CtYF NTM 9 - Monday & the rest

Hmmm... this is the 9th entry and i aim to finish off so i can blog about other stuff....but i dont think so lah.

Monday morning... 8 Dec was the day i'd planned to visit waterfall but it was put off and we had a get-to-know-each-other session as suggested by Eld Boon. Actually Eld Boon wanted us to go to a cave nearby....ssshhh.... it was the Buddha cave i think. Warunee, Billy, Eld Boon & myself went to recce on a certain day of which i couldnt remember now and whoa... it seemed like a deserted place even tho it was supposed to be a tourist attraction. If one travel by the side road of BDC, one would reach within 3 mins or so. Warunee told us the place has a lot of dogs... hungry dogs and erh... Eld Boon seemed a little frightened. I was totally unafraid coz the Harichaikuls were with us and dogs dont bark or bite them.... :) And so we climbed up the steps... quite a plenty and went into the cave. it was very cooling and rather mysterious (to the adventure side minus the BUDDHA side). Anyhow, saw the statue... lying down probably and tried to recce every corner. There was one particular dark corner and honestly, i didnt want to go in...for fear of bats... eew.... Eld Boon suddenly had the idea of getting the youths to walk to this cave and explore for themselves. I erh.. didnt think it was a good idea coz they would prefer to spend any extra time with the BDC kids. Besides... what would parents or people back home think when they know we brought the youth to BUddha cave in a mission trip????? Unthinkable... and so i thot. Anyhow, when we had enough of the adventure, decided to find our way out. Billy insisted one way that would be a short cut. We followed him... like lamb to slaughter.... sigh... it was a dead end lah and what a climb. Why would i say so coz he STEPPED ONTO MY POOR FINGERS (3rd, 4th & last one of my right hand). It all happened when we made our way back from the dead end. I was before him and so i was trying to get down a huge rock and kind of placed my hand on the rock while trying to find a solid base to touch ground... then he stepped onto my fingers. It was super painful and i screamed!!! What an impatient man :(

Alright, digress enough, now back to the get-to-know-people-session. Warunee & Uncle Chalaw supported the idea... it was conducted like a talk show with questions asked and a prayer for each BDC kid or group of BDC kids that went up. CtYFers were also called up (some of them) but no prayers for us :( haaha.....nah.. i know where Eld Boon is coming from and so, the session went on till 11am. Then it was time for our first BUFFET in chiang rai. This was a new hotel and they serve chinese dim sum too. I was simply delighted because i love dim sum.... cantonese, you know.

We set off in 3-4 trucks i think. One truck driver was too clever.... he didnt listen to instructions to follow the leader. He went straight to the usual place (Rimkok hotel) we had buffet the year before. Now this was a different hotel. In fact, we were going to Rimkok on Wed and this man was kindof early.. hahaha... We waited while uncle Chalaw or someone on bike went to Rimkok to direct them back to this place. While waiting, those present started inspecting the food. Conclusion (even before eating or trying out the food): few variety, few spread. Rimkok is better. Sigh.... our people so fussy lor. And yes... after we started eating, last conclusion was chef at rimkok much better.

I enjoyed my dim sum buffet and ate almost nothing else. Something dreadful happened.... Norman dropped a glass and their group had to change to another table. After much eating, some people had started to go back while a few of us remained. Then we realised they do serve Coffee or Tea (part of the buffet cost). Quite a number of them ordered Iced Coffee and it was superbly tasteful. For a non-coffee drinker, i had a cup to myself. Then came the bill to settle. The hotel charged us for the broken glass!!!! I was upset about this. Normally, i would have paid for it but not this time. Why huh? I also dont know but i knew then that as a hotel, they should be gracious enough to let this small incident go. After all, one glass is so cheap. Thot as a new hotel they would want customers to return and so they shouldnt have charged. Hmmm.. i protested thro Warunee's interpretation. Eld Boon laughed at me for being so "evil". Long and short of it...i got what i wanted and the item subtracted from the bill.

