Road Trip - Thailand.

Hello!

(basically this has been sitting in my "draft" folder since like two weeks ago. >< ) 

First off: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAYLOR SWIFT! Thank you for being so amazing and inspirational, for about 5 years I have looked up to you for so many reasons. Continue to make music and impact the world as you have now. I cant wait for your 5^th album! It’s gonna be great. And do come back to Singapore. I promise Cheryl and I will go FULL OUT to get into the T-party. Lots of love from Singapore!!

Okay. Now to the real stuff.  Haha

Sorry this is kinda late again, didn’t really have the time to blog about anything whilst I was up in Thailand with my family and all that. I’m currently on the flight back to Singapore. Feels good to be going home after time away in a country quite unfamiliar to me. Plus, CCIS starts tomorrow (for me at least) and I’m so excited to see all my mates again ^^. (miss them to bits)

some of the CCIS people.
CHARLENE DIDNT WANT TO BE IN IT :(
(i miss you all)

I hope that you’ll indulge me in sharing with you what I learnt and realized from the trip instead of doing the usual day by day kind of diary thing I usually do. J

From the start, I was actually quite reluctant to go up since I would be compromising time that I could spend with friends playing music and basically having fun along the streets of orchard road, sharing about the Christmas story and all that. (They told me that wifi was probably not available too, so that made me more reluctant) However, after the entire trip, I cant say that the semi “wifi-detox” was bad.

Equipped with a Sony A230 courtesy of my aunt, we set off to the land of smiles.

clouds. 

The thing about Thailand that I’ve realized is that while things here are quite inexpensive, some of the people here can barely afford that. I was quite fascinated by how the Thais lived their lives. Outside the hotel we were staying at, there would be rows and rows of shops run by locals trying to earn some cash. To my surprise, they never did harass us for money or food. Even beggars merely sat nonchalantly on the ground, cups in hand, some with children. They accepted life for what it was, even if it wasn’t the best.

hotel room

We spent a few days shopping here and there, as one should when in Thailand, buying mountains of shirts, dresses and twelve pairs of socks. (Basically they sold 4 pairs of socks for about 4 Singapore dollars, and my mum felt the need to contribute to the economy in Thailand through the large purchase of socks.) Walking around the streets of Thailand also showed me things that mass media would never be able to properly portray on screen.  Children were carefree, playing around in abandoned telephone booths, their primary purpose changed from a means of communication to a source of entertainment for the younger generation. The kids didn’t seem to mind when bugs would crawl or strays would come to accompany them during meal times.

This lead me to think about how they learnt to live alongside nature and all that, striking a slight balance between keeping the vicinity of their country business like and serious, and yet a place where weeds and grass were free to grow. Maybe it’s just me, but I suddenly felt that Singapore was too organized. Children are told not to play along the paths both because of hygiene and safety reasons, we don’t get to learn through actual experience. Dogs get chased away instead of welcomed because of the diseases that they may carry with them. Maybe it’s me, but I feel like maybe we see ourselves as beings much higher than living organisms even though we’re pretty much the same. We all want love, shelter, warmth, a family, and friends. So who are we to deny others of these rights?

Something else I discovered, was that Bangkok was really different. (I know what you’re thinking. “duh dumb ass, it’s an entirely different country”)  Compared to Singapore, I felt like their cultures and traditions were more deeply rooted in the people than Singapore’s culture. Hawkers would sell food that was uniquely Thailand. Thai people were selling Thai food. Rarely did you see any Thais trying to sell Norwegian or Icelandic dishes. In Singapore we see different people cooking various dishes, not necessarily from their own culture. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; sometimes fusion of flavours is good. But I guess I was pretty flummoxed when a thai was cooking Thai food and not someone else. It tasted really good though.

FOOD. <3

(sidenote: I’m in the plane and we just hit turbulence. If I don’t make it, whoever gets this please post it to my blog. It would be much appreciated. Thanks )

Anyways, while looking around, I also realized that The Thais in Bangkok had to

Juggle having to keep their own traditions and cultures alive while coping with

the ever-changing world due to globalization. Many of their signs were in

English or Mandarin, rather than in Thai like one would expect. Honestly I was

rather shell-shocked when I realized there were no less than 5 Starbucks cafes

within a five mile radius from the hotel I was staying in.  This made me wonder if

the impact of globalization has in fact stripped away a portion of Thailand’s rich

culture.

After a few days of appeasing the shopping Gods, we took a roadtrip up to hua

Hin. Basically it was a 3 hour drive up to a fairly new tourist location, one that t

The government was trying to promote as a “beach getaway”. Well… there was a

Beach, but I felt the need to “getaway” from the beach rather than to the beach.

Yeah, I’m not really a “long walks on the beach” person. :/ But there was Wifi, so

I came out alive. The family spent nights watching movies like white house down and Mr bean’s holiday. (Joey king and channing tatum, shit down my throat omg)

Hua Hin was also something different. Since we were staying about 40 minutes away from the town center, we had to travel by bus to the mall to allow my mother to buy various things. The stuff sold there were pretty commercial, so there wasn’t anything much to see or buy.

paradise.

At the end of the day, Thailand was quite an eye opening experience. I felt like not only was a good time away from the busy and hectic Singaporean lifestyle, but it also gave me a chance to catch up with some family friends who also went on the trip with us.

we went to the beach too

the bulk of the time in Hua Hin was spent just relaxing and being with family. We cooked dinner and celebrated a birthday too! basically, given a chance, i would totally do it again, even though wifi was limited and there wasn't much to do. hahah

making the birthday cake

end product.
(aka. butter cake and nutella)

family photo :)

Alrighty, the plane’s about to land, so I shall stop here. By the time you read this I should be safe and sound at home, trying to make this more interesting by adding pictures. Catch you next time, guys :) 

weird face of the week.
(i actually have a whole lot of them now in my computer. well. )

Best wishes,

Audrey.