Tag Archives: taxis

What Doesn’t Make the Buses Beautiful

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I do not want to ride the yellow tourist bus(es) ever again. Ever. I know it’s wonderful to be able to do it here in Argentina—an option most people don’t receive—but it’s not very enjoyable to sit on a sticky seat beneath the blistering sun in the oppressive heat of a summer day in Buenos Aires listening to the unvaried music and a nasal voice bore you with information about where you’re going and what you’re seeing.

There are twenty-six stops on the route. We stepped out at the last stop before the salida, or exit. It was wonderful to finally get rid of the spongy black headphones and feel the zephyr toy with our hair as we walked down the avenue to the same place where we got money yesterday. Mom, Ethan, and I sat in the same chairs as Dad got the pesos we needed. That was followed by a visit to the Libertad Café where I selected a scrumptious salad while the other three shared a Napolitana Pizza.

Our stroll to the omnibus station was 1.6 kilometers. Once there Dad got our tickets for our future ride to Bariloche, Argentina, and then we piled into a taxi for the drive home, which was four kilometers. Our sweets course for lunch was taken at Dylan, an ice cream shop with a whopping sixty flavors. I had chocolate and frambuesa, but my favorite part was when “What Makes You Beautiful” (by One Direction, of course!) played.

Ciao!

The Day of the Doi

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Today was another- and our last- day in Thailand. After waking up at an hour too early to write about, we went up to Doi Suthep and watched the fog roll in and out. Ethan and I also bought some bananas deep-fried in batter. These were delicious, although it was hard to tell how delicious they actually were because we wolfed them down so fast while they were still burning hot.

We had our typical breakfast at Nature’s Way: one mango pancake each for Mom, Dad, and Ethan, a banana pancake for me, a pineapple shake for Dad and one for Ethan as well, a pineapple-banana shake for Mom, and a watermelon shake for me. We were almost persuaded to buy a flower chain from the little old lady who was selling them on that street as it smelled so good, but we didn’t. I’m not really sure why.

Back at M.D. House, we finished packing and crammed our four suitcases, four backpacks, four people, and one hat into the van of Mr. Sombat. I decided that a van that big- it holds ten people plus the driver- would be a good way to carry my friends and me around town. Not that I actually have nine friends who would want to do that, but it was a pretty cool van.

We went up to Doi Kham which has a huge white and gold statue of Buddha. We were told that we didn’t have to take off our shoes to go inside the wat, which seemed crazy. But, being obedient little children, we did as the monk suggested and went inside, pausing to look at the Poster of Horrors on the wall. It said something in Thai, but the pictures made it obvious: the little blue people were the victims of the big yellow people’s abuse. The little blue people were being sawed in half, pressed to death, burned, hanged, poisoned, forced to work and climb cacti naked, and other horrible things.

The monk was, thankfully, right and we didn’t end up looking like the stupid tourists. There was a Thai couple who seemed very Buddhist. They had their shoes on.

Once outside on the balcony, we could see all of Chiang Mai. (All of it, that is, except for the part that was blocked by the hill to the northeast.) We could see, just below us, the gardens we went to a while back, where we first saw Doi Kham from afar.

Mr. Sambot took us back to the airport and we had Dairy Queen there. That was a mistake because we found chocolate Magnum bars in ToGo, a little store by the waiting area. Not that we were starving. My Blizzard was excellent, and the sandwich with mysterious contents on the plane was pretty good too. I don’t think it was so good, though, that the flight attendant needed to wake us up for it. We went back to sleep, though, and soon enough we were in Bangkok. Ciao!

Hot and Dangerous

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That would be the sun. Today it was more than that: it was a skin-burning, egg-frying, ice cream-melting, sweat-inducing, kid-blinding, plant-withering ball of fiery fire. How do we know? We spent two hours in the light of the very same star you just read about. Where were we? We were at the Ratchapruek Royal Gardens, about 10K southwest of M.D. House.

It was apparently funded by government agencies and large companies like Toyota and AirAsia. Some of the buildings were more interesting than others, like the Groundwater building. Ethan took the time to pump all six water pumps in the front as we watched in the blessed shade. After that, we walked a bit farther to a little pond with a pagoda. Ethan and I were supposed to go to the pagoda and smile for the camera. I’m not really sure if we did that. All we really did was scare the hundreds of little fishies and make the water boil. On our way back to the main walkway, we saw a boot in a different pond. I’m still of the opinion that there is a body attached to it.

