Winter's Fairytale: February 2007

With all it's buzz, my Chinese New Year holidays are about to come to an end. [sobs] Imagine if we can get all 14 days of CNY holiday-ed. [drools]

Of all the CNY, I must admit that this year's CNY is a break of many traditions / routine. Of those peculiarities, it rained during the CNY season (normally it'll be freaking sunny and hot),

We had ourself a reunion lunch (instead of dinner).

We went to Genting on CNY eve.

This is because we had our reunion dinner in Genting.

It was Chinese dinner with a concert / show.

Here are a few photos while I was there...

I don't know if you're familiar with Jenny Tseng. I'm not.. Haha~!

She sang cantonese and mandarin songs.

And she changed a few times too.

Also I actually made my first move into the casino. It was either spend time in the casino or lounge around outside. I lost money, Haha~! No beginner's luck for me. Then again, my parents wanted to "harnest" the possible beginner's luck I could have possessed. Hahah~! Tough luck.

What else.. hmm.. well, I did invite some friends over for a small gathering. Thanks a lot for coming; Bard, Michael, Eugene Lim, Pui Yee, Sarah, Kimberly, Sabrina~! Love ya~! I must admit I was worried about the possible chemistry with the selection of people that came. It turned out better than my hypothesis. Hehe~!

Huhu~! Now I'm waiting for it to be Chap Goh Mei, the last day of CNY. That's because only after that day I can get to open all my lovely ang pows. It's a little agreement that my sisters and I decided on so as to not spend the money carelessly and to compare the total money that we got.

It differs since my sisters go to other houses more often than me. Oh well. This is the bunch of my sister's friends that came to my house. The volume was intimidating.

I had oodles of fun going out for dinner with my family and relatives. That's my cousin brother who just got married last September if I'm not mistaken.

We were at Eastin hotel and there were 20 of us. Split to 2 tables, the youngsters and the folks.

I shall just spam more photos now...

Spam~! Girly Spam. Hahha~!

Without fail, at these dinners I get to drink alcohol..

More Spam~!

It's not easy to take care of eating while the CNY season is on. It's quite rude to not eat CNY goodies. At least we can go easy on the type of drinks you take. That's all for now. Cheers~!

Let me start by saying that the amount of photos I have posted may seem a lot here but it's only the best 10% of all the photos I took while in Chiang Mai & Chiang Rai, Thailand.

Reached Terminal LCC at 7.30am. My first time here.

Went to Gate T4 and boarded plane. Didn't know that photography was not allowed on the tarmac.

Flight was 2 hours long. Met up with our tour guide nickname Ah Lek. There were 11 of us in a big bus. Suppose to have 14 people. My dad couldn't make it, another was in the hospital (food poisoning) and another had a bad back.

Coming to Chiang Mai, Thailand I see things as Va Nee, SEA culture class mentioned before. It's like a visual walk through of her lecture.

Majority of motorcyclists here don't wear helmets but at least they use their side mirrors. Not like the last time I went to Vietnam. The motorcyclist there have their side mirrors either removed or placed in front of them...

Decorative road signs and they're all like this.

Their taxi here.

Went to this flower garden...

where they grow ganja...

and poppy flowers, where before they bloom, one can get opium.

I like the poppy better.

Apparently we came about the last week before they'll all fully bloom.

Pretty locals dressed up to have their photo taken.. I think the costume rental was 160 Bath (that's RM16) .

Look more pretty flowers.

This was the place we were at. It's not easy to remember such a name.

After seeing all them flowers, we made our way to Dol Suthep (referring to my Travel Log). Look nine-headed naga which I can't remember the name of it.

At the temple, there were lots of bells that people hang. Something like a prayer bell?

Look, a stuppa~!

Here is Buddha and the Naga.

This is two creatures, one saying mom and the other hah I think. Anyway, these two sounds are supposedly the first two sounds of the world.

At the end of Day 1, we went to a pasar malam at Anusarn market. Their pasar malam takes place every night.

They sell a lot of stuff in the pasar malam. I bought a set of this ball lights while my mum bought 3 more for chinese new year decoration.

Erm... An odd sort of crackers in this packet. They're silk worms. I didn't try it...

But it did eat Mango sticky rice though. Delicious.

Day 2. We went to Daeng Elephant Park.

Where we did rafting first...

A 40-minutes ride...

Man-powered on man-made bamboo rafts.

Ahh~! A crocodile.. Oh, it's a rock pretending to be a crocodile.

I saw that there were some paper being dried out here. Hmm, I found out that Paper making here are made from...

Elephant dung~! Selling point: It gives off this light fragrance. Right...

Anyway, after rafting we waited to go on the elephant ride.

This guy was the elephant owner whose elephant I rode on. Apart from the constant need to pay 20 bath for sugarcane and bananas to feed the elephant, it was interesting.

Elephants need to be washed once in a while.

I mean they need their bath and their owners help them.

All clean~!

Oh the elephants wants to clean us too~! Arrr... Need to run away. My camera not waterproof.

A closer shot of elephant's "blessing" water.

An elephant trick where it takes its owner's hat and place it on someone else's head.

An elephant show.

It's so cute. It's carrying a basket of flowers.

Aside of tricks of showing how strong an elephant is...

They can dance, play soccer and even draw.

We even rode on kereta lembu (ox-cart). The last time I rode on one was in Dalat, Vietnam. At least this one was in daylight.

The oxen taking 5 (a break).

After the Daeng Elephant park, we made our way to an Orchid farm..

Apparently, on the 1st of February, Chiang Mai will be holding a floral fest. Good thing that I left the day before. Our tour guide said that all the hotels were fully booked because of it.

