Krabi Trip Part III - Accommodation

We stayed in J Hotel in Ao Nang beach for a good deal - 900 baht per night. We booked online via Booking.com. Due to our budget, it was the cheapest decent accommodation that we could find. It had both good and bad reviews but I decided to give it a try.

My first impression was that the actual room conditions show exactly as its website promised - clean, neat and the furniture looked new too.

   Spacious.

 Lying on the bed.

 We discovered a LOT of mosquitoes hiding in the closet on the day before we leave. It was lucky they didn't come out to hunt.

 I was extremely satisfied with the bathroom - really clean and well-maintained.

 Not much of a view from the balcony but it was okay.

After settling down, time to plan for the activities. :D

The Dandelion

This is a story that I've wrote a while back. I entered a contest and submitted it and didn't keep a copy for myself.. So I figured I'd just post it here to keep it as a remembrance.

Once upon a time, there was a dandelion. She was the happiest dandelion of all because she was very contented with what she had. She lived in the middle of a meadow which extended as far as the horizon went. That was her whole world. She had never been out of the meadow thus she had no idea what was out there. But it didn't matter. She didn't have the slight bit of interest to know anyway.

Every morning she woke up refreshed by the morning dew hanging on her florets. By day she watched the clouds passing by and observed how they transformed into all kinds of shapes. She counted the sheep that came feasting on the grass and be amused as the Australian Shepherd rushed the sheep to go home. By night she gazed at the stars and wondered if the stars were gazing at her as well. And before she went to sleep she smiled to herself and said, "This is how life should be."

One day, there came a little boy. The moment the dandelion set her eyes upon him, she knew immediately she had fallen in love. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. When he laughed she felt that she could listen to this sweet sound for the rest of her life. When he smiled she wished that the time would freeze and she could look at this face forever. The little boy came to the meadow every day. And every day, the dandelion hoped to catch his attention. But there was no way that little boy could notice a four-inch high dandelion. She watched him teased one of the sheep and played with the Australian Shepherd. She watched him ran around the meadow all day without any particular purpose then laughed as he gasped for breath. When night fell, she looked forward to seeing him the next day. And she thought, "This is how life should be."

Then one day, the little boy finally saw the dandelion. He bent over and examined her curiously. The dandelion thought her dream was, after all, becoming true. She felt a sharp pain and before she knew it, she was very far from the ground, held gently in the boy's hands. Her realization crept in - he plucked her from her stem! The little boy was smiling at her. A gush of wind brushed past her and suddenly, her seed parachutes went flying away. The little boy threw what was left of her on the ground and ran excitedly around the seed parachutes. The dandelion landed with a soft thud inaudible to the little boy's ears. She watched helplessly as he ran further and further away. She knew her life was coming to an end. She said to herself, "This is how life should be." She never regret loving that boy. That moment, that brief moment when he held her in his hands - that was the moment she would always remember.

The Chinese-Educated Me

Disclaimer: This post is entirely Tien-inspired, thus all credit (if any) shall go to her and her amazing blog.

If I were to have kids (not that I'm expecting any I assure you, neither am I getting married), I wouldn't know which type of school to send them to - national school (sekolah kebangsaan) or Chinese type national school (sekolah jenis kebangsaan). Mr. Chin said he would like his kids to learn to read and write Chinese. I'd think otherwise - Chinese is not an important language, English is. I told him that those who go to Chinese school like us struggle to learn to speak English fluently. He didn't agree, with an argument that he turned out fine, and that he managed to learn along the way.

But I remember how difficult it was for me to adapt when I moved to an English-speaking medium in secondary school. My big sister was concern about my English speaking ability thus insisted that I go to King George V Secondary School. She went through a lot to get me in, as it was considered as a good school which only the best students deserved. Lacking one A in my UPSR examination, I wasn't one of the best.

