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The day before our departure, I made sure we were up early and ready to seize the day. By 10.00 a.m to be exact A van was waiting downstairs to take us to the Doi Suthep Temple and the Meo Tribal Village.

A quickie in the van:

Since it was non-peak season, we got an entire van all to ourselves for only RM100.

Our first destination was to the Meo Tribal Village located right up in the hills. The drive up to the tribal village was amazing. Minus the curving roads, we could feel the temperatures drop and the scenery only got better as we peaked the hill.

The Meo or Hmong tribal folks are usually clad in blue, black and red tribal costumes, decked in silver ornaments which you can also buy in their market.

Even little traditional baby clothes were on sale and I must say I was quite tempted to buy one but figured it might fade after 2 years of waiting to be worn, so I let that one go, haha.

This tribal village could have been better if they had some cultural show or gave us some briefing. It was however, an interesting stop for some Hmong shopping eg: hand woven clothes, tribal costumes, bags etc. Only wish we could have explored the long neck tribal village too but the 2 hour drive was quite a put off.

The beautiful garden was the one thing that truly stood out in the village.

Besides the thorn

Little Hmong children, super cute with their rosy cheeks!

Ok la this one not so cute

After about an hour, the driver took us to Doi Suthep temple. Free entrance for the locals but a small fee charged for farangs.

The Buddha statues came in every color, to Buddhas made of gold and brass, in many forms and position – it was so calming and peaceful.

The entire view from the temple

By the time we were done with the temple, it was already close to 2pm. We told the driver to take us to the Chiang Mai City Arts & Cultural Centerfor a quick visit.

Later that night, we headed to the Sunday Night Bazaar which is definitely a must go when in CM. The massive long stretches of stalls after stalls selling all kinds of knick knacks was truly over-whelming. And I wasn’t the only one who did all the shopping

Just the thought of leaving CM made it hard to pack and sleep that night

Sipping and savouring my last glass of Thai Iced Tea before boarding, woe woe

Don’t laugh…..that’s what I call being a responsible citizen ok It was the husband’s idea.

And that was the end of our little short CM adventure.

We’re definitely planning a whole month of Thai Adventure next year. Till then………shall miss Thailand.

This weekend, we wanted to stay at home, watch lots of TV and just have a quiet lazy one.

The advantage of staying put at home is that, I got to finally try out a couple of recipes from my new cook book that I bought recently.

For some odd reason, the Hubby was itching to do some cooking so I let the man.

Friday Night dinner:

Although these were from a pre-mix, ahem, I still appreciate the effort. Especially after coming home from work all tired. On top of that, he even did all the dishes while I watched TV. Sweet!

On Saturday, he woke up with such strong desires and determination to make me breakfast. So who I am to stop the man if he wants to play Jamie Oliver and pamper me that way. He even made a good cup of tea which he brought and served me in bed. Talk about good service :))

Saturday night dinner:

Straight out from my new cook book, I managed to make a tasty dish of Parmesan Chicken with Garlic Butter. It had all his 3 favorite items in it – chicken, cheese, garlic – nuff said

Sunday lunch:

Spicy Fried Rice

Thai-Style Chicken Cakes

I actually had a lot of fun making this and I’m proud that it came out good so I’ll share the recipe :)No need to pay RM12 for the book

What you’ll need:

Minced Chicken
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon cornflour
3 tablespoon red curry paste
Finely chopped spring onions
Finely sliced green beans
Chopped fresh coriander
1 chopped red chilli (optional)

In a big bowl, mix minced chicken, cornflour and egg. Combine all the remaining ingredients and mix with clean hands until combined. Using wet hands, roll the mixture into balls. Flatten to form round patties. Add some oil to heavy-based pan. Cook chicken cakes for 5 minutes each sides or until cooked through. Drain on paper towels and serve with sweet chilli sauce.

Totally love this!

Will post the rest of the CM pictures up soon.

By the time we got ourselves ready, it always already close to afternoon. Half a day had gone by and I blame it on our inability to wake up any time before 12pm on a weekend. It’s a disease that’s hard to cure (unless we’re back in Ipoh, boo).

We decided on a restaurant recommended by dad for lunch and have no regrets going there. Infact we dined there twice because the fried rice and green curry soup was simply divine! Cuisine in this northern part is slightly different, they tend to shy away from coconut milk so if you ask for your curries, it will most likely come in soup form Not that I’m complaining. Good stuff good stuff….

