This is part of an ongoing travelogue. To start at the very beginning, click here. I’ve reached the limit of my Flickr upload for the month, so i’m temporarily using my old Photobucket account. Day 6 is the 2nd of our 4 days in the city of Chiang Mai after the long roundabout sojourn to the Northern region. It starts as usual with brekkie at CH Hotel. A word about this hotel. It’s quite popular due to it being right next to the Night Market, but our stay there was regrettable. The hotel is old and pretty rundown. They are planning to do an interior refurbishing, so make sure you…

This is part of an ongoing travelogue. To start at the very beginning, go here. Day 5! We’re halfway through our vacation, today we are going to the Golden triangle in the morning the laterdriving the long way down from Maesai back down to Chiang Mai via Chiang Rai. This journey of 200km should take about 3 or 4 hours, but we’ve lined up some interesting stops along the way. First thing to do after packing up our stuff in the hotel is to have a good breakfast. There are lots of good street food in Maesai and Chiang Mai available for breakfast around our hotel, but we always opt…

This is part of an ongoing travelogue. To start at the beginning, click here. Day 4, start of our first day in Maesai, the small little town at the top of Thailand. By now, we’re used to Thailand time, meaning that our we were starting to wake up at a more respectable hour. Usually about 8am local time. Piyaporn Place Hotel is a pretty nice hotel, nothing fancy, but they have good breakfast (although the seating area is quite small). Breakfast is usually fried rice or fried noodles, plus the staple sausages and sunny side up eggs. While Maesai is still quite high in terms of altitude (although not as…

This is an ongoing travelogue on my travels in North Thailand. To start at the beginning, go here. A third day in Thailand, our body clocks are still on Malaysia time, meaning we still woke up at around 6am local time. But its a good time to take photos of the glorious sunrise. Dusk to dawn is pretty cold here, altho it isn’t as cold as mid winter. The Lt. Col. told us that this year’s winter is so severe it might even snow in Thailand for the first time decades, but I don’t really think it will happen. This hotel has decent complimentary breakfast, so our whole clan went…

This is the second part in a continuing travelogue series. For the first part read here. Day 2 started bright and early, we took an early morning hike around our beautiful resort and took more pics before breakfast. Beautiful flowers everywhere. For breakfast we took a short drive to Chiang Dao town. This is a very small town, with military training camp nearby. There are no tourists here, but our tour guide extraordinaire Calvin brought us to an excellent local restaurant. It looks our local warong, except that its much cleaner. They cooked noodles and rice and other Thai pastries for breakfast, Calvin recommended we try the pad Thai. It…

My first trip to Chiang Mai was back in 2006. It was our first AirAsia trip overseas as a family, although most of the photos from that trip were lost, I remember a lot about that place. Most of the tourist attractions are well known, most people can name you Doi Suthep, the night market, the weekend market in side the walled city, the numerous factory tours, and the distinctive Northern Thai cuisine. Since that first trip, we’ve moved on to many other holiday destinations, it never occurred to me to return to this city until my wife’s BIL asked us to join his family trip. He goes to Northern…

I was an Android user for about two years before I got an iPad. Tons have been written about the pros and cons of both platforms, but I think I pretty much have the best of both worlds – an android phone for all its convenience and customize-ability, and Apple iPad for the gorgeoud apps and games. So it brings me to this. As an iPad user, there are thousands of apps to download from the Store. Some are good, some are just meh. And a handful are essential. For any iPad user (whatever version you own or even the iPhone), here’s what you should get as soon as you…

When i was in Gold Coast, Australia last year, i was fascinated by two local birds found everywhere in the city. One was the beautiful seagull, this being a seaside city. While it was an easily identifiable bird, every seagull was distinctly different. As for the other common bird, the ibis, i was surprised how a large bird could co-exist with humans in a urban area. If this was Malaysia, the Chinese would trapping them for their meat. Which made me think about the common birds in our very own country. I think anyone can easily think of the most common ones, we see hundreds of them around us everyday.…

Most people don’t know who Kevin Smith is, unless you’re a film buff. He’s a film director of cult movies, although his movies are definitely not for most people. He’s also an actor, an author and a comic book writer among other things. But i was introduced to him when i first watched the movie Clerks. Yeah, you’ve probably not heard about it, but its really good. In fact if u look at any list of greatest movies out there on the Internet, this film is probably right there near the top. Its a black and white film about two slacker friends, one working in a convenience store and another…

I became a Christian at the age of seven. At that young and impressionable age, i was ushered into the world of Sunday school and subsequently Youth Fellowship, evening church services in a beautiful small town Presbytarian church, the warm fellowship of new (and life long friends). There were the pastors that shaped my early faith, travelling evangelists that came to preach and heal (does anyone remember Roderick Tay?) and authors that wrote famous books. One thing i remember from back then was an unassuming magazine that accompanied me all those years called Asian Beacon. When i was much younger, i used to think of it as Asian Bacon or…