Thursday, April 15, 2004
O.o
Had a pretty exciting day... woke up REAL early... (well, about 4.30 am local time... >.<)
Got into a pretty cool sort of lorry (well, not really a lorry, it could've been a pickup but it's covered at the back with air cond and carpets and cushions... so...) AND... we went to some ulu place north of Bangkok (REALLY long drive I tell you... though I slept all the way... almost... >.<) The name of the place? 'Floating Market'. ^_^ A really cool experience really... initially thought it was just a market by the river or something (wasn't really that exciting... ) But it's different... There's actually stalls by the river itself... and to get to them, well, you have to get a boat yourself... ^_^
You actually get in a boat, and the guy paddles you up/down stream... and you stop if you wanna buy something. ALSO, there are people selling stuff in boats... so you just pull alongside and buy whatever you want... it's a tourist attraction so things can get expensive... also, there's lots of souveniers which are pretty exciting but come to think of it, not much point buying... ^_^ And unless people ask, there will be NO souveniers from me... ^_^
Things start to get really cramp around 10 am... you literally get traffic jams in the river itself... >.< and everything closes around 11 am so I heard since it's so hot that noone wants to go there and the locals just close shop... we had noodles, lychee, dried mangos, pomeloes... there was some stuff I really liked but I dunno what you call it... looks like 'chee cheong fun' but it's filled with some sweet stuff and you eat it with some leaves (don't ask me wat kind... >.< i'm a plant noob) and fried garlic... I still can't get over the taste... >.<
We left and headed to River Kwae (In case that sounds familiar, it's in history text books and there's a movie on it) Had lunch there... though it WAS costly... >.< 1280 baht which was about RM128 for 5 ppl... and we had only 4 dishes... >.< The expensive one was the prawn (long ha) which was 750 baht... that was the bulk of it actually... the place was cool though... the history of the River Kwae or The Dead River was that POWs were brought in by the Japanese during WW2 (yes, American, British even some from Malaya) to build the bridge and it was terrible in the sense that the workers were treated very badly... most dieing due to malnutrition, malaria and other diseases. <_< I think i'll stop the history lesson here... >.<
Then another long drive over to Bangkok as we watched people celebrating the new year (Water festival) The youths basically waste a lot of water splashing whoever and whenever they can... I'm sure Singapore would be in fits if they ever had a festival like this... >.<
And then we began a long journey home... and we had barbecue for dinner... in Pattaya itself... kinda cheap... 79 baht for buffet... o.O that's like a RM7.90 buffet... I'm stuffed... >.< And I arrived home at 8 pm local time... took a bathe and now im writing everything down... phew
Was my day fun? Well, a new experience definitely... but unless you go with a local which we did... it's not worth it... the prices skyrocket for foreigners and tourists... >.<
Bleh... I actually wrote so much... think i'm back into blogging... if ANYONE ever reads... >.<
Till next time! (Not tom I think cos dad's working tom... ) ^_^