I enjoy walking through flower garden armed with a camera.

I took loads of shots. Practice Practice.

Orchid pendants and necklaces. I bought one for myself. Pretty lil things.

Then we went to Shinawatra, silk factory.

Here this lady is making silk thread...

and this lady is weaving the silk thread. Very fast.

They actually have this deco set up at the washroom. How interesting.

After the silk factory was the silver factory. Seeing these guys remind me of the wayang kulit's halus and kasar characters.

This silver work took the artist 3 years to complete. It's like super detailed.

This one looks cool too~! It's freaking expensive though. I'd probably have to pay two ribs and a hand to get it.
While in Chiang Mai, we stayed at Chiang Mai Holiday Hotel. Quite a strategic hotel since it's walking distance to the Anusarn market (pasar malam).

There are plenty of poster / statues of their king around the city. At the end of Day 2, my mum, younger sis and myself went for a spa. It's relatively cheaper here. Needed the spa to loosen them muscles...

Day 3: Heading to Chiang Rai. Along the way we stopped at a hot springs area. Hot river...

A duck going to the nice hot river. Around here, it's a little colder than Chiang Mai. If I compared temperatures, it's a definitely colder than Genting Highlands.

There's a hot springs where the locals use to boil eggs to sell them to tourists.

Here's a local boy taking a basket up from the boiling water...

Ahh~! Children and dangerous vehicles. What a fine mix...

Anyway, we come to where the government have gathered some tribal people so that tourist will come see them and raise funds for them. Here 25 rings are 4 kg. You'll see why I noted this later.

I think most of us are familiar with this tribe. The Karen tribe have girls as young as 5 to wear rings around their necks and legs. As they grow older,

A ring is added until there is 25 rings. Remember the 25 rings that are 4 kg. Ya, that's why the girls here end up wearing. In this tribe, it is seen as aesthetic value for women.

Without it, girls cannot get married. It looks like the neck gets longer but in reality the rings pushes down the shoulders... Ow~! Sounds like the chinese foot binding practice.

Oh a dog and his boy. And the little boy is handling a knife~! Wow...

Erm... this is protective statues were placed at the village's entrance gate, believed to keep evil spirits away. Oh did I mention that this tribe has girls sent to the chief to take away their virginity. Why? It's only then the girls are worthy to be wed.

This is that tribe women.. Anyone up for the chief position? I don't to know, man.

There were a few tribes brought here. Hopefully in 5 years, these tribal people can officially be Thai people and put down their practices.

Scientific pictures to explain what the rings to do these women.

The infamous Mekong River. If it was nice and cloudy, this shot would be great. Oh well.

We found ourself at the Golden Triangle. Look they even have this monument to confirm that. Anyway, the Mekong River is actually divides the countries of Laos, Myanmar and of course Thai.

Golden triangle. I'm standing at Thai, the left is Myanmar and the right is Laos.

The statues here amazes me because it is enriching and uses elements like in this photo, the elephant and the naga that is erm.. biting the elephant? Sounds odd. Para-phrasing it... it would be the elephant coming out of the naga's mouth.

I really don't know what these statues are about...

but if you look closely, it's actually statues of Bharma, Vishnu and Shiva.

It's really no question what the main religion is at Thai. Buddhism.

Anyway, after the stroll along the river, our next destination was the Jade factory. Here she's explaining that there are many colours to jade and each colour symbolizes something.

Green - Good Luck
White - Longevity
Brown - Happiness

Shaping a block of jade into a piece of art requires special equipments.

Mae Sai happens to the northern most of Thailand. We could see Myanmar from here. Gates keep Myanmar and Thai separated here.

Even at Chiang Rai, there's pasar malam

An interesting experience for me was when to take this shot in the middle of the road. It was 7pm or was it 6pm. Thai's national anthem can be heard being played and everything came to a stand-still. It was at if time stopped. Of course I stood at the middle of the road like an idiot, waiting for the anthem to finish. Apparently this happens daily. Wow~! Patriotism man.

Pasar malam activated~!

We stayed at Little Duck Hotel while our stay in Chiang Rai. There were roadside stalls even outside the hotel. I took this shot from my hotel window. At the hotel here, it's so easy to just jump out the window. No safety bars. Serious. It's scary in a way.

This is how the hotel looked like. It's really big and famous. Having breakfast here was a killer. It was like it was a chaotic cafeteria, erm only worse. And it's not even peak season~!

Day 4: You guys know what a cashew nut is? Well, they come from a tree unlike groundnuts which grows in the ground. And the tree looks like this. We came in the off season but they hung fake cashew nut fruits on the tree to give us a feel on how it would look like.

Then our next stop was a gemstone factory... Not that I have the money to buy such expensive bobbles.

Somewhere a little more interesting was the umbrella making factory. They showed us how the make paper umbrellas.

Here the man is folding the paper to protect the top...

and the woman is putting string as support to part the stick evenly.

The finished product~!

There were a few artists working here. They even offer to paint on tourist clothing. They use acrylic paint which is water proof and all.

My mum did one on her plain white pants which she bought while in Thailand.

And my younger sis did too. I wanted to do it on my video cam bag but my mum advised otherwise.

Our dinner was a special one. We celebrated one of our tour member's birthday at a hotel. They served this cute little "yao char kaew".

At last, I've come to the last bit of this blog post. I bring along a travel log whenever I travel to write down the events of the travel. For some reason, I seem to bring a new log to a new country I go to. I have the old logs of course.

Travelling in the airplane is nice because I get to see a view of the top of the world. Thanks for reading this far. There's always more to come. Cheers~!