Honeymoon part 4 - the enjoyments of life... =D

Enough of the rough-it-out adventures... it was time for the darlings to pamper ourselves! At Pai, we decided to find a nice lodge to stay and have a good time chilling out. 7km from the city center, there was a place which had personal hot tubs for the guests as they channeled the thermal hot spring water directly into each of the huts. oooohhh... that sounds GREAT!

but 7km away... the solution: scooter rental! this time though, we each had our backpacks... so we decided to each rent one scooter. no more pillion rider for me this time... but time for some vrooommm-vroooommm!!!! (i did try a little the last time, but just the few hundred meter play-play kind... haha)

daring with his green bike (matches his bag eh?)

and my adorable pink bike!!! so coincidental that we were given a pink one! haha. it would be funny if a guy rents, and realizes that he got a pink bike. LOL.

Our night's stay was at Spa Exotic Home. this was really a nice rustic place... the paths leading to our little bungalows, and a stream running down alongside... ah, so peaceful, so relaxing...

our home for the night. =D

ta-da! the pretty room inside...

and the highlight of all.. the tub for the hot sulfur thermal water! soak-time!!

and time for some nice restaurant food too! (the food at cave lodge was pretty gd, decent too! but just nice to be back into the city, having dinner with more class? heh)

thai pineapple fried rice, tom yum and some stirfried pork

WOAH! guess what??!!!? our 4 good buddies had told us that they were heading to Pai too, and we were just saying back then at Cave Lodge that we may get the chance to meet up again in Pai! Pai is a small place... and we were walking down the street when we caught sight of them at a restaurant! after chilling out at the bar, we crashed over at their hotel and started playing bridge.

what i din mention previously was that we started teaching the 4 of them how to play bridge back in Cave Lodge, and they had gotten addicted to it! and so since then, when they had the chance to sit down and play (like during our meals at cave lodge) it would be 'bridge time'!!! haha

it ended up that we played till 3am... lol. and we finally parted goodbye and took our scooters back to our hotel. that was almost certainly our final goodbye - we were going back to chiangmai the next day, while they had made plans to go kayaking in Pai itself... a little sadness when we parted, but truly real great frens they were, and maybe we'll see one another sometime in the future!!

lonely planet mentioned a night market that is famous for its wide variety of fresh seafood... a tourist trap in a way, but definitely good food!!! nearing the end of our trip, a big meal certainly sounded like a plan!

a simple padthai to start... the good stuff is coming!!!

oooh... black pepper crab!! too bad this was kinda disappointing, cos the crab meat kept on getting stuck to the side of the shell...

now THIS was the amazing one for the dinner... costs a massive 3/4 of our total dinner bill. *gasp* we din realize that is woud be SO expensive initially. but oh well, a splurge here and there doesn't matter, esp for some gd lobster!!!

cant wait to dive into our curry baked lobster!

so good, my darling's lickin' his fingers clean... =)

our last 2 night's stay at Thapae Boutique Hotel- budget, but definitely classy and modern boutique hotel! great value =)

simple but well-chosen designs/furnishing, makes the entire room have a great feel to it. =) i fondly remember the little pillows (the little green on next to fm) stuffed with green tea leaves... hmm, so fragrant!

our last day in chiangmai, we arranged to go on a day trip to the elephant nature park. it's listed as a no 2 highlight in thailand to visit, so we were interested to see what this place had to offer. instead of the usual elephant trekking and riding that many places offer, this is a conservation park, where visitors only feed, bathe and watch the elephant and there was no riding activities.

fm offering the elephant food - pumpkin, bananas or melons, and the elephant reaches out with its trunk, wraps around the food and shoves it into its mouth. the elephants are pretty picky about their food though, definitely showing preferences for some rather than others. Bananas were always welcomed, but pumpkins and melons were sometimes dropped from the trunk deliberately, before picking the pieces again after the feeding basket is empty and they decide that they should probably rummage the stuff on the ground... haha.

me bathing the elephant...

the park also has their own babies - 2 of them in fact, a 2 month old boy (in picture) and a 4 month old girl... awww... babies are always sooo cute!

