Hey peeps, I’m back from Bangkok!
Alycia and I survived our first DIY overseas trip without a guide and without her dad with us and I’m glad to say that everything went smoothly. Both our Air Asia flights were on time, despite warnings from my hubby, parents and other friends who had bad experiences of flight delays and cancellations with Air Asia. I thank God for blessing us with an enjoyable and trouble-free trip.
I’m also proud to say that Alycia is such a superb travel organizer. Her regular trips (local and overseas) with her uni mates have groomed her to be a travel-savvy and street smart girl. I just told her the dates that I wanted our trip to be, the time of our flights, where I wanted to visit, find a good and clean hotel and she did everything… with my credit card of course. She booked our hotel accommodation on booking.com. For our visits in Bangkok, purchase of Thailand SIM cards and transport cards, she booked them on Klook. She collected the SIM cards and transport cards at the Klook booth at the Bangkok airport.
We pre-paid our visit to the Mahanakhon SkyWalk and Royal Galaxy Chao Phraya river cruise via Klook. For our meals and shopping, Alycia googled for the most happening shopping malls and eateries and we covered at least 10 shopping malls in three days. We moved around mostly by Grab, BTS, Tuk Tuk car, and walked a lot under the scorching sun. I’m now a few shades tanner.
Alycia even wanted to try Grab motorbike but I was strongly against it for safety reasons. I thought that Sherilyn and Cass are dare devils who dare to try everything dangerous to get the adrenaline rush, but I discovered during this trip that my eldest is another fearless and daring young lady. She has transformed a lot from a timid and shy girl to an adventurous and sociable young lady ever since she went to university three years ago.
A day before our trip, Alycia found out that our dates in Bangkok coincided with the Songkran water festival. She warned me that we would get wet but I didn’t give much thought or worry to it. But I was wrong. We were both caught right smack in the middle of the festival and there was no way we could escape it as our hotel (Novotel Platinum) is located in a prime location, which was where the water fights would be held!
It was our very first time immersing in such a festival and we both had a culture shock. Everything that I had read from the news about Songkran in the past was now right in front of my eyes. We were both squirted with water and our faces were swiped with powder by strangers, who would target anyone with dry clothes and clean face. We had to cross an overhead bridge to get across to the other side where all the shopping malls were. The bridge was jam-packed with revellers and we could not even move. People were shooting water everywhere and at everyone. When we saw that the crowds were even bigger and more rowdy at the opposite side, we made a U-turn and returned to our hotel. We had our dinner at the hotel coffee house and then indulged in massage at the hotel.
To be continued…
Bic C is a supermarket where one can find a wide array of snacks. It’s a great place for tourists to shop for Thai snacks. But again, due to our currency depreciation, the things are not cheap at Big C. I’ve not seen anything that’s really cheap in Bangkok. Things are cheaper back home. Nonetheless, I bought a big bag of snacks and had to lug them back to KL on my hand-carry bag as some of the snacks are very fragile.
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