Who am I?

Answers to this simple question…

Is it depend on what others thoughts of you

Or how others define who you really are

Or your reflection in the mirror

Or is it depends on…

All the compliments you received so far

And all the criticism you’ve gotten in your life

From all the people surrounding you

Does all this really tell you who you are?

Thoughts change every now and then

Definitions mainly comes from assumptions

Reflection usually being portrays

Words spoken mostly are white lies

Or worst off, spoken out of evilness

Hence, who am I? Simple answer…

I’m who I belief to be!

15 till 19 July 09 - Bangkok

Below map indicated our stops at Bangkok Province

Siam

Most developed town in Thailand I would say is Siam. Siam Paragon the most luxurious shopping center plus Siam Discovery the art center in Bangkok were concentrated in this town. Nearby 2 more huge shopping complexes were Siam Center and MBK.

Surasak, Silom

Our accommodation at Bangkok was in this town, Silom. Our hotel is right in the middle of Silom Street, the Silom Village Inn.
Busy business area with lots of schools, government offices and temples around but less street food. Belief to be a red zone area but we didn’t happen to see any prostitution business going on.

Victoria Monument

Well-known tourist spot yet it’s just a monument built on a huge roundabout at the road junction of Victoria town. Since it’s a memorial architectural piece, we snap a few photos then left for our next stop.

Pullman King Power

Tax free shopping at King Power, not only branded shopping, consists of local varieties as well. One of their after shop service, they assists you to sent all your purchased goods to airport where you could collect when you take off. How convenient!

Here, they serve welcome drink and gave freebies for registered tourist. The building has artistic interior design, Restaurant, Bar and Theater too.

Lucky us, when we’re there, there was performance for some military. Hence, we sneaked in and checked out the theater when the military were exiting the theater hall.

Chao Phraya Cruise

River express cruise at Chao Phraya with one day pass to visits a few tourist spots. Alternative transportation in Bangkok other than sky train, it was cheaper and faster too.

River condition a bit polluted but the cruise allowed you to enjoy some cooling breeze. Plus, there’s a tour guide in the boat cruise to explain buildings that we’ve passed by during the cruise. We’ve had fun throughout the cruise with the scenery along the river!

Grand Palace

This an awesome tourist spot, architectural primarily built of gold and grandiose structures with unique Thai’s designs. A huge and strictly guarded compound which you would be astonishes from one building to another. Not to missed the artsy cultural statute sculptures everywhere!

Due to my skimpy way of dressing mainly because of the hot weather, my joke of the day…I was forced to wear a grandma shirt to be permitted for entrance *sigh*. Even scarf I wrapped around my exposed shoulder also they won’t allow me to go in!

To assist tourist like us, in Grand Palace, you could find computerized touch screen monitor with visual and verbal explanations to tell you all info a tourist should know about the place. HI-TECH isn’t it?

Emerald Temple

Nothing much in here other than the goddess sculptures made out of emerald and elephant tusks. Building structure here mainly with golden overlay (looks as grandiose as Grand palace). Inside the temple laid a miniature floor plan of Grand Palace and Emerald Temple. This miniature has a comparison before and after restructuring!

China Town

Resembles Petaling Street in KL, Chinatown is a street full of Chinese eatery stalls and lots of unique Chinese culture items in Bangkok. We ate some soup noodles with pork inner organs here as well as take away 2 durians and some other fruits here to be our desert back in hotel. My very 1^st experience having durian in a hotel room!

Hua Lam Pong

Train station that we’d discover during our search for MRT station on the way back from Chinatown. Apparently, MRT entrance sensor could actually detect our take away durians. We’re not allowed to take MRT while carrying durian. Thanks to my friend Meg, I’m the durian carrier … so embarrassing! We’ve been shoo off the MRT station and we took tuktuk back to hotel as alternative.

Chitralada Palace

A stop that we’ve had a long walk yet was without permission to enter, the Palace is guarded. But luckily we’ve found a huge temple nearby to make our stop purposeful. There was a garden inside the temple too!

Dusit Zoo

By the time we reached zoo, it was after business hour. Yet, the kind guard still let us in and wonder the zoo by ourselves, lucky us! Hence, we were actually seeing the animals at their resting state.

Dusit Zoo is huge, there a lake as the center of the zoo and all animals showcase were surrounding the lake. We took at least 2 hours to finish wondering the zoo.

Asia Hotel

Stop here purposely to watch the most famous ladyboy show, the Calypso Caberet. It was an incredible show indeed! Moreover, due to our friendly faces, we got 50% discount to watch the show, another lucky strike!

