We had a change in our programme... it was supposedly another day in BDC but we had a discussion on one of the nights to discuss about this. It all started with the 3 boys... aaron, jj & ben. They were supposed to fly off this morning and so i thot since the 3 of them would be gone, perhaps the rest of us should also leave and spend one night in CM esp since our people didnt get to buy stuff in the Chiang Rai night bazaar. Besides, there was an extra $20 that i needed to return to each YFer (land cost prepaid in Sin for a 14-day period but now changed to 10-day due to airport siege). Presented this to Eld Boon and he told me to work out what would be the extra costs if we stay in CM and i did....it was to be about $23 per person. Informed the YFers about this and also told them maybe we could also go and do ATV in CM but this would be extra cost and they would need to ask their parents for permission. Eld Boon also mentioned that if they wanted to do ATV but had insufficient funds, they could either borrow from him or me and return in SIN dollars back home. And so, one-night stay in CM was the final vote plus ATV! Yippy!
Then came the flight time for the 3 boys. If they leave this morning, they would have to endure 8 hours of transit in Bangkok airport, of which their parents didnt want, neither did the boys. I suggested to Angela why not they joined us and go to CM, thereafter they could return back to CR in a coach to catch their flight home the following day... perhaps the transit time would be shorter on the next day. Seemed like airasia cut down one flight and so the transit time would be long even if they changed dates. Their parents had a conference and so decided to forego the CR to BKK route but kept the BKK to SIN route. Angela purchased new tickets (using our shell credit first and to pay back the church later on) for the boys to fly from CM to BKK. Hmmm... there was a lot of arrangement going on in the background, oblivious to all the youths, but thank God it was all done.
Oh man.. i needed to mention one more thingy about airasia that i didnt mention to YFers. Eld Boon wrote in his NTM report that was printed in the bulletin but i doubt anyone of them realised what went on. This episode made us real MAD,... i aint no kidding here...both Eld Boon & myself were literally "on fire".... hahaha... read on to know.
Before we made the trip to BDC, i used our shell credit to purchase air tickets for KL to SIN for our return journey. Didnt want to take the long hour coach plus had to use up the shell credit since they werent refunding. And so, i spend entire morning trying to get thro airasia on 1 Dec and finally spoke to a human being. His name was Nizam and he was extremely helpful and patient. At first the phone connection was like on & off and he volunteered to call me from KL to followup the call. And so for 1 hour, we went thro the shell credit and the booking of the new flights. Gave him 9 names (since their website could only take 9 at one booking) and another 9 names. Actually, i didnt give him the 9 names. He plucked them out from the existing records and so after the 2nd group of 9, i realised the last name not on system was Jolene. It would mean she had a single ticket. I didnt like the idea of putting a young teen on her own, tho technically she wouldnt be. And so i asked him to swap my name (happened to be in the 1st group of 9) and put Jolene in my place. I would be the single person with single ticket. He joyfully and obediently did so. I asked him for a confirmation email and he said he had already send but i didnt receive. Then he told me it would take a while and to call him again if i didnt get it. I thot that since he did the changes on the spot into his system, i should trust the computer or him. It wasnt so. When i finally received the email, my name appeared twice... once in the group of 9 and another one in the single ticket. Oh boy.... Jolene's name was nowhere to be seen. How could she travel back????? I made so many attempts to reach airasia before i went off to meet the rest in the coach office in Boon Lay but failed miserably. Made up my mind to call them while in thailand.
Told Eld Boon the problem and we reckoned it would be very costly to call the KL office from thailand. Decided to visit their office in CR instead. One afternoon, the adults, Eld Boon, Warunee, Billy & myself went over to this one and only airasia office in the airport (it was also the day we recceed the Buddha cave!!!). We presented our problem to the staff at the counter. She took down all the details and said she could change the names but we had to pay about $800 baht!!! Huh??? WHY? Because we changed our flight details. But it wasnt our fault... the staff didnt change in his system properly or his system failed him... She wouldnt listen. She referred to someone behind her and both insisted NO WAY. They suggested we should call Airasia ourselves and settled the problem. HELLO>>> arent you Airasia too? Erh... no apparently... they said they are Airasia THAILAND! WHAT's the DIFFERENCE???? Eld Boon was angry, so was I. What nonsence is this??? We asked them to make a call to the KL office and they said they have no access to them nor do they know their tel no. and they dont deal with them! Can you believe all this "crap"??? I was too upset but needed to settle and so i told eld boon let me pay for the $800 baht and get this settled. Eld Boon said he would write in to complain when he is back in SIN. Just as we were about to do that, we spotted a lady in Airasia uniform but walking around in the airport compound. Something made Eld Boon talk to her. He said she looked like the supervisor and true enough, she was the supervisor on duty. Actually we wanted to speak to the supervisor initially but they said no one on duty and could help us. And so, providentially, this lady were spotted by Eld Boon. Long & short of it was she listened, she made some calls, she adjusted, and voila... we got a reprint of the itinerary with the correct names and Jolene was in!!! Thank God. It was amazing. We saved $800 baht!
