love is our resistance: city in the sky

bangkok's new airport. it's quite cool, it even has a few levels for cars. but i almost died waiting in this place for 3 full hours.

ain't that a nice landscape?

considering it's a new airport, it sucks, as even finding benches to sit on were hard. someone's hair is gonna get caught in the railing sooner or later =D

we even went as far as this. the whole place was pretty dead over here, mostly sand. reminded me of a desert.

cruising along the mekong river. nope, we didn't get to ride on one of those cos we were afraid of getting flung off.

while others were exploring the stupid cashew nut wholesale, i caught this photo. reminds me of a desert too.

one of the converted pickup taxis. this guy was quite nice, we had a problem getting to the hotel on time from central airport plaza so we called him and he arrived in 5 minutes. we made it back, but not to mention without going at high speeds with no seat belts xD

anybody would love some fried insects? we have a big range for your tastebuds. this was chiang mai's day market. pretty boring stuff.

the place with the second-best scenery. it was basically a garden with a vast array of flower types and plant species. the fountain made the day cooler in some sort of way, although no one got touched by a single droplet.

haha. according to diane, our sony camera had picked up the lens of the camera in face detection mode instead of daphne's actual face. LOL.

a nice red-and-white flower i caught last-minute while rushing back to the vehicle. i'm sure dawn would have loved this.

the roadside crepes with custom ingredients, stock price 10B. cheap stuff, pretty nice, but although everyone ate it only diane got a stomachache as a result of her princess stomach.

a promoter for fresly-brewed scorpion-and-snake whiskey. good for health, good for your well-being, not good for the snake and the scorpion. XD

colours, colours, colours.

macro shots are fun. seriously, i've never seen better colour reproductions than SLRs.

cooling off

somehow or rather these flowers give me the impression that they look pissed off.

HAHA militant black guy to the rescue.

this looks more like porcelain urns for dead people.

plant culture lab. if only i could steal a few of these, they'd make good gifts for plant lovers. lol.

basically, this is a normal hibiscus, only that it has the words "TOH ZILING" scribbled all over it.

my backyard would look something like this if i had the bling-bling.

comparing the size of this lone yellow hibiscus to diane's head, all your doubts on where the nuclear waste from the USA went to are cleared.

in thailand, the trend is that you can actually count the number of stock vehicles, because the rest are all modified just like our transport. look at those engine gauges and turbo pressure meters on the A-pillar. it was a pretty good 1.5bar boost for this van. i could hear the turbocharger spooling up everytime the vehicle accelerated. mmmm, addictive.

humongous gingerbread houses.

and of course, every long journey always has its tired passengers.

people love oranges huh? that's propaganda. but i give credit to the orange company for making us tourists figure out what this meant.

beeeeeeaultiful. this didn't even seem it was thailand. notice the sprinkler water trails in the backdrop and the rays of light through the clouds. truly pristine. also, the temperature here was around 21-22 degrees? now you wish you were there.

dining beside the river. this was one of the places with good food, and better scenery.

the view from the orchards. and yes, oranges DO grow on trees, and yes, they DO float in water.

a sprinkler with a rainbow! :D it seemed like an amusement park ride here cos the vehicle was open-air, and usually to pass by the driver waits till the sprinkler changes its direction before it passes by. however, the sprinkler remained like this for quite a while, so he decided to speed right past, drenching everyone (and their cameras) with a blast of refreshingly-cool sprinkler water.

this tree stood alone in the middle of the large field. no other trees were there. makes me wonder who planted it here. but then again, bare trees make wonderful photographs.

i have a phobia for sprinklers and i was afraid this might just come on when i was taking it up close. reason? well, they remind me of scarecrows when they stand alone in the field and spraying water in various directions. and yes, i have been attacked by a sprinkler before. earlier on, we were walking past this pavement beside a field which had a sprinkler. the radius of the water spray grazed the pavement, so i didn't notice it until my sister started running away mysteriously and it was too late. my jeans and shoes were soaked.

always a sadistic message in one of these farms. haha.

elephant trekking lasted longer than how much i expected. my ass hurt like hell after we were done. apparently, the seats aren't made by serta.

an elephant KID (note this word) spraying dust on itself to keep clean. how ironic.

this tunnel (no longer there) was supposed to lead to burma so people could just sneak underground. they sealed it after they found out it existed. ahh, damn geography and limestone caves. polygonal karsts, anyone? =P

we sometimes have extra uninvited guests join us for our meals too.

the big-ass 4 stroke ATV. 200B more than the standard version.

standard ATV. omg the front wheel has lifted off the ground. now, how did i fail my parking test?

anyone wants a ride with the dentists?

this was the funny part. diane couldn't handle her vehicle on this simple terrain and by somehow or rather, her ATV ended up on the green bush (look at the picture). yes, i said ON. i have no idea how it happened, you'll have to ask her. but what i know is that i missed the perfect photo opportunity since i was riding.

shannon will see this photo and go 'amen to that!'

sugared strawberries! and no, i'm not talking about the people. i'm talking about FOOD. if you thought i was mushy or bimbotic, think again.

sinfully rich and sweet, red bliss.

our transport from the outside. now, look at that and tell me it's stock.

silkworm cocoons. they look like a nice pot of food cooking from afar.

the trademark of thailand--the three-wheeled taxi. cheap, fast, super noisy. some of them have exhaust pipes bigger than the WRX's and evolutions back here in sg.

despite my fascination with weapons of mass destrcution, i'm certainly not going to take up a job like this soon.

our chiang mai hotel lobby (chiang mai plaza hotel)

up and down the winding, hilly roads of the mountains in the cold morning wind. reminded me of genting.

i stood faaaaar back and captured this with 70-300mm. i decided not to go up close for the consequences of an angry, prayer-interrupted person are undesirable.