After drifting through the orchid section, we found the playground. It is hardly worth mentioning, but I will say this: there was a whale slide.

After [too] much more drifting, we found ourselves at the entrance buying deliciously cold water in .6 liter bottles. Those finished, we walked up to the monument for the king and looked at the walls, which show of his love for his subjects.

Our alotted time over, we climbed back in our song tao and rode off into the sunset. 🙂 Ciao!

The Search for the Perfect Café

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This morning, other than breakfast and updating the pictures on this site, we did… nothing!!! We were going to go to church, but the English service started at 9 am. This we discovered at 11. Eventually, we left with a certain destination in mind. To get there we had to ride in a songtow, which is a red “bus” that works like a taxi but has multiple stops with each load, as different people want to go different places. These are usually red with green padding on the benches and walls of the truck, but there are also yellow songtow. We call these “yellow red buses.” The lining of our songtow was pink.

Chiang Mai Zoo is what the sign says. But it is more than that. It is also a place to buy ice cream, land of the [lame] Snow Dome (-7 degrees Celsius, but it’s only really a photo oppurtunity), and the place to feed big cats (leopards, jaguars, pumas) and hand-feed giraffes. AND it is the only location of the Loo Café (I misread “Zoo” on the cursive sign).

After a very refreshing swim with Louisa (remember her? She’s the one who likes One Direction.), my family members chose the Free Bird Café for supper. It was being renovated. So we walked some more and found a [really good] Indian restaurant. The garlic naan is to die for!!!

Now I’m sitting next to Mom as she gets a foot massage. She says, “It’s wonderful… I could do this every [week].” Hmm. For US$5, I bet you could (and would) do it too! Ciao!

Tigers!!!!!

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Today, we went on a tour with Mr. Boon and got to see a couple of things, here is the list: we went to Wat Umong, Doi Suthep, the Orchid Farm, and the Tiger place.

Mr. Boon picked us up at our place and took us to the following things, waiting for us at each place:

Wat Umong: Wat Umong is a temple up on the hills surrounding Chiang Mai, it has a tunnel system that runs underneath some bricks, where there are bowls and multiple statues of Buddha. It also has a lake where you can buy food and feed it to the pigeons or the fish, sounds kind of anti-temple, doesn’t it? Then we went to Doi Suthep

Doi Suthep: Doi Suthep is a temple on another hill that is built on the place where a white elephant died. The legend tells it that a king ordered that wherever the elephant died, a temple had to be built, and so, there was a temple, and there was a hermit there named Suthep, so someone named the temple Doi Suthep, after that hermit. It took about 100 steps of vendors and 200 of steep stairs (300 total) to get to the top of the hill where the temple is situated (there was also a tram, but we didn’t use that). Once on the top, you can either go up a little bit further to the inner part of the temple or walk around the outer bit, we chose the former. Inside the top part, there is a golden dome that people walk around saying prayers. There are a couple of Buddhas with five heads, and a green-colored stone that was made into a Buddha. There was also a little stone wall that was covered in coins. There were two buildings on opposite sides of the inner courts that both had a bunch of Buddhas and some elephant tusks. After we saw all of that, we went down to the outer courts and explored a little bit there. There are two big drums laying on their sides in carts, also, there are a lot of different bells. Then there is a statue in commemeration to the white elephant that “founded” the temple. Then we began our grueling descent back down the mountainside. When we got down about three quarters of the way, we came across a man selling waffles, so we bought a few. There were waffle sandwiches with chocolate inside, and a banana fried that was wrapped in waffle. My dad ordered some corn across the way. Then we went to the Orchid Farm.

Orchid Farm: At the orchid farm, the first part of it is a butterfly enclosure with lots of different types of butterfly. After that, we went out of the other door of the enclosure and entered the “real” orchid farm. In that part, there were lots of different colors of orchids, red, purple, blue, orange, pink, and a lot more that I don’t care to list. In the gift shop, there were some necklaces that were made out of real butterflies and orchids, they had been dipped in some sort of glaze and then rimmed with gold. Then we went to the Tiger place.