After much enquiring on the types of activities we could do, we picked the river tour so we could have a romantic boat ride to get a better glimpse of CM. The one thing that I regret not doing is bungee jumping, which was priced at RM170 per jump. Well I would have……if I only brought proper shoes! We also missed out on the flight of gibbon package which was highly recommended by AXN. Woe Woe.

Longing for a Thai Gf? She love you long timeee!

The boat ride took a slow 40 minutes before it came to a halt at this little farm place that grows all kinds of Thai herbs and fruits.

Lunch! I kid, looks like us when we sleep on weekends so peaceful…..so cute……so deep in sleep….so lazy……like us

Jakuns looking at herbs and fruits upclose. Guess it happens when you’re city folks, folks!

See that harem pants like I’m wearing? Who cares if I look like a fisherman’s daughter la, I swear these are the comfiest pants ever and I’m officially making em my holiday pants. Bought 4 in different colors in the market for only RM17 each Happy camper!

If this place looks familiar then yes this was the exact place where Rambo was filmed.

Temple by the river side

Cute?

Piggie-eater had an early dinner before we were off to the night safari. Best to feed difficult ones ample food so they don’t end up whining and complaining.

But first – let him have his massage.

Then apple pie with a BIG glass of Iced Chocolate. Actually, that’s mine

Yes the piggie-eater eats a pork burger from MCDs in this picture. Obviously looking at the cute wild boar earlier didn’t make any difference.

We had earlier booked a package to the night safari so a cute little Zebra striped van picked us up and within 30 minutes we arrived.

The laser on water show was spectacular! This was as good as the laser show I saw in USA.

Couldn’t take pictures with flash because they obviously will make the animals restless but I’ll tell the story soon on one fool who defied it all.

I think we saw about 40 different animals in total. Really surreal to see zebras, giraffes and deers stand a few inches from our tram. As I was sitting at the side, it did occur to me what would happen if the animal goes wild and attacks.

Now, I’ve read many good reviews about this place and lots of commenter have said that this night safari beats the kiasu crap out of Singapore’s night safari. Since I have not stepped into the SG one who am I to compare. But all I can say is, this was really entertaining and we enjoyed it like a bunch of 5 year olds! Totally worth RM50 each.

A beer and a hearty supper before bed time, only because he behaved, haha.

Chiang Mai
14th August – 17th August 2009

Once upon a time in my blog, right after the Phuket trip, I said we’d try to pay a visit to Chiang Mai and that’s exactly what we did for the past 4 days.

As we arrived, the cheeky husband was keen to see me kiss the ground because CM is my maternal grandma’s hometown. Guess I can now strike that off my before 30 list yea My grandmama came to Malaysia with my grandma when she was quite young.

My ignorance had made me believe that CM would be more village-like. If my grandma was still alive I’m sure she’d give me a tight slap for being so ignorant, hehe. As we travelled towards our hotel, it was clear that it wasn’t and we were quite amazed at how clean the streets were with a river in the middle dividing both roads –now what a unique brilliant layout.

See…..just like any other town in Thailand.

Hubby and Baby Marc J checking into Royal Princess Hotel – a 4 star hotel with a price of a 3 star and service of a 5 star hotel! This is the same place my parents stayed during their visit in December.

We decided we’d keep the landmark visits for the next two days and took the songthaew to Airport Plaza (one out of two malls in CM) for some walking around.

Half way through our ride, we heard a loud piercing shriek and we both panicked. It sounded like a damsel in distress which turned out to be a passing truck full of pigs, stacked on each other, shrieking away probably off to the slaughter house since 95% of meat consumption here is pork. Felt so sick to my stomach and swore I’d stay off pork! Can’t say it was the same with a certain piggie-eater and I have pictures as proof

Incase you didn’t already know, my husband is a part time designer with his own label and store in Thailand.

LOL. NOT!

Ananda is a famous Thai actor; if he looks familiar then you’ve probably seen him in the hit Thai horror movie called Shutter. And if you haven’t then you should.