Before the show, we’ve also witnessed a Korean guy dance performance at the hotel lobby. He’s such a talented performer. Apparently, he’s also a tourist coming for the Calypso Caberet show.

On the way back to hotel in BTS train, there’s a cute Thai student seated beside a friend of us, Sharon. So coincidently, when they sit together, they appeared so much like a couple. We make a joke out of the cute student boy and my friend Sharon, pretending that they were actually a couple and took some photos.

Some clips of the Calypso Caberet Show at Asia Hotel, Bangkok to share with:-

Lebua State Tower – Skybar

Bar on top of a 28^th floor tower. Outdoor bar on one side with seated couch and another side standing bar with live band. Felt like drinking in a bar on a huge luxurious balcony overseeing the night sight of Bangkok city. A kind request for the bar DJ to take a shoot of 4 of us in the bar but his shooting skill was not as good … *sigh*.

Top of this tower was the most luxurious skybar in Bangkok, yet … opposite the building, on the ground level, there’s a street food stall where we had the cheapest Thai cuisine as our supper.

Chatuchak

The biggest budgeted shopping paradise in Bangkok, consists of everything you wanna get from Bangkok. Fun shopping here but … seriously humid and dusty! Amazingly, they even sell pets here. Oh … talking about pets, I’ve noticed that in Thailand, even homeless beggars could afford to own a pet!

Suvarnabhumi Airport

Our last stop in Bangkok, the new airport in the city of Thailand! The interior looks a lot like any other airport except full of Thai culture decoration and some miniature of Thailand tourist spot.

12 till 14 July 09 - Pattaya

Below map indicated our stops at Pattaya Province

Central Place

1^st stop in our travel Bangkok journey, Central Place is a grand shopping complex in Pattaya province with a huge fountain at the entrance. Lots of branded stuff to shop for here, as well as the well known European and US brand.

Joke of the day in Central Place, our Meg mistaken Haagen-Dazs ice-cream pricing. Story goes like this; Meg was delighted to found out that they actually sell 1 scoop of Haagen-Dazs ice-cream at 250 bath dollar (RM 2.50). Due to that, we’re happily planning to have Haagen-Dazs for desert after dinner.

When we already seated down and in the midst of deciding which flavor to pick…physically already tasting the ice-cream. Then only we found out that our Meg misread the pricing menu. 250 bath was for 1 topping, not 1 scoop of ice-cream!
Embarrassed, we left the shop and leave our dessert idea behind.

Soi 8 – Mike Shopping Mall

Our journey continues after breakfast at Subway, to explore the surroundings of where we stayed. Soi 8 is an interesting street. It would be even more exciting when dusk hit this street caused it’s a well known red zone area. With this, you could notice the uniquely design of each pub or club entrance along the street.

Pattaya Pier

Pattaya separate into north, central and south areas. Our hotel located at the Central of Pattaya. Nothing much at the north area but the south area is the pier, where you could hire speedboat and explore the nearby islands.

Nong Nooch Botanical Garden

A must visit stop. Mesmerizing scenery, large space for you to explore, one area consists of farm animals, gardens of both flowers & angels, tomb of memorial and world of ants. Not forgetting a theatre performing Pattaya Cultural Show.

This area is so big till we ought to ride around with rented bicycles. My very first experience of bicycle ride while traveling.

We took a TukTuk to this garden. On the way, there were 2 foreign hunkies on big bike tailing our TukTuk. Apparently…they were macho and they smile at us! As the friendly tourist, we’ve waved Hello to them.

Some clips of the Nong Nooch Show at Botanical Garden, Pattaya to share with:-

Soi 16 – South Pattaya

Soi 16 was where we explored at night to check out the red zone area in Pattaya. 4 girls exploring such area at night does risk a chance to be mistaken as one of them, the prostitute, luckily not all of us being mistaken.

Joke goes like this; we’re ordering our supper takeaway. While waiting, a western guy approached Angel, `Hi Pretty, you wanna make baby with me?’. Angel given a fierce look to the westerner, he then responded, `you must be Japanese or Korean…don’t understand what I’ve said!’. After the westerner left, the line `you wanna make baby with me’ become the joke of the night.
Since we’re here, of course we don’t slip the chance to catch a Tiger show. We walked in to some pub through some approach recommendation and experienced our very 1^st tiger show. It was interesting to discover there’s such a show but disgusted at the end of it. Maybe the one we’ve watched was not the famous Tiger show after all!