I finally got in though, after a few trips to the Education Ministry and getting a recommendation letter from the Minister of Education (my sister somehow knew him briefly). All of my classmates either speak Malay or English, both languages I was uncomfortable of. I was often mocked for my in-proficiency in English. There were a few incidents that I remember vividly - annoyingly vividly.

There was a conversation when my friend had asked me to tell her something (which I forgot), but I must had refused because I said "I don't tell you". She corrected me by saying it should be "I won't tell you". I didn't know that time that "won't" is a contraction of "will not".

There was another conversation when my friend had asked me how did I know of something (which I forgot), I said, "the teacher talked to us" but I actually meant "the teach told us". I forgot to use the word "told". These were only a few of many other embarrassing moments.

You'd probably think at the rate that I was going it could take a miracle for me to have a blog of my own with over 140 posts, in English. I would say three things helped me the most - movies, books and music. And of course a lot of practice with my friends.

I'm not saying that I never benefit from learning Chinese - there are certainly its advantages. I don't regret learning it. I appreciate the Chinese literature and some novels and Japanese manga translated in Chinese. But English is after all, an international language, which I use everyday especially in my job.

I suppose that language is easier to learn at younger age. It's ashamed that we Malaysians are exposed to multiple languages but we can never truly master any one of them.

Krabi Trip Part II - The Food

Pancake

Yes this is the infamous pancake in Krabi town. It tasted somewhat like Malaysia's roti canai, only sweeter (with the condensed milk) and more crispy.

 Yummy! Wished I had more.

 We only ordered one pancake, but they provided us free tea some more. :)

 The shop was located near the caveman traffic light.

It was a regret that we ordered only one piece. So we had another one the next morning near the place we stayed in Ao Nang Beach. But it wasn't the same.

It looked less mouth-watering than the one in Krabi town - it tasted exactly as it looked.


This one was with sardine.

Krabi Town Night Market

The night market that we went to was a smaller one. Seemed that there was a bigger one during weekends. But this one, was sufficient for our hunt for food.

The night market, very much similar to the pasar malam in Malaysia.

Corn - Mr. Chin's favourite.

Mango with glutinous rice - the infamous Thai food.

Our dinner from the night market - pork knuckle, curry chicken with rice.

Aree Ba Ba Thai Restaurant

I read a review on this restaurant from a blog so we decided to try it out. Nothing to shout about really - just a place to eat when you have no better choices.

The menu.

A bamboo environment - very tourist.

How is a Thai meal complete without the coconut? Not my favourite though.

How is a Thai meal complete without the tomyam? Beef tomyam, in this case.

My favourite egg, with chicken - my choice of course. Weird combination I know, and this was not related to Thai food in any way.

All kinds of mushrooms.

Our dinner.

McDonald's in Ao Nang 

A meal in McD was necessary, to fulfill my ambition of trying out all McDs all over the world. The McD in Ao Nang was like a landmark for the tourists because it was easily-spotted and well-known.

 

Fries with cheese - something we don't have here. Reminded me of fries with chili flakes we once had, and which I prefer.

The Samurai Pork burger - how rare for us Malaysians.

Fish fillet burger - it was our intention to order those that we couldn't find in Malaysia McD. And that was all.

The breakfast sets were exactly the same.

A picture with Ronald in "sawatika" was definitely a must.

The Last Breakfast

We stayed in J Hotel in Ao Nang which was more like a guest house actually. We had our breakfast in the hotel on our last day as it was raining and we couldn't really get out.

Breakfasts came with fruits.

Mr. Chin's croissant was hot and yummy.

This was mine. My first bacon in my life, believe it or not.

Drinks

I didn't know what was the normal price for Heineken in Malaysia but I supposed in Thailand it should be cheaper. Thus Mr. Chin bought this.

The mineral water bottle that my hotel provided looked like those of car battery water. Really, at first we didn't dare drink it, but we didn't want to buy new ones either, so in the end we did. Well, we survived.