all in all, the elephant nature park was... well, so-so. there was nothing much to do throughout the whole day actually, with a lot of down time and chilling out. especially considering that we paid quite a hefty sum for the day tour. it's marketed as working for a great cause for these abused elephants... so hopefully the money is put into good use, and really benefitting these animals as promised. =)

came back from the nature park, and spent the night roaming around... chilling out...

view of Singapore as our plane descended down to Changi Airport...

as with any amazing enjoyable vacation with darling, there was definitely longing for the trip to never ever end... but it was time to go home. the 9 days simply passed sooo fast it was unbelievable. nevertheless, it was a super fun honeymoon trip in northern Thailand!

Thailand Honeymoon part 3 - cool, new experiences in the villages and towns

from the city of chiangmai, we took an overnight bus to the village of mae hong son. This is a little place that is great to relax and explore, away from the city buzz.

we arrived in the wee hours of the day, and after walking around the deserted streets aimlessly checking out some of the accommodation, we settled on this new and pretty guest house called the residence. "a cheery bright yellow building" as lonely planet described, this place is run by a couple, pretty friendly and speaks english. the room was very well furnished, simple but classy, just like a boutique hotel.
dropped by the morning market to check it out, and darling caught sight of youtiao (fried chinese dough) and soymilk. of cos he wouldnt give them a miss! (that's him muching happily on his youtiao breakfast)

there was also a store selling nonya-like kuehs, these sticky rice cakes made with different flavors.

mae hong son itself is really really small and there's nothing much to do. the little attractions to go are several miles away and the only way to commute is via motorbikes! of cos, the darlings always welcome new exciting adventures, and so we rented our 2-wheeler and off we went! (it's actually not a motorbike, it's a scooter.) so fm loves this story: at the rental place, this teenage girl came to show us how to operate the scooter. "so kick up the foot stand, press the brakes, then press this button to start engine, ok? both sides handles, press to brake. turn here (the right handlebar) to go. ok? ok. that's it." she went thru as she demonstrated, and then 'class' was over. haha.

but yeah, riding a automatic scooter is super easy. hubby of cos got the hang of it fast, and we were chuggin along the empty roads to start our exploration! there was one car/van/motorbike which would pass us once in a while (cos we were travelling sloooowwwly. lol) or came in the opposite direction. but other than that, the roads were clear.

here's me enjoying the ride behind my dear driver for the day. and snapping away pics and videos =D

in mae hong son there are many many rice padi fields, agriculture being one of thailand's major industries. loved watching as we chugged passed the pretty green padi fields.. we chose one to stop by, so darling could actually appreciate them more than a glimpse, as he tried to concentrate on keeping the scooter on the roads. =P

up close and personal with the rice padi!

our little automatic scooter did us proud by conquering all the huge upslopes, crawling but certainly inching its way up north. we were aiming for the villages up at the thailand-myanmar border. back in the days during the ___________, chinese people fled to taiwan to refuge and some fled over to thailand as well. thus, one can find a small community of chinese-speaking villages.

lunchtime at the village! after a few days of foreign thai written and spoken all around us, we never thought that we would speak chinese in thailand! we walked into a random restaurant - order stirfried homegrown veggies (some leeks or shoots), black chicken herbal soup 炖黑鸡汤, braised pork shoulder (which was HUGE!), and it came with 2 steamed buns 馒头 too! =)=) haha... yummy lunch.

the ride back down south was WAY much easier on our poor little scooter. haha. it was downhill all the way and we hardly used up much of the gas!

a scenic spot along the way - magnificent waterfall. just too bad that we couldn't go down much closer to it cos the area was cordened off. =(

have been waiting for this for the whole day!! MUD SPA! =D mae hong son is apparently the only place that has offers mud spa, and so after a long day of scootering around, this was the last place we headed to for some pampering. first we were painted with the volcanic mud goo and went to a platform to get ourselves dried in the sun. while waiting, the darlings of cos never fail to entertain ourselves by taking all sorts of puppety silly shots. =P and then later on, we got some tamarind scrub and orange facial, ending with a hot thermal water swimming pool soak... woot~!

