Thailand Trip

Just came back from Thailand a few days ago (for reading week) and absolutely loved it!  It was pretty hot and sticky but the beach was super nice (finally experienced a tropical beach), food was good and cheap and shopping was super cheap!  I'm having trouble shopping in HK now, things seem so expensive here.  What am I gonna do when I go home?

I took sooo many pictures, you can see all of them in my Picasa albums here.  Here's some of the highlights of my trip:

Parasailing

Once I heard that there would be "water activities" in Thailand I immediately was hoping that there was parasailing.  Luckily for me there was, and for super cheap ($10 CAD for one round, about 2 mins).  I really really loved it, although after a while staying up in the air got kinda boring... I really regretted not bringing my camera after I got down :(  Check out the video of my "liftoff":

From 10.02.27 - Thailand Day 2

Banana boat

I absolutely LOVED the banana boat ride.  At first I was hesitant and didn't want to do it because you just sit on a banana shaped flotation device, it seemed kinda boring.   A bunch of my friends wanted to do it though so I decided to try it too, it was cheap after all ($10 CAD).  I'm so glad I went because it was so so fun!  A bunch of people (max 5) sit on the "banana boat" and you get dragged by a really fast jetski.  It's so fun just bouncing up and down over the waves and the water was sooo beautiful.  After a while the jetski will make a sudden 90 degree turn which makes the banana boat flip over and flings everyone off.  Luckily we saw that happen to the previous group so we were somewhat prepared; we even tried yelling "NO FLIP!!" to the driver but he probably didn't hear or understand English :P Oh well, after the first fall the second one was more fun =)

No pictures of us on the banana boat :( I have one or two pics on my waterproof disposable, still have to develop the pics!

Elephant ride

Elephant ride was really cool, especially because you can feel the elephant's bones in its neck moving as it walked since your feet are right there.  The scary/nervous part was when the "driver" got off to take pictures of us but told the elephant to keep walking.  Ahh!

Ferry ride with the locals

On the last day of the tour we decided to break off from the tour to explore Bangkok on our own, since we haven't really seen the sights of Thailand (it was mostly an activities & shopping tour).  From our hotel we took a ferry to "downtown" Bangkok to see the Grand Palace (where the Thai King lives).  The ferry was very confusing, there's one dock and ferries from both directions dock there.  However they don't really dock.  There's one guy standing on the edge of the boat holding the boat to the dock with a rope and you just climb in.  Then once the ferry starts moving again the guy on the edge comes around and makes you pay.  Only 16 baht, or about $0.50 CAD.


Here's my mini video-log taken on the ferry:

From 10.03.01 - Thailand Day 4

Grand Palace

The Grand Palace was insane.  Every building was built with so much detail, it was AMAZING.  Also the temple of the emerald buddha was covered, and I mean COVERED with gems and jewels.


Eating

Food is sooo cheap in Thailand.  One of the days we got a $200 baht voucher for a food court and the "food court" is actually really nice!  There were tons of cuisines to choose from and each dish was about $40.  We ate soo much that night, way more than we can finish.  Felt bad but I really wanted to try all this different stuff! For $200 I got pad thai, omlette rice, beef ball skewer, Thai shaved ice dessert, thai iced milk tea and fresh fruit shake.  RIDICULOUS.

My favourite meal though was Pad Thai that we had on the street in a market.  I love love love Pad Thai and I felt that eating from the street vendors was as authentic as I could get, and it was SO GOOD!  They put an egg on top and had the noodles under.  Portion was quite small but it was sooo flavourful (but not overwhelming) and delicious.  Loved it!

Also, I am extremely addicted to Thai iced milk tea.  It's basically iced milk tea but alot sweeter (I think with condensed milk).  I'm so sad there isn't any here.  Apparently my friends from the States say they have it there.... why Canada why???

Oh, and every item in 7-11 was so cheap.  Pocky was about $0.50 CAD, popcicles/ice cream bars (ie. drumsticks) were from $0.50-0.75 CAD each.  I ate on average 2 a day (one day I had 3) ._.

We also tried this "deep fried roti with condensed milk, egg, bananas and chocolate sauce".  OMG. Can't even describe.  It was like a crunch pastry with a banana wrapped inside, and drizzled with condensed milk and chocolate sauce.  About $1.25 CAD. SO good.

MISTER DONUT.  Apparently it's a Japanese donut chain.  So so good, these ball-y donuts I think are made of some kinda mochi ingredient so when you eat it it's bouncy and chewy. SOO GOOD!

Shopping

Shopping was super cheap, way cheaper than Hong Kong but surprisingly better quality.  We spent a few hours at the night market which was HUGE, we couldn't even get through half of it.  Everything was really cheap, but it felt expensive because the Thai baht is 30:1 Canadian dollar.  Souvenirs and candy was cheap, I bought lots of mango and durian candy :P

 Don't forget there are more pics on my Picasa photo albums!