Bangkok 11-16 July 2013

My 2nd Bangkok trip of the year. I happened to chance upon a cheap deal from Jetstar and managed to round up two friends to go together.
My last trip was just two months ago in May with my mom. This trip was solely for myself to enjoy!

My plan was to buy more T-shirts and more fish and hopefully visit some places that are new.
My biggest agenda was to buy the Betta fishes as the ones I bought just two months ago had already had a few deaths. Unfortunately due to my bad planning, I only went to the fish section of Chatuchak on Sunday, by then all the best fishes were gone and I'm left with only the worst looking fishes to buy. I totally forgot that all the new fishes arrived on Saturday and you have to jostle with the crowd to get the best ones. The worst part was when I finally reach back home, two of the females of the species  I was targeting jumped out of the container and died!! Arrggghhh!! imagine my horror when I woke up in the morning!! All my effort in bringing the fish all the way back down the drain. I guess I have an excuse to go back again.

I tried another cooking class too, a different school, it was more modern in interior and there were only three of us during the lesson, so it was pretty cool. The food was not as tasty as the previous school I attended though.

Lots of eating on this trip, the weather was not bad too, not hot like the previous trip. It rained on two of the days though. I spent quite a bit of time shopping too and bought like more than 10 T-shirts! Of course not forgetting the nightly foot massages too, shiok!!

I visited a new place too, the Fighting fish gallery. It was pretty far away. Had to cross a river by boat but the place was cool, it was like a kampong area and everywhere was natural swamps. Really nice place to cycle around during the weekend. I saw lots of tourist bringing their own bicycles on the boats. The Gallery itself was just a very tiny part of the whole area, nothing special. The resort Villas there were extremely luxurious though and according to the guide, costs 30,000 Baht per night's stay.

I never get tired of Bangkok and no matter how many days I stay there, it always seems too short. Planning my next trip already.......heh heh.......

 

Shanghai, China 25th -29th May

Just 4 days after I returned from Bangkok I left for Shanghai.
It  was like going from hell 40 degrees celcius to heaven 22 degrees celcius!!

It was very windy in Shanghai too.
This was my second time in Shanghai, we did not stay in the city this time round.
The City central was like 50mins away.
Unfortunately, I had a bad throat infection just before I left Singapore and it got worse there.
I lost my voice on the second day and could not find any Strepsils sweet over there. Can't find any liang Teh shop too, apparently, according to my supplier, Shanghainese don't get "heaty" as their summers are short. That's why not much herbal shops around sell liang teh. Or maybe it's just the ulu area I Stay.

It was a short trip and we did not get to go anywhere much just like the previous trip.
I still enjoyed 1 or 2 good meals though.

We spent the last 2 hours of our stay having dinner and strolling the city center shopping district in town before we left for the airport.

 

Bangkok 14-20th May 2013

It's been a year since I've been to Bangkok, Thailand.
This time I went with my mom, it was 6 days of eating and shopping and nothing else, Shiok!!
Unfortunately, the weather was horrible, on the second day, it was 40 degrees Celsius!! WTF!!
I started perspiring the moment I left the airport until I reached the airport to fly back!!

The shopping and eating was great though. Somboon seafood was fantastic! we had crab, fish, prawns and fish maw soup at just a little over S$50!!
I was at chatuchak like 4 out of the 6 days we were there! crazy! Haha!!

Went to Rot Fai night market which I've never been to, it was great but sweaty due to the heat.
The trip seemed short although it was 6 days, I spent the first day at MBK which was a waste of time. I won't be going MBK on my next trip there.
Platinum was better with a better range of clothes and accessories.
I caught a movie at MBK though, Star Trek into darkness, pretty good but the first one was better.

My mom had trouble with her knees and couldn't walk up staircases so we took a lot of taxis and tuk tuks. I brought her to her favourite fried oyster shop at Chinatown and it tasted great!

I even enrolled in a thai cooking class with my mom and it was one of the highlights of the trip. We learnt all the Thai ingredients in cooking Tom Yum soup, green curry and Phad Thai. No MSG included.