next morning: before leaving mae hong son and heading to our next stop, we took another short ride down south this time to some hot springs. when we were there, the hot springs turned out to be a set of rectangular swimming pools and there was a ton of construction going around, presumably to upgrade the facility for capturing future tourists.

instead, fm was drawn to the padi fields next door. there was a man at the edge of the padi fields, climbing into the flooded fields, taking some things out of the fields and smashing them with a shovel. We were curious and went over to find out what he was doing. With our 'expert' sign language =P, we managed to get a little conversation going, heh. and he showed us that he was picking out the snails amongst the rice plants and killing them with his shovel. he generously let us wander around on the little mud banks aroudn the fields as he continue diligently with his work.

then we got more daring, and asked if he minded us going into the mud too and helping him for a bit. i guess two little kids wouldnt do much harm rite.. and he grinned and urged us to go try. i would collect our snails till a double-hand full, and went to him with the entire bunch, where he would gladly smash them on the ground. he certainly found some free labor for some good half hour's work!

the (super) hot springs were finally given a short visit as we washed off our muddy hands and feet there. lol. and it was byebye to the springs, our gracious farmer friend and mae hong son...

so the next stop we had decided to go was Pai, this tiny place where one could go enjoy the hot springs, do some caving, chill out at the pubs. so we got onto the bus to head to Pai. Along the way, the bus stopped at this small village town for the regular passenger pick-up/off-load and toilet stop. We noticed the sides of the road littered with many signs for guest houses/hostels/lodges etc. Curious, we looked up our good old lonely planet and realized we were in Suppong. AND... there was a big gray box that screamed right to us: Best place for caving and exploration of the limestone caves.

!!!!!! if we were going somewhere farther for ok caving, why not stop here and do amazing caving?? but were we ready to step into the unknown and simply drop off the bus? deliberation time was actually not too long... did you already guess that we DID IT? yes, we told the confused bus driver that we wanted to stop right there. (he tried so hard to convince us we were not at Pai... =P) so the bus drove off, leaving us and our backpacks behind...

we asked around to find out how we could get to this "Cave Lodge" in Tham Lot village, which was the center where all the outdoorsy activities were organized from. A lady selling fruits at the roadside stand then emptied the back of her pickup truck of fruits, and drove us up (7-9km away) to Cave Lodge, through narrow mud tracks and the heavy drizzle for 300 baht. well, not too bad, we managed to get to our destination!

we were greeted by friendly faces who asked us to first put down our stuff around the common place (there were a small crowd of pple sitting around) and asked us to order our dinner first, before we settle the rest of the stuff. already, we got the first sense of Cave Lodge being quite like a mini self-sufficient activity center. there were hand written board plastered all over the place, including the food/drink menu. and there were photos/notes/everything tacked/pasted on the walls of the 'reception' place. a lot of them were about john, the guy who discovered the caves and set up the cave lodge itself, his adventures and experiences.

the kitchen/reception area:

dinner was ordered, and we wandered around to look at the posters around, some were describing the bird sightings in the area, the one-day trips available to the long-neck tribe villages, the caves, etc. There were several treks/cavings options available, and water rafting trips too.

The common area. note the sides filled with various posters... there was also a ping pong table (bottom left side of picture)

there was also a wooden swing for little girls like me to play! ^_^

Chatting up with some of the other guests, we learnt that one group just did the full day trek+caving and loved it. They definitely highly recommended that we take up one of those trips.

We then chose our room, decided on the smaller cheaper one since we weren picky abt it. just a few steps from the common place, this little hut was our home for the next 2 nights.

me and our bed, comes complete with a mosquito net, nice!

