Sorry for the delay. Again. Yours truly was preoccupied with so many important matters lately. Anyway, in this post, like I promised before, I'll summarize my visit to Thailand recently.

Here we go.

The journey:
On the day we embarked our journey from KK (Kota Kinabalu International Airport) to Bangkok (Suvarnabhumi International Airport), it took us approximately 6 hours to reach Bangkok. Our flight first stopped at Brunei for about an hour before continuing the journey to our destination - Bangkok. Everybody was excited (including yours truly) when the captain announced that the plane was currently entering Thailand's air territory. Yes. So sakai. Lol! There were several incidents of turbulence during the flight but it was not that bad as the pilot managed to maneuver the plane professionally. Kudos to the pilot! On the other hand, the journey from the airport to the hotel was kinda an eye-opening for us. I mean, that was the time when we really had the opportunity to witness the destruction brought by the massive flood. Houses, business premises, factories and of course the road/highway were submerged. Luckily, the taxi driver knew the route well and took the alternative road (i.e. not affected by the flood) although it was a tad bit far from the usual highway; according to the driver.   

The hotel:

We didn't stayed at a 5-star hotel simply because we can't afford it. Yes. The trip was strictly limited by our already limited budget. Sigh. Nevertheless, we managed to find a budget hotel and it was located right in the heart of Bangkok. Most importantly, it was NOT affected by the flood! Although it was a budget hotel but it didn't looked like one. It was fancy! If I were to compare it with a hotel here in KK, I would compare it with Tang Dynasty hotel. Like seriously. The service was superb! A 5-star service I would describe it. The room was just fine; nothing extremely fancy or extravagant. Nevertheless, it was well-equipped with necessary things like high-pressure shower (with heater), clean toilet, hair dryer (not a common thing found in a budget hotel, mind you), 21 inch TV (with quite a generous number of channels although most of it are in Thai), phone (duh!), air-conditioner (a must!) and most importantly, FREE wi-fi. What more can I ask for? The hotel was super strategic. It's located only few blocks away from the famous night market and major shopping malls. 

The itinerary:

If you've read my previous post, you would noticed that I mentioned about a brochure I found at the hotel's lobby. It became our main source of information throughout our stay there! We wanted to go to the so-called must-visit places in Bangkok but unfortunately not all are accessible at that particular period of time due to the flood situation. Therefore, we narrowed down our options to few places - located near to our hotel and easily accessible by walking and public transportation. Somehow, after an impromptu plan, we ended up visiting Pattaya - located at southeast of Bangkok. Well, as some of you might know, Pattaya is famous with its nightlife and the must-visit place would definitely be the place called the Walking Street. It's more like Changkat area at Bukit Bintang; difference is - it's 'wilder'. Prostitution (no offense) is rampant but we didn't go there for that. We did some club hopping though. Here are some of the places that we visited in Pattaya: Walking Street (nightlife yo!), Pattaya Floating Market (love the foods!!), Outlet Mall Pattaya (you people should go here if you want to find reasonable branded items! Yours truly ended up buying 2 pairs of Adidas shoes!) and the bazaars (mostly for souvenirs). Back to Bangkok; we didn't get to visit many places in Bangkok though. We, however, spent most of our time there by food-hunting (street food in particular). Bangkok is blessed with so many hawkers selling mouth-watering street food. I got the chance to taste the authentic Tom Yam Khung (or Gung). There were many kinds of food we tasted and our tummies were well-taken care of - bloated/protruding all day long! We also visited the malls (duh!), and my favourite one would definitely be the Siam Paragon mall. It's huge! It somehow reminded me of Pavilion KL though. Watching movie at Siam Paragon was a totally different experience. I felt like watching movie at cinema for the first time (this might sound over-dramatic). The screen was huge!! And their 3D glasses were much funkier than the ones we had here in Malaysia. Oh yes. The cinema's called IMAX.   

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Bangkok (or Thailand in general) is definitely a place that I'll visit again someday. I hope the flood will subside soon so that I'll get the chance to visit other places. I'll come again for sure but I've to save money for that. Sigh. POSTING Y U NO COME?? Yours truly needs ka-ching for the next trip! 

Thailand, แล้ว จะ มา ใหม่ ครับ (I'll be back).

สวัสดี ครับ (Bye).

So, let me share with you more on our recent trip to Thailand.

We arrived at the hotel in the evening and all of us decided to take a quick rest since the journey from KK to Bangkok took us approximately 6 hours (including the journey from the airport to the hotel) therefore all of us were drained! I did take my nap. It was just about 30 minutes as I was extremely excited to explore the city. Pfft! Anyway, the others were still sleeping and I did not want to wake them up. So, I headed down to the lobby and wandered around the hotel - to gaze at the wonderful ambiance of the hotel. I sat down at lounging corner and read several brochures just to have some ideas on the interesting whereabouts in Thailand; particularly in Bangkok. There was a list of must-visit places in the brochures that caught my attention.