I also bought the highest record number of fishes back from Bangkok this time after suffering from a few deaths the last trip. I bought a pair of each species and a few extra females of betta just in case. Some of them are already showing signs of dying now. It's definitely the water condition in Singapore, they looked very healthy when I bought them.
Anyway, I'm going to try breeding them.

Can't wait to book cheap tickets to Bangkok again!!

 

Ho Chi Minh Jan 2013

I returned to Ho Chi Minh City better known as Saigon after a 5 years absence.
I really missed going Saigon for so long, I love the food, the people, the slower pace of life, I love almost everything about it.

I had mixed feelings about going back. During my last trip there, more than 5 years ago, the development of the city was kind of in hyper mode. So my greatest fear was that it would be overly developed for it's own good and lose all that charm which it originally had. Kind of like what happened to Singapore's Chinatown and most of our "original" places of interest.

I landed in Tan Son Nhat airport early in the morning. Upon arrival, I got into a cab and started making my way to my hotel. Right from the airport out, I have already noticed new buildings which were not there 5 years ago. I was starting to fear for the worst.
Throughout the whole taxi ride, I see a lot of clean up on the streets compared to previously. The streets are much cleaner now. New buildings, lots of them, some jarring compared to the 50's modern architecture which littered the landscape all over the city.

By the time I reached my hotel, it was pretty clear that in the last 5 years, Vietnam has gone through a tremendous architectural revolution. With lots of new buildings in place of old ones which were demolished. It felt like Singapore in the late 60's and 70's when it was going through it's own developement into a first world country.
Still, there was the old Ben Thanh market, still standing there proud and enduring. A sign of relief.

I felt a sense of despair along the way from the airport to my hotel, all the things that I love about Vietnam is changing. They are changing at a very fast rate. I estimate in another 10 years or so, Saigon will be just as modern in outlook as Singapore.
I just hope that certain parts of it will retain the old charm of Saigon unlike Singapore where it has gone totally clinical.

The redeeming part of the whole trip though was still the people and the FOOD!!!
Almost every meal I had was excellent. Vietnam food is so clean and cleansing. Compared to our Singapore food which is more rich and heavy in spices.
I would describe Vienamese food as similar to Japanese food in that it's simple and clean. Clean, meaning no heavy accented spices and rich ingredients like coconut milk. Even if there is such ingredients, they still taste "clean". It's difficult to explain, you have to eat it to know.
I guess the ingredients are fresh and are more organic compared to more developed countries.
I hope the food in Sagon don't go in the way that the city is developing into, otherwise, it will be such a pity.

 

Ayer Hitam 12 Feb 2013

It was the third day of the Chinese New Year, I had already promised my friend that I will be joining him to go Malaysia for fish hunting and exploring old towns.
I'll skip the boring fish hunting part and go straight to Ayer Hitam.

Ayer Hitam, a small town on the west side of West Malaysia in Johor state.
It lies at the crossroads between batu Pahat(West) and Mersing(East).
Before the completion of the North South Highway in 1994, all vehicles travelling to Kuala Lumpur(KL) from Singapore and the Southern states had to travel by the old road which was just a two way lane full of meandering bends and pronounced corners. Not to mentioned the hilly terrain typical of the Malaysian country side. It was a very risky business travelling at night especially.
In those days the Coach bus drivers were extremely skilled in negotiating the roads, I remember staying awake at night watching the driver skillfully tackling the roads. It was like taking a roller coster ride at night! As a child little things like these excite me.

Anyway, back to Ayer Hitam.

It was one of the rest stops along the road to KL and it was notorius for one thing.
The Stinking toilets at the rest stops!
They were filthy!
Imagine after sitting on the bus for hours and finally there is a rest stop to get down and pee.
You queue up and when it's your turn BAM!! the toilet stinks of crap overflowing due to blockage as hundreds of users had to stop here to use the toilet.
Worst off is, before or after you use the toilet, the food court is just next door!! Imagine filling up on food and after that going to the toilet and seeing all the floating shit!! Ewwww...:(
Hahahaha!!!!

Ya, that was the infamous Ayer Hitam memory a lot folks travelling to Malaysia had, those were the days.