That night, we found out that another group of people had just arrived that evening too, and were planning to take the trek/caving trip too. so we discussed about it and agreed to form a group together. They were a bunch of 4 Lithuanians, 3 medical students and a lawyer, taking a one month summer vacation here in thailand (so long!!! jealous!!) easy-going , fun loving people, similar age as us, and we quickly got along well!

so the next morning, we met for breakfast, and were off on our expedition!

hubby all pumped, ready to go!

with our new-found friends and the guide (fm was taking the pic)

it was off to a cool start, we walked through plantations growing sesame and corn... and as we trekked along, the guide would (via sign language) point out interesting things to us, like ginger plants, pine and teak trees that are often used for furniture (the wood smells amazing!)

dwarfed amongst the tall corn plants...

REAL corn!

yes! we reached our first cave! burrowed down from a tiny little entrance which then opened up into a big cavern. there were broken parts of wooden coffins lying around in the caves. in the past, the tribal people would bring their dead to the caves, just like they did in China.

darling with our 4 Lithuanian frens... all geared up with the helmet and headlamps. (it was actually dark inside the caves, the flash doesn't do much justice to the actual atmosphere in the caves. the helmets were very important to save our heads from all the big crashes into the cave sides/roof, and of cos, the headlamps were crucial to shining the path ahead!)

out from first cave, and trekking along to the 2nd cave... and this was the sad state our shoes were already in... bleahz. =P

O-M-G... we were certainly NOT told that we were gonna immerse in water...... down went the shoes, first muddy, now wet!!!!

us definitely having fun, the shoes were, well, not so happy... too bad. ^_^

trudging through the cave, waddling in water...

the explorers in action!

definitely a true caving experience this was... no signs of touristification like boardwalk/planks, spotlights etc! it was uneven rocks/boulders, low ceilings at times, running water... we were grabbing on to the rocks and boulders for balance and support, and even at times went down to all fours!

this was the 4th and last cave, the christmas cave cos it's festive white!! pretty stalactites!

wandering through the caves, enjoying the view...

at the end of all this... oh boy were we muddy, muddy, muddy..... =P

EXTREMELY fun n exciting trip. so thankful that we made that quick and decisive move to drop off that bus at Suppong to make it to this!

(we also went on the kayaking trip the next day, and it was pretty fun too! too bad we were kayaking, so no pictures... =( darling and i shared a double, and we were with another 2 guys on the trip. kayaking down a number of rapids. some were actually quite fierce and tough... and we also kayaked thru a cave... =D)

so that's it for Tham Lot and Cave Lodge adventures! next up, finally... on towards our initial destination 2 days ago... Pai!

Honeymoon part 2 - the excitement begins!

Rise and shine to our first full day in thailand! we woke up early to get ready for our van pick-up. packed our bags and checked out of our hotel. today we were going white water rafting!

We had booked the "Wet gibbon" 2D1N package, which had white water rafting + zipline dual adventure. The white water rafting was with this company called siam adventures. we definitely had a great time - it was well organized, the route was pretty good, and the people were nice and fun.

the route down the rapids...

together with us on the wet gibbon was an american mother with her 14-yr-old daughter. they were really fun pple too, and together, we were on the same raft and we definitely was the noisiest, craziest raft out there on the rapids! (there were 2 other rafts with us, just doing the rafting, not the zipilne thingy)

us paddling with much zest, all ready for the rapids!

*AHHHH~!!!!* ^_^

and a high-five for a good job done!

also, during the calmer part of the river, the mother and I lunged for our guide to push him over the raft into the river. haha. he happily went overboard, but not without dragging the 2 of us together into the water!! hahaha...
the little girl was next to get thrown overboard (by fm) and fm himself was later pulled over (and willingly jumped off) the raft. heh. oooh... fun times. =D

the 2D1N package included a village homestay. we were definitely looking forward to meeting the villages and living kampung-style! we were led to our hosts for the night. It was a cute little couple, probably in their 50s? When we got there, they were just starting to prepare dinner. it was a little awkward initially, cos we spoke no thai, and they spoke no english. with the help of the wordlist at the back of lonely planet, we managed to barely introduce ourselves, and got to know their names. also, with the ever universal sign language, we learnt of some of the ingredients of our dinner too! haha.

auntie chopping up the stuff for the soup.

the soup, almost ready! meatballs, fishballs, sausages, pork, cabbage, bamboo shoots altogether to make it pretty rich..

