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I miss Chiangmai. I miss the lovely Thai and Shan people. And the new friends that I had to leave behind. I miss the chilly non-humid weather. I miss waking up every morning and having breakfast with THE most spectacular view!

















I learned the importance of cleaning my lenses only AFTER this trip.

I was absolutely miserable at first - with the teachers giving me a hard time and having nobody my age to talk to. But luckily the first hotel we stayed in in the city had wireless in every room. Still, I was bored.

2nd day we left the city and drove up north to the Maekok River Village Resort, stopping by the Chiangdao Caves.

















It was pretty spectacular. If I wasn't always on the move i'd have taken much better photos of the place. The caves are pitch black with random 20m drops and tunnels you have to get on your hands and knees to get through. So ladies with kerosene lamps take us around. Only problem is that if she moves too far ahead.... You lose the only source of light and suddenly you can't see where you're placing your feet.


















































































After what felt like an hour of navigating, crawling and falling all over the place, we finally made our way to the MRVR.

The location is breathtaking, surrounded by mountains and along the Maekok river. Thaton is the nearest town but there isn't much to do. The teachers refused to let the kids shop either, so they relied on 3 hilltribe ladies who set up shop next to the resort every day and fleece the students for all they're worth.

The resort is divided into two parts. The actual resort area and the student centre. The resort consists of many private villas, all of which have the view of the mountains and river. They have their own pool and restaurant, and the students are not allowed in those areas.

The student centre consists of dormitories, each with 6 beds, 2 toilets and air con. They've got their own pool and restaurant, as well as a volleyball court, ping pong tables, a basketball court cum assault course cum archery range, and teachers stay in their own lovely rooms on the 2nd floor. They've also got a Bamboo Club, a place that sells snacks and drinks, has a twister mat painted onto the floor and a pool table, to prevent kids from wandering out of the resort at night especially because it gets too dark and quite dangerous.

My cosy little room -


































































































The resort villas look like chalets, but the interior's much much nicer.

















After lunch at the resort, the Geog instructor from the UK, Rhys, tells us we have a mountain hike afterwards. He was too quiet. So it was difficult to try and be his friend at first. Haha.

So we boarded Song Taews (something like a Thai taxi, but more fun) that drove us up the mountain, but afterwards we had to hike down. The view from the top looked like something out of Madagascar... Or Tarzan.



































































Wat Thaton medallions.

And the other side of the mountain, the view of the town.
































Song Taews to take us back to the resort.

Part 2 up soon! If i'm not too lazy to do it. Blogger is an EPIC FAIL with photo posts.

sigh

I thought i'd be looking forward to Chiangmai - David told me to just have fun. But I have a feeling the teachers won't go easy on me. The flight's at 2.55pm, and one messaged me at 7am asking if I had any luggage tags for the group. Gah, i'm so lazy to go. But I gave David my word.

Gotta be at the airport in about 3 hours.. And i'm bringing ribbons as luggage tags.

dickbutt

Some guy actually got a tattoo of this.

i swear to god

If I ever hear a mat-rock's lorry horn honk to the tune La Cucaracha, or some other cheesy tune like that ONE MORE TIME.

I will throw an angry Rasputin at them.

for some reason, periods sometimes work in our favour

Haha, what an ad.

I don't know what to put here

I've been having the best few weeks yet. Spending money like water but you know what? I can fuckin' afford it. But i'll cap it somewhere, at some point. Still got my end of year target to meet and i'm about a k or two away from it.

Man, I wish I was giving the amount of tuition i've been giving for the past 2 months, for the past year. I'd have money coming out of my backside. But let's not be bitter.

It's come to almost a year of doing pretty much uh, nothing.

Now it's coming to an end. My year-long holiday. And the nearer it gets, I feel like my life has reached a bottleneck. Then again, this wouldn't be a problem if I could get my ass to bed earlier, ergo, getting my ass out of bed earlier in the MORNING instead of the afternoon. Heh. Ugh.

I will be off to Chiangmai next Monday for a week. David Chandra - the man behind manymany OCIPs (TPJC's OCIP Cambodia 06 included) and other miscellaneous school trips to various parts of Indochina, and more recently India, called me up some time ago asking me if I was free in November to take his place for one particular trip.

Since I was free, and the trip is 100% free (weee!) I agreed. So next week i'll be accompanying the Sec 3 Geography students and 3 teachers of Jun Man Secondary to Chiangmai for 7 days, and back. Only downside is, i'll be completely alone. Feeling slightly jittery about it, especially after David sent me some insurance documents for the participants, and its heading read "CONCERNING THE LIVES OF 33 PERSONS".

But David arranged for some people to show me the ropes, and help me make sure things are in order. I'll be FINE.

Only problem is that I might get my PERIOD URGH I hope it comes this week. So it'll come and go before the trip, and there won't be the off chance I can't bring a kid to a clinic or something or can't hike up a hill cos SOLLY AH GOT MENSES CRAMp

These past 2 weeks have been really good to me. And so have you. Thank you so much, for making it a point to make my last couple of months before Melbourne something unforgettable. I don't quite know if it's the perfect way to say goodbye? But right now I know it could very well make me cry on my departure.