While I was going through the list, a tourist, a Caucasian dude - judging from his accent, I assumed he's an Aussie - greeted me and we started a brief conversation.

"You're not local, are you?" He asked.

"Nope. I'm Malaysian" I answered.

**Few introductory exchanges**

"So what brings you here?" He inquired.

"I'm here for a trip with my family" I told him and smiled.

"You do know about the current situation here right?" again he asked.

"Yeah, we didn't expect it's going to be this bad. Besides, we've planned this trip from early this year so here we are now. Hahahaha!"

"So, you're here for a vacation as well I supposed?" I tried to change the direction of the conversation. *Grin*

"Kinda. Well, actually I'm here to be part of the volunteer team to help the flood victim" He said.

**and the conversation went on**

I was impressed with him. He came all the way from Australia to help the Thai flood victims. A very good Samaritan indeed.

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After that brief conversation with Mr. Good Samaritan from Australia, I headed back to the room to wake the rest of the team because I was super hungry! And I wanted my doses of authentic Thai food. *Wink*
After all were ready, we went out for food hunting but before that, we went to the counter at the lobby to ask few suggestions from the receptionist. She was kind enough to provide us with ample suggestions. Oh, by the way, her name was Pia, the gorgeous and kind Pia. *wink*

To our surprise, the place suggested by Pia was only few minutes walk from the hotel. It was like a Pasar Malam area where you can find a vast choices of street food. There were so many stalls and the place actually reminded me of Gaya Street in KK and Jalan Alor in KL. So that night, I opted for the authentic Thai Tom Yam for dinner. That was the first time I ever tasted the original Tom Yam or better known as Tom Yam Khung. Super spicy but I loved it so much. My cousins ordered different type of food from the menu. Yes. They did prepare menu for tourists. Convenient eh?  

After dinner we went for a walk around that area to find something to munch to be brought back at the hotel. Once we got what we wanted we walked back to the hotel with our bloated tummy. :)

That night, I showed my cousins the brochure that I took frm the lobby and we then continued planning our trip. Talking about last minute planning. Luckily I found the brochure otherwise we would not have any clue about the places that we wanted to visit on that trip.

**My next post would be the summary of our visit in Thailand.**

Be right back!!

Hey! I'm back. You see, I am not an avid blogger and that is the reason why I rarely keep this blog updated. 

You want to ask about what am I up to these days, yes? Well, just so you know, I've graduated but unfortunately I have yet to be posted to the school as a qualified English teacher. Sad, isn't? By right, I should've started teaching and most probably I am invigilating the SPM exam at the moment. Most importantly, I should've enjoyed my first salary! I can list all the should've-s but that's not the main point here now. 

You might ask, am I working part-time while waiting for my posting? Yes. Used to though. I used to work as a part-time tutor at the nearest tuition center here in KK but I resigned couple of months before. The reason? I was so-called getting myself ready to be posted to school and I needed to give my boss the 1 week notice before leaving the tuition center. Again, like what I've mentioned beforehand, I'm not posted to any school yet. Jobless till this moment of typing this out. 

Anyway, I am just going to wait although the waiting is so 'torturing'. Besides, next week, on the 23rd to be exact, I will go for an important interview - 'Temu Duga Pelantikan ke Jawatan Tetap Pegawai Perkhidmatan Pendidikan Siswazah (PPPS) Gred DG41. Sounds fancy, eh? Being optimistic with the current situation, I think everything will be settled soon; posting is coming on its way. 

So, if you noticed, the title of this post is 'Hello' and next to the word is another word in Thai (characters) which connotes the same meaning. Why do I put the title in such a way? Just to share with you fellow readers, I visited Bangkok recently with my cousins. It was an impromptu plan. I mean, we bought the tickets earlier this year and almost forgot about it. We could've missed our flight if we didn't open the e-mail sent by the airlines company.  Didn't want to waste the tickets, we decided to fly to Bangkok despite the fact that Bangkok is now facing a terrible flood. After so much consideration and research (online), we packed our stuffs and off we went to the capital city of Thailand, Bangkok. 

Picture credit: Google image

  It was like a 'kamikaze' trip I would say. On the morning we left for Bangkok, we overheard from the radio about the flood situation in Bangkok and all of us looked at each other. One of my cousins said, "Let's do this. Hantam saja la. Sayang bah tu tikit!". We took the first flight of the day en route to Bangkok via Brunei. Yes. The flight stopped for a transit at Brunei and then continued the journey to Bangkok. 

After about 4 and a half hours flight, we touched down at Suvarnabhumi International Airport. It was like a surreal feeling. We were all super excited! We walked out of the aircraft and was greeted by the ground staff. Yes. The first word that all of us heard was the trademark word: 'sa-wa-dee-kha' accompanied by the hand gesture (placing the palms of their hands together as in prayer and raising them to the level of their face whilst bowing slightly). Apparently, the hand gesture is called the 'wai' (pronounced as 'why'). I love the warm, friendly and welcoming ambiance. I can say I felt like a tourist. A real tourist.