uncle bbq-ing the beef satay over the traditional charcoal stove.

dinnertime! we sat outside at their porch area. simple nice dinner, though it was a little disappointing that our host couple did not eat with us. auntie sorta indicated to us that he was not eating dinner (or maybe it was that he oredi ate dinner, something liddat), and auntie was serving us the food, and getting topups of everything when it was going low (we told her to stop after once, cos we were full!!) but auntie was nice, i like her. =)

also together with the package included a thai massage at night after dinner! yay! i ADORE massages! =D=D=D *hint HINT to hubby!*

hubby splattered on the floor enjoying his massage

anyone knows what i'm playing with? birds and frogs folded from dried bamboo leaves! after our massage, auntie brought our a bag of dried bamboo leaves, and signaled for us to crowd around. she had a sample of the folded frog and started teaching us how to make them! =) haha... darling and i were terrible at it. =P we had continuously ask her for help after she showed us several times. oh, we learnt a useful word for the origami process: "noi" was thai for 'pull', cos we needed to pull the leaves hard to make the frog snug and tight. and also, the bird-frog combi was nice, cos the bird eats the frog (that's what i'm doing in the picture!) haha... forgot the thai words for 'bird eats frog' liao. *oops*

a happy family! thank you auntie and uncle for being such great hosts!

bedtime! we had our own little room, simple but nice setup with the mattress, pillows and blanket.

next morning we woke up early to the aggressive and non-stop croo-ing of the roosters. haha. there was no way we could have overslept!! and auntie was up and about prepping breakfast by the time we showered and got to the kitchen.

the stirfry veggie+sausage with porridge cooking on the stove

breakfast time! we also had fried eggs and yummy persimmons. (my hair is unglam-ly uncombed and wet. =P)

we had sometime before we were supposed to go, and auntie brought out the bamboo leaves again! this time we taught us how to fold the bird (yesterday she only folded them and gave to us), and also fold fishies. =D haha. in the end, we were so caught up with it that we ran late and had to rush up to pack our stuff when the guy came to pick us up. oops...

some parting shots - our home for a day

darling bringing down our stuff from the bedroom, we thanked auntie for her hospitality, gave her a little thank you note (we simply copied 'thank you' in thai and signed off. =P) and gave her a singapore 10-dollar note as a souvenir. haha. it was pretty cute that she said yusof ishak was handsome!

the start of our ziplining adventures - called the 'Flight of the Gibbon'. Gibbons are a endangered ape species and there is a colony of them living around the forest in that area, that's why the name

put on our harnesses and helmets, and we're ready to rock!

whee~!!!!! there were 2 instructors with us, one guarding the front of the group, and one at the back. so the first instructor will zip across first, to be at the end to receive each of us as we came thru. while the other will be dispatching us at the start. =) everything was very well organized and professionally run.

the happy four - us with our american mother-daughter friends

the instructors will make silly poses while zipping, so we tried to imitate them! heehee. =) i love this pic! haha. such a GREAT gibbon i was!

there were over 10 ziplines, a couple of suspension bridges and a few rappelling stations, so it was not boring doing all ziplines, after ziplines. =)

hubby dangling in midair, posing before the plummeting-down starts. ^_^

some of the ziplines were pretty cool. they designed them so that two pple can do in tandem. this one was 2 of us on a single zipline. there was another that we were on 2 separate and parallel ziplines, but we zipped across together. fun~~

lovers unite. =D this was the last station of the entire course: rappelling down to ground level and disembarking. (courtesy of the instructors who took our cameras and helped us take pictures all throughout the course)

Honeymoon part 1 - Darlings in Chiangmai, Thailand!

The much awaited pictures are here! There's gonna be a few parts to this... i'll aim to make one post once every few days, once every week or so. patience!! ^_^

so after the whole big bang on 080809, we chilled out for a few days and off we went to Northern Thailand for the little honeymoon trip! Chiangmai was the destination of choice, cos both of us had unused krisflyer mileage from all the various traveling which would otherwise expire and go to waste. Singapore Airlines was having this promotion and for 50% of the mileage, there were a few choices we could go, and Chiangmai was our pick.

