo.We didn't want to go in not only cuz its quite expensive but the fact that we were very tired and just wanted to rest.The rest was certainly fruitful but a little extra long.We continued our journey by ending at where we started.Unfortunately the tide was high and some barricades that protects the buildings near to sides of the river was activated.We had to wait for it to open, enter and wait for another barricade to open.Its somehow like the one in the Suez Canal just that it is simpler.It took about a total of 15minutes before we set off to our starting point, passing government buildings and more temples.

Back on dry land and in the van!We now proceeded to another restaurant for lunch.On the way, we saw something we don't see in modern Singapore.A protest.Yup.It wasn't scary as they weren't very rebellious.Armed with orange headbands, they marched their way against our direction.


The food wasn't that fantastic but it was enough to fill our stomachs.My mom ordered spring rolls that had chicken fillings, to be taken back to our hotel for muching purposes.After lunch, we prayed at a mosque across the street where we met my aunty's friend's family again!haha...

We then went to a local jewellery store where they showed us how they make their jewel studded products.The precious stones ranges from ruby to sapphires.If I'm not wrong, this is the only place where you can find authentic and cheap jewellery since it is the largest precious stone production factory in the world and that the stones are from Thailand itself.

Next, it was shopping time at the largest shopping mall in Bangkok.The Mah Bung Krong(MBK).That should be how you spell it.I guess.Here is where i bought my coat and belt for prom.The coat cost me 1600baht(about S$64) while the belt 350baht(aboutS$14).The coat was originally about 1880 baht while the belt 390baht.So it was quite a good deal i guess knowing that u can bargain.But don't even try to bargain at Tokyu.Tokyu is this shop that is similar to Metro or Isetan.And obviously u cant bargain with them rite?

We went back to our hotel my taking the sky train system.Let me introduce you to the sky train system.Firstly, like the MRT system in Singapore, it is run by 2 companies, forming the MRTA and BTS(we took the BTS).Secondly the distance apart between stations of the sky train is about the same to the distance apart between stations in our LRT system.So the prices isn't as expensive as the ones in our MRT if you were to buy the single trip tickets or the standard tickets.Its like 10baht(40cents) for one station.Well of course if you were to travel about 5 stations, it would be cheaper than50 baht.say around 40 or 35 baht?Did i mention that the Bangkok sky train would bring memories to our passe fare card?Well the Bangkok sky train system used the fare card system.You know, those thin flexible magnetic cards we have?I bought the cheapest one for memory.haha.

That's my sister buying the tickets.I taught her how to buy the tickets.haha =)

Our ride was 4 stations long.We boarded at National Stadium and dropped down at Nana.Btw the announcer had to speak both in Thai and English and the train is about the size of 2 LRT carriages and the ride was very seamless.Probably cuz its small compared to the 6 carriage MRT.Or is it 8?I forgot.

We reached Nana and with the help of a salesperson, found our way back to hotel.We quickly prayed and left for dinner at First Hotel, where we had our first lunch upon arrival.Today's dinner is a buffet of tomato rice or plain rice, chicken,vegetable, and frien wanton!YAY.Gosh the fried wanton was nice especially if u add the chilli sauce that was a bit hot.

After dinner we took the van back. My parents wanted to go to MBK centre for some shopping but then due to some miscommunication between us and the driver, we went back to the hotel. Furthermore, if we were to go MBK centre, most of the shops would be closed by then. On our way back we saw some elephants along the streets. I was so shocked that there were elephants along the capital state of Bangkok especially along the busy streets. There were two owners to each elephant who were selling bananas and sugar cane for people to feed them. The elephants quickly eat the food when given the food unlike in Chiangmai. The elephant must be very hungry. Things people would do to make business. They'll make the elephant go slightly hungry so that it'll eat whatever the people give.