What happened after that? This Eld boon... being a property investment person, decided to tour the new resort and made me, Warunee & billy followed him. Actually we would love to see too and so we didnt mind tagging along. But guess what? The lady who brought us along was trying to explain to eld Boon about the property and 3 of us were chit chatting (walking behind to be exact). We got "scolded" by him for not paying attention and so we shut up and went nearer to listen. We were put on a tuk tuk or miniature song teaw and visited some of the rooms, plus conference, plus staff quarters, plus staff canteen, plus spa, plus everything you can find in this resort. It was super boring in the end coz it dragged on too long. The people who waited for us in the truck can attest to this.

On our way back, someone mentioned about massage.... full body for 100baht in Chiang rai. It was too good to be true and Eld Boon wanted to go. I was kind of moved too and thot why not. Back at BDC, Billy rode on a bike to enquire. It was a massage parlour about 1 min away by bike, that means walking distance for us. We needed to be sure they have no customers that afternoon before we made our way there. He came back with positive news. Soon, we gathered those interested and walked there. It was a massage school and only ONE is a trained masseure, the rest are understudy. We didnt mind coz it was super cheap. Hwee also went even tho he had a bit of diarrhoea and felt like vomitting. He couldnt miss one massage.

Our group comprised of eld Boon, Shing, Hwee, James, Ji Sheng, Norman and anymore? I couldnt recall now.. didnt record the names. And so, a guinea pig amongst us would be treated to professional massage by the master while the rest were done by students who followed exactly what the master do. We gave Eld Boon the privilege to be that person coz he was super enthusiastic about this. Alas, the master didnt want him. she wanted someone big.. the biggest size among us all and yup.. it was Shingy! And so.. the session begun. Shingy was kind of screaming away and saying "shiok" but obviously in pain yet enjoying. And soon it became my turn. I guess everyone was enjoying except me. First, we laid on our backs and the massage was done to legs and arms and then body. It was full torture for me and i told her to use the minimum strength. I couldnt take all this.. never did and never will. Then she tried to bend my knees and legs and stretch. It was still bearable until we were turned the other way round. Hwee started to feel like throwing up coz it was pressing on his own stomach. And so the master left shing with another student and took over. She did a special massage for him to help ease out the wind in his stomach.

For the rest of us, we were lying prone and i was screaming in pain. Why? It is embarassing but i shall not hide it. My pubic bone, my ribs, my hip bones were extremely painful. The mattress was not too thick to begin with but no one seemed to complain of pain. I had to ask the lady to stop and carry on other areas instead of pressing onto my body. THen she did the ultimatum of stretching my leg, hand and neck. Oh man....i really regretted all this. And poor hwee, he ran off to puke halfway. seemed like the master's touch was not effective.

We were supposed to do 1 hour and ended doing 2 hours. Paid $200 baht and was late for caroling practice. In the end, this practice was postponed. Sorry to those who waited for us to return. I was in too much pain to sms back. Everyone talked about how they kind of enjoyed the session except me. Guess i am a loser in this aspect. Hey, just went for a free foot massage 2 days ago and yup... totally loser. Will share about this in another blog.

The night devotion was shared by sis Boon Choo. It was her last night with us before returning the next morning. Oh... i forgot about the night bazaar thingy on Sunday night and i shall use this post to share. IT was a rather funny night coz most of them took about 30mins or less to comb thro the entire area. Eld Boon, Warunee & I stopped to watch the Thai traditional dance. It was at the end of the show and the dancers looked real pretty on stage. Warunee told us they were not ladies but it was hard to believe. Then they came down and walked past us... as in like 2-3inches away. We saw to our horror the truth to what she said. You could tell these are men!!!

Anyhow, we didnt buy too much stuff tho some actually made special gifts for their "loved" ones back home. Norman bought plates for his parents and i thot it was super sweet of him. I was in pain... probably constipation type and had to go back to pizza company to do my biz. After all, cooped up in BDC with not so good drainage system.... all of us looked for "good" toilets when were came to town. And so, did my biz and it was really a load off my system...hahahaa.... Who else did too? Iz and JJ. I found them in the pizza company's toilet.

Alright.. shall stop here for this post. Really gross tho...... thanks for reading thus far.