YUP... back to the day's happenings. At 6am, we woke up and packed. By 7.30am we were at the bus station. Some ate porridge prepared by Warunee's mom before we left, some took bread. And so, all that was ever in the minds of Yfers was SLEEP!!!! We met the same coach guide...the He-She. Oh man... he spoke with the same husky voice and put on make-up during our journey and it was really amazing how people accepted him. There are plenty of such people in Thailand but honestly, i cannot help but feel sad for them. There is no identity at all and they struggle each day to find one. Sigh...
It was an uneventful journey. We ate lunch in CM bus station while waiting for my tourguide friend to appear. She had arranged for 2 vans to pick us up to hotel. She called during our lunch and said 5 mins more. She didnt appear. Then i told her we walked to the 7-11 equivalent store at the corner and waited for her. She couldnt locate. She told me no such stall at the bus station. I told her it couldnt be coz we were all there. It was strange... very bizarre. We waited and she tried and finally, i passed my phone to this lady mending a fruit stall. After some exchange of words, i heard her say "wrong bus station"!!! Oh boy.... they went to the bus station for buses from FANG... that would be Robert's place. My friend forgot i came from CR!!! She thot it was the same in Oct when my group hired her to help too. 5 more mins was all it took for the vans to arrive.
The budget hotel...right smack in the night bazaar in CM.... had no lifts. And so, we climbed with our luggage all the way to 4th level and quickly changed up for ATV. Most of the girls didnt want to do this sport except for XF, JH & Joanne (did i miss anyone???). And Ah Hwee also didnt want. He stayed with the girls and they waited for us to come back for dinner.
We had a rather long ride to ATV place. There were 17 of us and so the first 8 or 9 tested out the circuit. Shing was pro right from the start. Handling the ATV seemed so easy to him. Some struggled. Haha....after the second group tested, the ATV people said they couldnt split us into 2 teams... the better ones and the not so steady ones. We all needed to go the same route. I protested. I told her that my travel agent friend already noted my request (coz i didnt want to go the same route as i did in Oct) and specifically arranged for more manpower at the ATV place to split us up. They kept telling me no manpower and when this didnt get thro, they said we were not all pros and so we couldnt do the difficult route. Compromised a little and they would do a little beginner and then intermediate halfway. Somehow i had a feeling it would be the same route all over for me and it happened. Anyhow, i tried to enjoy as much as i could coz i had already paid for it. Btw, Abel & Norman needed a guide to be on their vehicle... this was just in case they couldnt handle halfway and these men could take over. And Elton didnt want to do alone and so he rode pillion with Shing... the most stAble of them all. XF, Joanne & JH did pretty well... for a girl and for starters. :)
During our journey, i saw aaron overtook JJ, Sean & i think he crashed a few times to the one infront of him (of which he told me later on that he did it on purpose....hmmmm....should i believe him or not>???) And Eld Boon.... he was pretty slow... same as he drives his BMW back home. i would give him another term.... slow and steady and sure man. He was particularly slow at one bend....guess which bend? The bend that Hendrick flipped and turned turtle!!!! I didnt tell anyone where was the site that Hendrick had the accident but our eld bOon sure knew that was a very sharp bend and he went real real real slow :( What other incident happened? Sean lost control and went right into the bush and came out unscathed. XF did too.... hahah...she was riding behind me and for one stretch, i didnt see her for a long while and knew something went wrong. It was either a down or up slope that she lost control. Then we came to the really difficult part.... a steep slope with so many uneven stones and surfaces. It was very challenging manuervering (hope i spell correctly). I saw from a distance the few guys ahead of me... they were just too close to each other. They should have waited for the one in front to go up the steep slope, cleared the bend and then moved up. They were like beads one after another and so in slopes that steep, you couldnt go if you travel at such a slow pace. You need speed man for slope....and i saw Shing had to come down and pushed his ATV up and round the bend. Poor him. I waited for Eld Boon to clear and then i ZOOOMED up and turned.... wow.... it was so thrilling....so fun. I wished all the routes were like this....hmmmm....i was almost flipped over too but i braked in time and probably had ahem some skills to handle this bend. Besides complaining about the same and easy route they put me thro, my ATV stalled so many times coz it couldnt stay idle without dying. Sigh...