Arrival in Chiangmai! Dropped by a guest house (referring to our dear Lonely Planet), got a room, dumped our bags, and we were off to start our exploration.

First stop: Doi Suthep, the number one temple that tourists go seesee, cos of its nice surroundings and lookouts from the temple which is perched up on top of a mountain. Took a sǎwngthǎew (red pickup truck= shared taxi) to the entrance of the temple for 50 baht/person.

Us at the bottom of the steps of Doi Suthep. Ready, get set, climb!

hubby at the top of the steps
there were many bells/gongs around to hit, presumably for good luck/blessings.

this one's a huge GONG!

the view from the temple on top of the mountain

done with Doi Suthep on we also went around to several temples within the Chiangmai Old City itself. the temples are generally super gold-ified, the temple building itself, the Buddha statues etc. and the Buddha statues stood tall and high, simmering in the lights. definitely awed the visitors who come by every day.

throughout the day, we went around the streets, through the grocery and food stores (just like the more olden singapore 'wet markets') this is a typical example:

love being in a tropical country - fruits, fruits everywhere. there were always fruits stands along the streets selling cool cut fruits (laid on top of ice beds). dragonfruit, papaya, watermelon, melon, grava, so so many kinds, each packet only 10 baht. of cos, we happily nibbled on fruits the entire day. =)

OOH! darling kissed a fish! bought a grilled mackeral or some fish from one of the stalls selling grilled food.

and of cos, tuk tuks are always fun to ride! one of the major means of transportation, the tuktuk is a small taxi that is a motorbike attached with a wagon behind for passengers. the drivers always weave around the traffic, and find little alleys and streets to drive thru to get you to the destination!

guess what? thailand has roti prata too! they call it rotee there. but the strangest thing is that they put all sorts of topping onto theirs, and at least the one that we had, "Rotee with egg and milo" had sugar, condensed milk, together with the milo generously spread on top of the egg roti prata. it was.. well, interesting. =P

since we're there as tourists, it's sorta ok to go to some of the tourist traps i suppose? ^_^ in the old chiangmai cultural center, they have the khantoke dinner which is a traditional thai dinner, accompanied with a show of the classical thai dances and tribal routines.

us with our dinner in front of us

from right (clockwise): fried chicken, pork curry (i thot it was more of a stew), stirfry veggies, ground pork with tomato chilli paste, fried pork skin, fried banana, rice krispies. center: raw cucumbers/cabbage
we also had chicken soup, and accompanying sticky and steamed rice, and ending with fruits.

one of the tribal dances

they also asked for audience participation in one of the dances. haha. see me on stage? =P

that ended the first day in chiangmai, just mainly going around and chilling out in the city. =) the exciting stuff is soon to come! stay tuned!

the deal is sealed - 1st month after

it's been quite a long time, 2 months since we had any time to update our blog. it's been such a busy and eventful time. But these several weeks have definitely felt short. everything simply went by so incredibly fast. and i write today a different status - "a married woman", as my boss had been teasing me several times.

how has married life been? pretty good, nothing too much. i've expanded my vocabulary of words to call fm, since now he's the 'hubby'. and he's been enjoying the luxury of calling me mrs koh. haha. As our family and frens have seen from the photo montage and such at our banquet, it's been a journey for us so far. long, fun, exciting, ardous, heartbreaking, u name it. and we've come out of it stronger, and i'm so so happy to have him in my life, so proud of us having survived thru all the ups and downs. nothing best describes how i treasure this relationship, how blessed i feel. and of cos, the wedding day itself was a blast, a truly memorable day to mark the milestone in our lives.

otherwise, everything's still the same... life goes on. and in fact, after the whirlwind trip of prepping for the wedding, the big day, and the honeymoon after, it's back to the realities of life. back to cal, back to lab. it's especially hard after the craziness of it all. =P hard to get the engines started, but it's gotta be done. haha.

thanks to everyone for your well wishes, and for sharing our joy in our union. =)

with love,
jas