NTM Part 5 - ACTIVITIES

Our team had lots of fun and extra activities during our stay in CHOL. What were they?

A. BBQ Steamboat (erh, the one ctyf been to in 2005 had since closed shop).

At 99 baht per adult and 59, 49, 39 for various age groups of children, it was super cheap for buffet! Oh well at least for this once i didnt waste my sin $4 coz i ate every cent of it and perhaps much more! Liver was the one item i ingested most, with robert's help in choosing the real fresh goody red ones. I think i had temporarily updated and stock up my depleted red blood cells that night :)

Magdalene, Adam's mom, sat with most of our team members and she came over to my table telling Dara that Singaporeans never bbq their food coz they threw all into the soup! Hmmm, our people so healthy conscious?? :) LOL! Ahh..... i bbq my chicken, pork and fish but all the liver went into the soup coz i love it that way. It was super yummy! I was also told one of our member even put the cut fruits into the soup to "clean" it before eating.....oh man...... And yes, the sight of the lump of oil at the tip of the steamboat tray reminded me of Shing who on previous trip ate them all up thinking they were fish meat! Hee!

B. Cooking

Initially the ladies were feeling rather bored with nothing to do during free time. We spent our time packing the goodies and talking among ourselves in the dorm. Thank God on day 3, they found stuff to do - cooking! Angela did and taught sushi, Susan and Cindy with the rest, learned from Abigail (the number one cook) secret chilli recipe plus loads of other sumptuous thai food. On Wed night, Angela baked durian cake whilst Cindy made her delicious jelly for the birthday people namely, John, Annie & Jemima (see insert below). Some stuff were not available in the Fang supermarket and so the final look of the cake didnt match up to angela's usual. But it tasted so good and even lovelier after we left it in freezer for one night. We had durian ice cream cake the next day and i put 3 pieces into my mouth! Simply awesome!

guess which is the durian cake?

group pic

silly pic :O

C. Hot Spring

Same spot Ctyf went tho i couldnt remember. It was Mary & Rachel who cfm this. We took some pics here.......

It is amazing that Thailand, a country that has no volcanoes, yet able to have hotsprings like this. How is this possible? Geography students care to explain????

group pic

Rachel, me and Mary

We next head to the waterfall area for a dip (only CHOL kids and Matthew, the young man from Zion church). Singaporeans stay dry :) Children were given 5 mins to jump into the freezing cold water and they wasted no time despite the low temperature.

Our people preferred to take pics on the suspension bridge only to be disturbed by my constant jumping on it.

What do u do with a suspension bridge? Rock it for fun! Ha ha. Abigail prepared nasi lemak dinner n we ate at the waterfall.

While the sushi was being served by me, Evangel, who walked passed me, suddenly raised his hands and kind of propelled the big tub like pilot ejecting from crashing planes. All the lovely food plus hard work would have gone to waste if this tub went to the floor. Matthew & Eld John tried to save the tub. Guess who saved the day?

Me! I caught it before it landed on the floor. Not bad huh?

D. Market

Eld Wee suggested to bring us to a Wed-only day market and so we did. The Pehs treated us to the best beef noodles in town (at 30 baht per bowl)! I took noodle with meat and beef ball. It was fantabulous.

I actually craved for more balls after my first bowl and so Melissa & I decided to share one bowl of beef balls without noodles. Dara made the order for us and i guess she asked them to give us a big serving (without us knowing). Before our food arrived, Eld john looked like he wanted a share too but since i didnt know how many balls they would give us, i didnt promise him that he would get some or even one. Haha, so we made a deal: even number he has no share; odd number he gets one ball. Fair right? The bowl finally came and it looked overcrowed. i counted 15 balls in total! Wow! The 15th piece went into his mouth alright. We also gave one to Angela, Laura & i think Susan (couldnt remember). Left with 6 in my bowl of which i managed to squeeze in 5 (max capacity). The last piece went to the ever-hungry elder.... :)

After breakfast, we proceeded to the huge market. No pics here to show coz everyone was so into buying lots of good bargain within 45 mins or less. BK bought so many pieces of clothing & i am proud of her for one particular piece she bought in our (ahem, image consultant) absence. It is a sweet pink tee at only 49 baht ($2.10)! We also bought clothing for the 3 birthday babies from this market. Susan & Cindy bought 1,000 baht worth of heh bee (dried prawns), say almost 3-4kg to bring back to SIN. They also bought fruits for the children.

Dara called my HP to gather group back at the breakfast stall & so i tried to find everyone, 11 in total. It wasnt that hard to spot our people in this crowded market. Hendrick & laura were the last few i found, together with Eld John. While waiting for the Foos to pay up for their goods, feeling thirsty, Eld John treated me to fresh mix fruit juice...... The stall had individual cups of fruits and you get to pick and choose which cup. Some had mixed fruits, some just one type of fruit. I chose the mix ones... never tried mixed fruit juice in my entire life (always drinking watermelon or orange or mango). Initially the whole cup looked so pinky that i felt "bandung" and kind of put off (i never liked bandung btw). But after one sip, i didnt want to exchange the cup with anything else.....slurpy!!!!!

Our fruit juice stall was just next to the Foos but when we turned round to lead them back, they had disappeared! So fast! We hurried down to catch them just in case they made the wrong turn of which they did. They turned back when they realised we were not ahead of them. And so we rushed back to the van & yup, we werent the last few :) Our people continued to shop even on the way back to vehicle, can u imagine that? Eld John's conclusion of our Tengah group - can eat n can really shop!