The Tiger place: At the tiger place, there were 3 different kinds of tigers that we got to see and touch, large (full grown), small (“teenagers”), and smallest (cubs.) Eryn and I were only allowed to see the small and smallest ones, too bad. I liked the small ones the best (maybe they just reminded me of me when I fight my sister, but who knows???) because the were more fun to be around since the littlest ones who didn’t do much at all. Later, when we were having snacks of ice cream and pineapple juice, we saw a man playing with the full grown tigers, making them chase some pieces of dried grass. Eventually, one of them got it and sat there, in the little pond, chewing on it while the rest of them chased a “flying” coconut. Then we went back to our place.

Our place: When we got back to our place, Eryn and I swam in the pool before going inside and working on schoolwork. Boring…….Yawn. Anyway, when we got done sorting some of our pictures and doing most of our schoolwork, we all went to the Italian place right down the road from the M.D. House (our place.) For supper, we had pasta and ice cream. YUM!!

Tomorrow: Tomorrow, we are going to an elephant place by a bumpy pick up truck ride. We have to get up at around 6:30 AM to be downstairs and waiting to be picked up somewhere in between 8:00 and 8:30, and somewhere in there, we have to squeeze in breakfast. Now that is going to be soooo much fun.

Happy Fourth!

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Today was spent with our friend Mr. Boon, who had driven us home from the train station on Monday and was familiar (in detail) with Chiang Mai. We had him drive us around to various places, and he was also a very valuable source of information about a lot of things, ranging from King Rama IX to Thai schools to street food.

The places we went to today were as follows:

  1. Wat Umong- the tunnel temple. We were slightly dissapointed, I think, because on Trip Advisor it said that there were plenty of temples, it was interesting, etc. There was a fish pond, too, and apparently it is a good investment to buy fish and pigeon feed and sell it to visitors at the wat. There were two Thai ladies there who had dozens of pigeons around them.
    We were also growled and fauxtacked by the stray mutts there. There must be at least twenty of those creatures there.
  2. Doi Suthep- There are 309 stairs to get to the wat at the top. That, OR you can take the tram. Obviously we walked. On our way down we stopped at the waffle shop, and Ethan and I got waffle-and-chocolate sandwiches and Mom got a wafflized banana. (A banana wrapped in waffle.)
  3. Orchid and butterfly farm- One of the most beautiful places in the world. First we went in the butterfly section, where Mom, Ethan, and I got some amazing pictures. Drifting on into the orchid part, we found the best and most colorful blooms placed at the ends of the long aisles, but there were some pretty ones in the actual aisles, too. The most interesting part? The orchids aren’t in pots; they’re just hung from a hook once they get to a certain size/age.
  4. Tiger Kingdom- I’ll admit it now: I was scared going into it. I was thinking, They’ll bite. Of course they’ll bite. I’ve seen Animal Planet enough. They stress that, despite what it seems, animals like tigers are still wild animals and can still act viciously.
    Which they (kind of) did. Just not to me, or anyone, for that matter. Just to their playmates.
    We couldn’t go in and see the newborns in the nursery because it was off-limits to visitors, and Ethan and I couldn’t get in the cage with the big cats because we’re under 15 and less that 160 centimeters tall. But Mom and Dad survived.
    We did get to cuddle with the 3-4-month-olds and laugh at the 5-7-month-olds’ antics. That wasn’t even the best part- we got to see three (and, sometimes, all four) of the big tigers play after we had our ice cream and pineapple drinks. They destroyed all the toys that got in their reach, though.
  5. M.D. House- Where we swam. It only rained for about three minutes total today.
  6. Boutique della Pasta- An Italian restaurant for supper. We all shared the appetizers: caprese and bruschetta. I had pumpkin-carrot ravioli, my dad had cheese ravioli, Ethan had an orange sauce with his pasta, and my mom had a pesto sauce with hers. We all had dessert. Ethan and I had a sort of chocolate pudding (Panna Cotta), Mom had tiramisu, and Dad had, I think, a scoop of chocolate ice cream. That was when we heard the fireworks, reminding us to celebrate our country’s independence from Britain.
    We asked the lady who worked there what the fireworks were for, and she said some sort of festival. Mr. Boon had explained that tonight all those who wanted went the 15K up the hill to Doi Suthep. It was a traditional Buddhist Chiang Mai celebration of sorts.
    Still, I’m sticking with it: some Americans set those fireworks off knowing today was the fourth of July.

