chiang mai ....

i can't remember exactly when, but i guess it must have been in may 2010 ? 25 of us flew off to chiang mai. let me try to recall who  ...  cho + kak cho, day + nina, abg chin + kak yati + boy + intan + fatin + ain, kak et + abg jack + ika, pak lee + gee + hasif + izzat + jiha, intan + od + amir + jabbar, myself + mira + iman.

sawadeekaap  ....  we were greeted by a thai beauty dressed in traditional clothes & flower leis  .. only it wasn't orchid  ...  tak ada laa pulak amik gambar  .... coz gambar tu kena beli ! me & acif on d bus

 

since there were more than 20 of us, we ( actually my brother had arranged almost everything prior to our trip ) chartered a big bus to take us everywhere. great ! we get to relax, & be free & easy in the bus.

                  first stop  ~  makan time !  a halal joint  ...  & tom yam, of coz

                      putting up a "happy" smile  ~  very hungry actually

that nite we went to the cultural show dinner ( less the dinner tho )  ...  unfortunately, i don't have a digital picture of all of us at the dinner/show  .... so i had to "cilok" these pix from google

              we were pulled to dance along with the dancers  ....  just like in this pic

this must be at the same place we went  ... we sat on the floor, actually, with a space under the table to put   our feet down

                      we even took picture with this "monkey ?", & paid him off, too ...

                my nephew couldn't take his eyes off of the dancers then  ....  kantoi !!     
                                                                      

this we were at the jewellery factory. sapphires, rubies. jades, gold, silvers  .....  i just bought each of us (iman, mira & myself) a silver ruby ring, & locket for the girls. some spouses & parents had a sudden parkinson attack  ~  while trying to sign off their credit cards. some were smart to exit earlier like all of us here  ...  hehehe

the silk worm. yup, we went to the silk factory, & was shown how the silk cloth were made. did we buy any cloth ?  mahal ! but we did buy laa a tudung or two ...

    those manually operated "machines" at the back ~ the silk thread woven into cloth

                    a closer look  ...

other than the chartered bus which took us around during the day, we travelled to town & back with the song thaew (red taxi), 2 -3 at one go  ....  the young cousins would always wanna ride on their own  ...  wait, i see my my brother (their uncle) in there  ... they must have "accepted" him so that he'd pay for the ride  ... for experience, we took the tuk tuk too .... *phew*

it is simply not chiang mai, or thailand for that matter, if you don't watch the elephant show  ....  nope, not the thai girl show  ...  many children around.

              we took pictures with the elephant  ....

              watched the elephants bathe ....

                                          played ball ...

                                          massage  ...

                                         & paint ....  awesome !!

                                          it's truly amazing actually  ....

                                         & the paintings are sold at RMxxx's

                                        posing with the paintings  ...

then we went on a 45mins ride on the elephants  ....  uphill, downhill, along the lychee tress  ... too bad it was off season

                  along the way, we stopped to buy sugar canes & fed the elephants ....

                                   crossed the rivers  ....        

        at the end of the elephant ride, cow carts waited to take us back to the base ...

            lunch time   ....  we were really hungry & thirsty by now

                       then it was a 2km Bamboo-Raft-Trip-Mae-Taeng-River  ....

                        see  ....  complete with the bamboo headgear

either you seat & enjoy the ride  .... or you can paddle & manouver down the river  ...  it is really hard !

the night market  -  a real tourist attraction.  you can get your souvenirs & many other things there. we were there two nites in a row shopping for interesting items ...

beautiful & colorful flowers carved from soaps, & placed in a wooden trinket  ....  i bought 5 pieces

to not buy a piece of this thai silk is surely not complete for a trip to thailand  ... i preferred a plain maroon

                                                colorful decorated lights  ...

                                               silver bangles  ....

silk robes & clothings  ...

after all the adventures & shoppings, we were ready to go home ... it had been truly a great holiday ...  & owh yes, be careful how you greet in thailand  ... sawadeekaap vs sawadeehaaa is not the same

classic ...

i went back to my kampong  ~  ipoh  ~  last weekend for moreh. despite having a copy of my own at home (nampak sangat laa da tua kann ..), i came to realise that i DO have a pic of myself when i was small when i looked at it hanging on the wall. taken in 1966, that made me only 4 yrs old then ...

in the centre is my granddad, habib abdul samad. i was too small to know & remember much about him, but i heard my brothers telling stories that he spoke very fluent arabic. he used to "go back" (we are of arabic descendents) to saudi often with his dad on business trips. he passed away when i was 8.

this is the house i lived in when i told about "orang potong kepala" in my earlier entry ~ a govt quarter bungalow house right smack in the middle of ipoh. my dad was a penghulu daerah kinta masa tuh.

ok, back to the pic. at this time, walaupun i am the youngest in the family, i called my elder siblings by their names  ~  cham, cik, chin, et, lee. no abangs or kak.  one day, my brother pak lee (today everyone calls him that), pointed to himself in this pic & asked me who he is.  i answerd, "lee."  then he pointed to his younger brother & asked who is that. i answered, "abang olan."  he repeated the questions a few times, & i still  answered the same. finally, he gave up, & i never understood why, until many years later.  u see, that brother i called abang  ~  the only one i called abang then  ~  did not live with us. so, i grew up not knowing he is one of my brothers, except that whenever we want to take family pic during raya, we have to wait for him to come.

now back to me not calling my siblings abang & kak. after my dad retired, & we moved to live in our kampong house, of coz he spent all day at home. only then he noticed that i have not addresed my brothers & sister properly. at the age of 11 was when i started to call them abang & kak  ~  abang cham, abang cik, abang chin, kak et, pak lee (coz by now we have all started to him call that).  the brother right above me, intan, is another story.

& it was at this age jugak la i baru nak tau the positions of my siblings, from eldest to myself. then baru la i tau that pak lee is the elder brother to abang olan. now i know why pak lee asked me the question repeatedly  ~  why i panggil adik dia abang, & i called him by his name only.  you see, whenever abang olan came to our house, i was told to call him abang, but nobody told me he IS my abang.

since many, many years back, we have all grown very close  ~  even among the children & grandchildren.  we have had gatherings makan2, gone for holidays locally & abroad, ramai2. & as usual, we rock the place, even at & during weddings !!  no family is without some kind of conflict kan, especially a big one like ours, but all of us manage to bridge that.  i know my mom & dad would have been very happy & proud to see how we are today.  i wish they are with all of us now. 

miss you sooo much, abah & mak  ....  my sedekah alfatehah everyday.