April 2007 - As Suanie Sees It

bangkok, thailand: land of smiles

I’d always wanted to go to Bangkok; obviously I’d never been there, and even though people tell me that it’s a polluted place and not the main to-see in the whole of Thailand, there’s just something about it. Can’t explain why, so I’m not gonna.

Since last year, me and FA had wanted to go to Thailand for Songkran. Then one night Terence messaged me that AirAsia was giving out FREE tickets, starting from 12 a.m. that very night. So I told my sister about it, thinking that she would be interested in the same deal. At the end, we booked ourselves a family holiday to BKK (the process included calling family members and the FA at 2 in the morning for their I/C details). No doubt some people would be asking, why is FA on board our family trip? I don’t know, it just happened. LOL.

We could only get tickets flying to BKK on the last day of Songkran. Reached around 10 in the morning and we passed by vehicles that were splattered with plaster (from the whole plaster+water tradition). Went to our hotel; the Chaophya Park, checked in, then went for lunch.

I don’t remember what we did on the first day. Probably not much, but they had Thai massages. Me and my dad were the only ones who didn’t go for it. We don’t like massages. Pinky was like, wtf you went to Thailand and you didn’t have a massage?!!?! Yeah 😛

Second day we had a boat tour on the Chao Phraya Canal. It was dirty, polluted, and many of the wooden houses along the canal were in serious danger of falling apart. Some houses were dangerously tilted, the middle part almost touching the water… you get the drift.

I asked our tour guide; an amiable chap where the residents go when their houses fall apart.

“They go to second floor.” LMAO!

There were many temples along the way, and the final stop was the snake farm before turning back to the main stream. Didn’t go in either; I don’t like snakes 😛

On the way back, we stopped at Wat Si Sudaram (I think) to feed the catfish. It was a great way to make a profit out of BKK’s leftover bread, but it was also somewhat fascinating.

Feeding catfish along the Chao Phraya Canal
Fireangel, me and one of my sisters feeding the hungry and greedy catfish

[Read more…]

the declining kuala selangor fireflies

I’d always wanted to go to Kuala Selangor to see the fireflies, and when the Gallivanter announced that he was organising a trip to do just that, I asked if I could tag along 😀

Eight of us drove down (well, two did the driving) to Kuala Selangor. The old road took us past the Sg Buloh prison (which I kept looking out for) and was dotted with rubber and palm trees. And lots of rich kampung folks living in massive (perhaps illegal) houses. It was almost like scene right out of a bad Hollywood movie, where the characters drive through an almost deserted town where there are quaint shops with funny names, then the characters get murdered by odd serial killers. Heh.

We reached Kampung Kelip-Kelip around 8 p.m. It’d been raining before and so we delayed dinner to get on the boat first. It was RM10 per person, 4 to a sampan and below is a video I’d taken on the boat…

Yes, couldn’t capture shit. So no fireflies photos for you. But they looked something like this or this, minus the immense number of fireflies. Like decorated Christmas trees, 3 flashes per second.

The guide told us that it was the rainy season, hence the limited fireflies. Plus the river is kinda polluted and is killing the pokok berembang, which is the only species of trees the fireflies would buzz around. I’d say there were about 2 or 3 trees that had a lot of them, and 7 -8 with not as many. Nothing like in the photos though.

But it was still a good experience — the sampan ride was rather peaceful and calming, though I found myself thinking of crocodiles. I didn’t dare to ask the guide though, as it was night time and there’s this whole superstition about not mentioning buaya pusaka stuff at this time of the night, bla bla bla. I do scare myself sometimes.

Mosquitos I can mention. Mosquitos literally suck.

We took a group photo, here we are, stolen from Daniel’s blog:

Kuala Selangor fireflies visit
Cely, Hong Kiat, Chelva, Wong, Lina, me, Lee Yee and Daniel.