It all begun from here...

I have always been dreaming of traveling around the world, can't really remember when that thought was implanted in my mind. I only able to recall that was my first meeting with uncle X (sadly to say that I can't recall his name) who just came backed to Malaysia after years of travel. As many as the places that he had been through, I still can remember the journey that he was illegally traveling into Russia and risk his life to avoid being detained by the law enforcers. It was a nice night at his newly opened BBQ restaurant and the night was a wonderful one listening to all his adventures. Such an heroic action really inspired me a lot and I wish one day I do the same as what he did.

12 years gone after our first meeting, and the dream to travel around the world is still burning within my heart. After years of working life for some savings and I finally have the budget to fulfill my long awaited dream. Of course the little budget that I am having now would not be able to support a long period adventure but at least I wanna fulfill my dream to travel to Shangri-la and eventually Tibet before I turn 30. So, here the story goes...

After a week of planning, I booked the ticket to Bangkok on 10.04.2009 - 14.04.2009. During this period, the thai's will be celebrating their new year - Songkran day. I chosen Bangkok as my first destination as I have read as many blog/travelogues before, most of them recommended Bangkok as the first choice training place for Back packers. So I opted for a same destination for my first travel in 2009.

Me and Elaine chosen Suk 11 hostel as it was highly recommended by one of her friend and it ended up that we made a very good choice. We love the place and the location is super convenient. I know a lot of people will favor Khao San than Sukhumvit but ...we opted for the second choice for the easy access to Nana night market and light rail transport station.

During our stay in Bangkok, it was a real hot season and we ended up "burnt" our body from top to toe =.= ... The sun was baking the city like a hot oven. I guess that is the reason why their's Water festival falls on a same period. We had to hide ourselves under sheds of trees or buildings to avoid the burning sun.

We started our warm up lap with a cruise along the Chao Phraya river and it was the top of my favourite list. The chilling breeze along the cruise through the canal comes with the real scenes of those local who lives along the river side, that was a perfect afternoon for me to hide myself on board avoiding the sun. The rest of the trip was a pretty standard one as we had been through most of the tourism spots like the Wat(s) (Buddhist Monastery) , Thai Royal Palace, Chinatown (Yaowarat) and etc.

The highlight about the trip was when the water battle starts! And this is what the Songkran festival is, to splash water on everyone! This the the Thai's traditional way of celebrating their Thai's new year. Thai people believes that splashing water on someone will wash away all the bad luck for the person. So across the city, you will see people started splashing water on each other with water gun or straight from the water pipe. It was really a good way to wash away all the afternoon heat... Lets check the photos for some of the "actions" :)



Truck that was loaded with a big container of icy cold water and tour around the city to supply cold water for water battle.

Refill station?







No mercy!









The "free flow" beer being constantly supplied by our hostel's lady staff :p.



The tuk tuk driver stopped his vehicle right in front of us with his customers just to have us to "cool" them down.







It was a really fun afternoon and I know I will be backed for their Songkran festival next year :).