After stocking up on items to bring home (read: more thai food for the next few months!), we went back to the hotel to drop our stuff and had a relaxing hour of foot massage. Total damage – only RM15 each (what damage?!), suffice to say both our feet (and wallet!) felt like we were in heaven

Thailand, besides the food and its lady boys is also famous for its rows and rows of endless bazaar and markets and of course CM is no different. Each vendor starts as early as 5pm and close around 11 p.m. This routine goes on everyday mind you. Eh speaking of lady boys you hardly see any here.

View from the room: setting up of stalls @ 5pm. We had the luxury of having the nightly bazaar right in front of our hotel.

Dinner was at the Kalare Food Court where we got to see a free cultural show. Beats having to pay RM50 for a Khantoke dinner and cultural show which my parents had gone and complained about the food.

Thai healthy version of chicken satay and sauce

Tom yam soup

A truly authentic Chiang Mai dish – fresh egg noodles with chicken curry. Mmmmm, nice! What can I say, it was delicious and I miss it already.

We did more walking around in the bazaar and the streets nearby looking at all the pretty handicraft before deciding to go for a drink. Yes just one drink each, lol Although some pubs offer cocktails as cheap as RM7-15, we were not so much in the mood for drinks because CM as the piggie-eater puts it just didn’t have that drinking environment, lol which wasn’t a bad thing really. Although it was non-peak, the place was filled with mat sallehs, mostly couples with family. It was very unlike the frenetic party atmosphere of Phuket.

Piggie-eater who drank beer and took a sip of my Mai Tai

Madameee, will you be mine…..

No?

How about now?? Chan rak ter

This husband can be quite the joker when he wants to be la.

And with one rose in his mouth (no thorns fret not), that was the end of Day 1.

We were totally beat and went to sleep early (by our standards 1 a.m is considered early on a Friday night!) with the promise of waking up early in the morning on Saturday.

Lately it feels like it was only yesterday that I turned 21, like it was only yesterday that I was a size 0, like it was only yesterday that I graduated from Uni and started work, like it was only yesterday that we met and got married, like it was only yesterday…….

While all this has happened in the span of 7 years, why does it feel like it was only yesterday?

Time feels like it’s moving faster as we age and I can’t for the love of life understand why. I’m sure I’ll be hitting the big 3-0 before even knowing it. Like it’s just going to creep up from behind and say – surprise bitch, you’re THIRTY now so start acting your age!

Not only will the Number 2 be a distant memory, getting older also means one step closer to saggy boobs, wider hips and everything else! I’m already complaining of back aches ok.

Before my body starts failing me one by one, I want to do a few things to celebrate my 20s (or rather welcome my 30s).

In no particular order:

1. BUNGEE JUMP! The closet thing I’ve got to floating in air was parasail in Thailand and I loved it. Bungee jumping is probably the most adrenaline pumped sport one can ever do and i’d be damned if I don’t do this.

2. Have space cake in Amsterdam. Only because I have NEVER done any sort of drugs so this will be a one off totally harmless stint You what know would be more awesome? Having your cake and bungee jumping at the same time! Now that’s what I call killing two birds in one stone

3. To be more serious with my career because I find myself having no career plan whatsoever. Like if anyone asks me where do I see myself in 5 years time, career wise, I would say I DON’T KNOW! All I know is I don’t intend to stay in Corporate Banking for too long. The husband has plans of having his own business in OZ so time to seriously think what to do and if we can suceed in that. One thing for sure, I’d definitely want to continue working.

4. See the world more – okay, traveling I’ve realized is something that NO one can take away from you because it’s etched permanently in your mind, forever. No matter what you buy now it will be forgotten, replaced and be even left behind. But the places you’ve visited, the culture you’ve experienced, seen with your own eyes, touched with your own hands, pictured in your head, romantic moments spent there, those memories are the ones that will forever stay. And that is something no one can take it away from you, even when you’re dead and gone. So jiwang but makes a lot of sense.

5. Personal mission to visit my ancestors home / roots, just to see what’s so bad about the country that they insisted on leaving it to come here

6. LEPAK like a bum. I’ve always been drawn to Thailand, even as a child. The husband has partially said yes to a one month stay there before we go off to Oz. It would be fun just to do nothing for one whole month leading a hippie life style

I haven’t forgotten our 7 Wonders of the World Adventure, but that would probably take a life time to complete.

I just realized none of it involves anything material. But if I really had to choose, I really would like a LV bag. I’m still a girl after all :))

What about you guys? Anything you want to achieve before you turn 30? Or the next milestone age?