 Ciao!

Exploration & Transportation

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Today was apparently cooler than yesterday, but obviously we couldn’t tell. What we could tell, however, was that the Or Tor Kor vegetable market was missing because of construction in the area. We walked what seemed like miles just looking (and never finding) it. It was supposed to be right by the Jatujak Market (nicknamed “JJ” by the locals), but we walked up and down and side to side on those streets and never found it. We did, however, find the three main forms of transportation in Bangkok: BRT, BTS, MRT. (The bus rapid transit, the sky train, and the underground.) Well, all three except for the Chao Phraya Express (pronounced Chow Prayuh), which is the system of taxis on the Chao Phraya River (แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา).

First, we got on the BRT at the stop 50 feet away from our apartment– Wat Pariwat. Wat (วัด) means ‘temple’ in Thai, and, yes, there is a wat that you can see from our balcony. Anyways, we got on the BRT and rode to the Sathorn station, which is the end of the line. It connects to the BTS station Chong Nonsi. As you should remember, the BTS is the sky train. Most of the people on our train, including a Canadian family who, no, Destiny, we did not talk to, got off at the station that connected one line of the BTS with the other. That was at the station of Siam. After that, we got off at the last stop on the second route, Mo Chit (หมอชิต). Once you walked out the doors, you were in the blazing Thai sun and the Jatujak park and market. We arrived around 8 am and finally left at around noon.

On the return trip, we entered the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit- การรถไฟฟ้าขนส่งมวลชน) station of Jatujak Park. The moment we entered the shade, it seemed like it was five degrees cooler. As we descended into the tunnels, it became even cooler until we were in the train itself and it was like a freezer. It was on there, and at breakfast our first morning in Thailand, that we noticed the weird TV ads they have. I’m not going to describe any, for the sake of both my weary fingers and the content, but some are very interesting.

We rode the MRT to the MRT Si Lom/Sala Daeng BTS station and boarded the sky train. We rode the one stop to Chong Nonsi, where we switched to the BRT. We rode the bus from the first stop on the route– B1:Sathorn– to B4: Thanon Chan, which is where our landlord told us the Tesco Lotus was. Well, we looked and asked and were finally redirected to the next station, B5: Nara-Rama III. We walked a ways, found the store, and ate sandwiches at Au Bon Pain. After we bought some groceries like rice and eggs and Tim Tams, we found a Bangkok map and finally arrived in our own B7: Wat Pariwat. Ciao!

When in Bangkok

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Today it is Saturday and we have been in Bangkok for about 30 hours, and we have done a lot of things. We have learned that almost all of the locals wear long pants and jeans, making us easy for pickpockets to spot as rich tourists if we wear shorts. So, since we decided to wear long pants, we sweated a lot yesterday as we walked around searching for the “elusive” 7-11, that, as it turns out is only a little ways down the street. We also have to keep ourselves from petting or in general, touching dogs, because most dogs in Thailand have rabies and sometimes rabies can be transferred by a lick of a dog. This change might be hard for me, since I really like dogs.

17 Hours

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17 hours, 17 things:
1. Landed in Thailand
2. Checked into BS Residence
3. Gone to bed
4. Woken up
5. Had breakfast (rice, toast, and chocolate dry cereal… yum)
6. Swam in the (“biggest … I’ve ever seen” Ethan said) pool at BS Residence
7. Packed up and moved out of BS Residence
8. Rode in first taxi of my life to Star Estates
9. Entered apartment to find it wasn’t yet cleaned
10. Left in search of the Holy Grail… okay, bottled water
11. Went to the “market” across the street
12. Sweated
13. Crossed back and found a Seven-Eleven
14. Bought four bottles of water, a huge bucket filled with H2o, and a tube of toothpaste
15. Returned to apartment and chose rooms
16. Taxi-watched (10 colors, 1 street: Pink, red, orange, golden, yellow, yellow & green, green, blue, purple, and dark purple)
17. Finished 2 pages in my math book and 2 pages in my science book

We’ve only been in the land of the Siam for 17 hours* (1 am this morning to 6 pm tonight) and already we’ve been through so much (and yet, comparatively, so little). Ciao!

*I found several mistakes in this, so I edited it 17 hours after posting it. 🙂