Now for the nicer part of Ayer Hitam.
It is a town known for it's ceramic ware. Pots, vases, bowls, plates... you name it they have it.
Lots of snacks stalls, plastic flowers and soft toys.
All in a very old school way of display which is all over the stall.
Surprisingly, it has not changed much.
Take a look.

It still retains it's old world charm and felt really nostalgic to me.
It felt like I travelled back in time to a time forgotten, when things were much more simpler and less complicated.

It felt good.

Well, that's Ayer Hitam, still the laid back little town time had forgotten.
If you want to take a trip down memory lane, go to Ayer Hitam

 

Pineapple farm visit

One of my suppliers offered a visit to a pineapple farm supervised by his brother in Malaysia. Since I have never visited one before, I jumped on the chance.

We set off at around 7:30am. Had some Nasi Lemak(Coconut milk rice) at a small stall, pretty good actually. Drank my cup of mandatory milk tea every morning and headed for the farm.

The farm was huge. Weather was pretty cool in the morning but was already starting to turn warm.
Met up with my suppliers brother and they had already been cutting the pineapples and had a van loaded up with some. They cut up one o fthe pineapples for us to have a taste.

Man, it was DELICIOUS!!!
It was so sweet, so fragant!! and Juicy!! Wow!! Fantastic!!

As I mentioned, the farm was huge, we went around the farm collecting different pineapples from different lots. I could not see the end of the farm. My suppliers brother told me that this particular stretch was 5 kilometers long!! WTF!!! Thats a LOT of pineapples!!

By 12 noon, the weather was turning bad. We could see dark clouds heading our way. Since now is the monsoon rainy season, we know it will definitely rain, so we headed out of the farm. My supplier's car was loaded with like 30kgs of pineapple by then.
We decided to have a coffee break at one of the stalls on the main road, as we were just about to order, the rain started to pour!



After about half an hour and seeing that the rain showed no sign of stopping, we decided to move off. My supplier wanted to head for his durian farm to check up on the status, so we left.
When we reached the durian farm, the rain has subsided. The durian farm was drenched in rain water and the little streams running across it had flooded over, I dipped my fishing net that I brought along and still managed to catch a few rasboras and barbs, what luck!!

There were no durians to be found as the season was pretty much over. The only thing that was available was "Ang Mo Sung" a type of rambutan native to Malaysia. They were still very small and unripe. They should be ready in about 2-3weeks. We would be back to collect them then.

SInce we were all wet and dirty, we headed to town. We went to the foot reflexology shop that we patronised previously to get a quick shower and clean up. Then we went for a massage for about one and a half hours for RM$88(S$35). The massage was fantastic too! my whole body was totally relieved from the walking and bashing that morning. I felt lighter after the massage and more energised. I'll definitely be coming back there!

We went for a simple dinner after that and because it was a Sunday, everywhere was crowded. We had a few simple dishes and headed to Jusco to buy some groceries. Jusco was also packed with people!! We quickly got our stuff and then headed back to Singapore. What a day, I'll definitely go again if my supplier ask. Shiok!!

Bangkok, Thailand, June 2012

Went Bangkok Thailand on the 28th of June this year.
Last time I was there was 2 years ago.
Lots of new hotels at Pratunam area now, price is pretty cheap and most of them have wi-fi.
As usual, no worries about food when staying at Pratunam area.
I think I put on 1.5kg of weight just eating at that area.

I did not plan the trip before that and was quite lost on where to go.
My main aim was to get my FBT cycling jerseys and see the wild Bettas at Chatuchak market.
Weather is hot as hell as usual. Dry fit T-shirts are a must when touring in Bangkok and lots  and lots of fluid.

I manage to find a wild orchid wholesale market instead of buying it at double the price at Chatuchak!!
I also bought 2 Betta Smaragdina and 2 Betta Mahachai back.
They were very shell shocked when I reached home and had closed fins for weeks. I gave a pair to Jimmy.

Nothing much from this trip, as usual, some T-shirts, snacks and fishes bought.
I'm already looking forward to another trip when the airfare prices are reasonable.