Oh well... guess it was an experience that most of them enjoyed. I wished it was longer and a more challenging route for that full 2 hours. Hmmm... i said that the last time that i would want a different route but i couldnt.. how to go on my own and leave the rest???
On our way back... Shing, Jamesy, JJ, Sean & who else....oh yes, Norman... we took the same van and oh my... they went crazy!!!! They mentioned about this gigantic GUAN YING statue that they spotted while going to the ATV place and insisted i must take a look at "myself".....so dumb lah. They also mentioned it was much much taller than the one at Bukit Batok (near the driving centre). Haha... to their dismay, it was a different journey back home and LOL... no more GYM. Great!
What did we do for the night? We went to Night Bazaar... but first to Carrefour to have our dinner. Brought Eld Boon to the plate place(very very cheap and lovely plates and stuff) but he couldnt buy coz couldnt carry back... sigh... budget airlines, budget luggage weight clearance. We bought some stuff from the small bazaar infront of carrefour. It was here that i bought chocolate names to thank aunty Elsie's sis-in-law for the shoes for BDC children. Shing bought straw bags and stuff for his mom and sis. I bought scarves too. Then we decided to go back to the one and only biggest night bazaar in CM (which was back at our hotel). Split into 2 songteaw and the first group went off with Eld Boon. Our second group had much problem with the driver. he didnt know where was our hotel nor the road name. Passed him the hotel name card but he was blur.. said he couldnt read... as in gestured to us. Since it was hard to get another songteaw, i told him to go night bazaar and from there, perhaps we could spot our hotel and get him to drive there (we needed to put our things in our rooms before spending again). He was trying his best but alas, we couldnt find our hotel. With all the memory in the 9 of us, we plotted our way home... and thank God, as we turned round the bend, we saw some familiar landmarks. Hmmm... the people in my group didnt want to pay him the fare coz they said he was lousy. But i thot this man tried his best and so be nice and pay. After all, it was only $100-200 baht.
We spend the night up and down the night bazaar. Some bought sports shoes....erh Ben spend such a loooonnng time choosing one. Some bought dont know what... but all looked and seemed happy! Shing bought a pair of crocs and he bargained all by himself. Then he spotted this Tee that has the words "FAST FOOD". He bargained with the lady but he wasnt too happy with the price quoted. And so we walked out of the place and went to checkout other stalls. Very soon, we realised that lady gave the best price. And so we went back to get from her and we were on our way back when we spotted eld Boon. He asked us where we were going and SHing said "to get fast food". Eld Boon then giggled and said "Didnt we just eaten our dinner and you are hungry already?"..... HAHAHA....
Hmmm....i bought some things but couldnt remember what now. Actually i was more tired than anything and we didnt even get to eat the thailand roti prata!!! I bought some fried cuttlefish tho and it was delicious. Passed some to isaac and he didnt seem to like it. then i finished them all only to have him asking for more when we reached hotel room. He said "where is the cuttlefish.. very nice... can i have more?" Too late lah! It was about 10-15mins and it took you so long to ask for more?
Oh yes, needed to mention our small group lost our way when we tried to return to hotel. We went round the night bazaar and somehow missed the crucial connecting point in the middle. We ended up walking back into the bazaar and then followed the main road to walk home. We didnt know till next morning when i had some time before the coach came and i walked around with Joanne....spotted the same place we walked past the night before... it was sooo sooo near our hotel but we didnt turn right!
Hmmm... and so i wrapped up the entire trip??? maybe not... just one more entry. It has everything to do with our Ji Sheng who broke two more items during our NTM. Remember he broke the flush and the bamboo pole? Hang on for one more entry coz i needed to mention about the airport and the airplane.
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