Monday, 3rd January 2011 We left our hotel at 10am this morning and walked to the nearby WongWian Yai Railway Station to begin our railroad excursion for the day. Today was going to be our last day in Bangkok and we decided to drop our plans to touristy Ayutthaya. All we wanted was to catch a glimpse of Thailand's countryside on a sight-seeing a local train. The Mahachai Railway Line provided the opportunity to do so due to its closed proximity to our hotel. Before soon, we had arrived at the tiny train station and gotten our tickets from the ticket window. Our 10.40am train to Mahachai departed on time. Very soon, we were out of Bangkok as our train travelled westwards towards Samut Sakhon or Mahachai as it was known by the locals. The 1 ... read more

Saturday, 1st January 2011 Our first day of 2011 was spent cruising through the waters of Bangkok along the meandering Chao Phraya River. After a hearty local breakfast this morning, we made our way to the Central Pier situated next to Saphan Taksin BTS Station to begin our upriver journey to Nonthaburi (Pier #30). This was the furthest point we could get to on the Chao Phraya River Express Boats. The fare was a mere 14 baht for the 75 minutes journey from downtown Bangkok. Upon boarding the boat, we wasted no time in finding a “fengshui” seat next to the captain where it commanded an unobstructed view of the river. Enroute, we passed through a couple of tourist sites in Bangkok including the imposing Wat Arun Temple Complex and Chinatown. Disembarking on the city of ... read more

Friday, 31st December 2010 I had been contemplating to do a railway trip from Bangkok ever since we took the Death Railway journey during our holidays in Kanchanaburi 4 years ago. Back in December 2004, I had a chance to complete a 12-hour overnight journey to Chiang Mai as part of my University cultural exchange programme. I always cherished the fond memories of those train trips. This was not just in Thailand, but across the countries I had visited. This trip is about my affection with trains. It started off with a journey on Bangkok's BTS Skytrain and the MRT network. This was followed by a visit to the Railway Museum in Chatuchak Park (aka the Thailand Railway Hall of Fame). There were other opportunites for me to experience a 4-hour train ride on the Mahachai ... read more

Saturday, 13th November 2010 12 years have passed since I first stepped into Kuala Lumpur with K and SZ. Even though we had since lost touch with one another after all these years, the 1-week trip was inspiring and helped to cultivate what became known as my life-long hobby of travelling, backpacking and more recently travel blogging. Certain things in KL remained unchanged after all these years. The bustling food stalls along Jalan Alor, the 24-hour KFC in Bukit Bintang where we had our first meal after an overnight bus journey and the ugly green façade of Lot 10 Shopping Mall were still surviving since my first visit in November 1998. I’m always happy to return to KL and relive those fond memories even though this was going to be my 6th time. This was mum ... read more

Friday, 29th October 2010 "To buy or not to buy is up to you." I decided to be a tourist for the day and treated myself to an Hoi An Old Town Tourist Ticket. For 90,000 dong per ticket (this was equivalent to my 2 meals in this country), it came together with a tourist map and access rights to 5 different buildings in town. The ticket on the right showed where my 90,000 dong went to. How long did I spend touring the sites? Probably less than 3 hours. I recalled that I started out at 8.45am in the morning and by lunch time, I was already back in my hotel for my afternoon swim. I wouldn’t recommend visitors to purchase the Tourist Ticket since there were a couple of sites like the Japanese Bridge ... read more