I know, some of you are quite sick of hearing me yammer on about how I won't come back, maybe not for the first 6 months or year or so or whatevurrr. Thing is, i've never uttered a word on the subject of coming back for holidays to my parents BUT! They're already making plans for my bedroom. There's a probability I won't even have my own bed the next time I come back!

I'm not expecting them to preserve my bedroom as is, in fact i'm gonna pack all my stuff into neat little boxes before I go. But to not have my own personal space when I come back just seems so unreal. Hmm, but should I FAIL my driving test before I go, die die i'll be coming back in June to retake. Otherwise it'd be a huge waste of my hard earned moolah.

I actually have friends rooting for me to fail despite the obvious convenience of me driving them around. :D

;

Last night I managed to catch the sneaks of Madagascar 2. It's just as side-splittingly funny as the first. So if you didn't like the first, don't bother. Watch something gay like Sing to the Dawn instead.

It was slightly Lion King-esque, but only mildy so don't let it ruin the movie for you. King Julian and the penguins were hilarious as usual (and they were the highlight of the movie for me) so I was laughing every 2 seconds. I thought bringing back the old lady from the first movie was a bit of overkill though. Still funny la, still funny.

Was a midnight movie, and I started craving beef chilli cheese fries after so we took a cab from Tampines (after deciding against taking a Night Rider going to god-knows-where) to East Coast Big Splash. Got it take-away, and $3 for 2 Snapples and sat on the sand by the beach pigging out like little kids. After we finished it rained, so we ran back to get shelter, cos all the pondoks by the beach were occupied by... people.

We had an awesome view of the lightning, which I watched eagerly while you, cringed like a small boy after each flash. And then I fell asleep on your lap for about 10 mins, from which I SPASMED awake cos I dreamt I fell down. I covered my face, embarassed but laughing yet you thought it was the cutest thing..

At least this week I don't need to wait till the weekend.

the biennale...

Left me almost speechless. It was awesome, and we haven't even covered the whole thing. More photos up when i'm less tired.

With regards to the previous two entries.. It made me think about the whole ordeal.

When my sister told me what happened over the phone, without a second thought I left my friend's birthday party and rushed home. Determined to get my dad out by hook or by crook.

Thinking about it, turns out i'm not the most emotionally detached person I thought I was. I mean, of course, when it comes to family these things come naturally. But I thought I went cold prior to that. Cold on the inside. I could drop friends in an instant. No matter how close they were to me before. If you fuck up now, I leave you no room to make amends.

Because I simply don't care, if you don't care. It's a piece of logic one may find difficult to swallow. 3 more months.

Less depressing, more interesting things. I know this is severely overdue, but random snaps of here and there;



















Abandoned French Embassy at Cluny, definitely worth a second trip for artsy shots.

















Abandoned Lim Chu Kang HDB estate. Bitch and a half to find, and some unfortunate NSmen were having urban ops, which was interesting to watch for abit. Stray bullets on the floor, honking and screaming at a BMW that almost ran over a tottering pup, creepy scarecrows, rapping banglas and the last bit of Singapore that looks remotely like a kampung made it all worthwhile.

I like photos that remind us that our four-legged friends have elbows too.































Gonna be trooping around the Biennale with Rakky tomorrow, can't wait to get back into my photography proper. I have so much time on my hands now, but it'll pass quick so I gotta make the most of it. I hardly teach tuition anymore, but i've seriously made a killing so i'm pretty happy with myself.

P/s: Russell Peters was AWESOME. Aresha and I had super face cramps. He came up with the funniest jokes just on the spot from picking on random people. Those random people got to meet him afterwards! Argh!

His demeanor seems to have changed, a bit sadder. His jokes are still hilarious tho.

emo alert

The turkish consulate managed to get Pa out of the lock-up, and into a hotel. Whether he flies home tomorrow or get a visa done and presses on to Ukraine is another story.

The entry before this sounded like something really horrible. Well yeah it was, I was in a panic at the time.

After several thousand phonecalls, line extensions etc, finally he's safe and sound.

We even trooped to Changi Airport to give the Turkish Airlines fuckers a piece of our mind. But the check-in counters were empty, and the office, closed.

Anyways, haven't updated in awhile. Halloween was good stuff, had a poolside party courtesy of Vishal/Swathi/Alyssa which was hilarious up until we decided to head to O Bar. Everywhere was packed so bad Raushan and I decided to just head back.

I missed Kanye West, which makes me sad. But i'm sure i'll catch him next time around. In other news, i'm going to see Russell Peters tomorrow! Can't wait, really hope he's got some new material...

o..m....g.....

Pa was supposed to be in Ukraine by now.

Turkish Airlines fucking bastards didn't alert him that he needed a visa to enter.

He was rejected entry, so he flew back to Istanbul (his stopover).

There, he was thrown into lock-up. Passport, travel documents, clothes, EVERYTHING was taken from him.

Why? God fucking knows.

For the first time in my life, God, please help me out here. My dad is in no position to handle this sort of situation, given his medical history.

Please.