Thailand Mega Fam Trip 2008 - Siam Niramit, Wat Arun @ Bangkok

Let's skip my Australia trip for a while and hope to two months after my OZ trip.

Two months ago (back in Oct), I was invited by TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) to its Thailand Mega Fam 2008,

pretty thai girls


a grand event where over 2000 agents and medias around the world were invited to Thailand to experience the seven wonders of Thailand.

mega fam trip


There were two main routes given out to different media of different countries: Chiang Mai and Isan.

Seeing that I have never been to Isan province, the North Eastern part of Thailand, it was 6 days 5 nights of road trip to Nakhon Ratchasima for me.

Thailand_Isan
Isan Province in the red~


Day 1

After checking in to Swissotel Le Concorde on Ratchada-phisek road, we proceeded to meet at the lobby to head out for dinner.

For me, it was talking a 5 mins taxi from my apartment to the hotel instead of 3 hours flight.

welcome to siam niramit


Anyway, Siam Niramit is one of those must do touristy thing in Bangkok.

siam niramit


I've seen a fair share of live stage performance in my life. Some of the grandest can be found in China. However, Siam Niramit prides itself to have the biggest and tallest indoor stage in the world.

award winning stage


The show package usually includes buffet dinner outdoor,

siam niramit buffet
Ours is indoor because we're special :p


and an adult ticket to the cultural village and show.

It's not allowed to bring camera into the hall, so here's a little snippet of what you might see during the performance.

human bird


Be amazed, for I was. There are few highlights in the shows that would put you in awe. Imagine an actual river, and elephants (note the plural) all indoor!


Feel free to finish dinner early so you can walk around the cultural village before the show starts.

pretty fountain
Pretty fountain


thai girl cooking
Traditional Thai girl cooking


aunty sewing
Sexy Thai aunty sewing


poser
Live dancer - posing for photos


and oohh... Thai boys~

me with thai boys


Sorry, I don't find guys in blings blings attractive at all.


After dinner, a few of us, including Richard (marketing manager of TAT Malaysia) decided to hire a few taxi to go clubbing. Woo~~

me and richard
Khun Richard is damn cool ok! We're like best of buds!


self pose
cam whore


We chose Soi 4 because the receptionist at the hotel said so.

And landed in some, well.. dodgy, yet cool, yet dodgy, pub, where all the waiters wear funny costume.


photo with waitress and waiters

Something must be wrong with me, or the fact that they were playing Thai music all the way, or the fact that it's cultural shock for me. I got tremendously bored after a while..


bored me 2
see how bored I was?


Blow face~

bored nicole
Who's hand is that?! OMG, I just saw that when editing this photo!


So I decided to grab a hat from a random waiter to play...

posing with bartender
He looked damn stoned. Kakaka


Day 2

Morning came, after reluctantly woke up from my oh-so-soft bed, I quickly washed up and went out to tour the city of Bangkok with my Malaysian travel agents.

We went to Chao Phraya River for a boat tour.

chao praya river


Had a few floating boat selling fruits and souvenirs came up to us.

mini floating market


And fed some of the fattest catfish I have ever seen.

feeding catfish


I mean, these catfish were gigantic! If only I can catch them and pass them to the cook. Yum~




Respect these fish, for they belong to the king? or the monks? I think. All I knew was that you couldn't kill them.


Moving on! We went to visit the infamous Wat Arun.

wat arun


The temple reminds me of these headdress the Thai loves to wear with their traditional costume.

thai costume headdress


Correct me if I'm wrong, but everytime I see the Thais wearing traditional Thai costumes, I feel that they're wearing a temple on their heads.

poser
Yes? no?


Wat Arun has some lovely cravings back in their times, like these dancing figurines on the wall.

dancing figures


And this is me emulating them figurines.

emulating wat arun figure


nicole at wat arun
This is how you cam-whore at 30 meters above sea level. (was it 30? bah, who cares)


Soon it was almost dinner time. We were asked to put on our best dinner suit/dress because it was going to be a grand gala event. The Minister of Sports and Tourism would be present too!


So I rushed to Pratunam to get myself a lovely black necklace and went back to put on my favourite evening dress, two sparkly teddy earrings.

all ready for dinner


Twirled my hair and stuck a chopstick in it.

hair style


Done!


I met Somboon (PR manager of TAT Malaysia) there. He was leading a group to Chiang Mai.

smiley nicole


During the cockail session (or the pre-dinner minggling session), we had a look around and found a lot of amazing showcase of Thai culture.

pretty thai girl
No, apart from the beautiful Thai women.

group photo
Eh hem... couldn't resist. *cough*


Like these skillful fruit carvings live!

fruit cravers


I mean, these fruits were so pretty I wondered if anyone would ever want to eat them at all.

fruit cravings 2


Imagine me biting into this delicious looking apple that looked exactly like a flower.

pretty fruit cravings


Seriously, sometimes I think these arts are simply waste of food.

fruit craving

And there goes another good honey dew.


One of my favourites was this three people doll performance.

human doll


Basically, one controls the left hand, the other the right, and the middle one controls the legs.

Don't ask me why they need so many people to control a doll, but by god, the doll did act pretty lively. As if it was a real life human, only smaller, and if you could overlook the fact that there are three huge human in black behind.


Soon, it was time to move into the ballroom for some wicked dinner.

mega fam trip formal dinner


I was sure somewhere along those periods, the Minister himself did appear on stage, I could have remembered some parts of his speech, but then again, what would I know?

I was too indulged in the table next to me.

dessert


Hoo Hoo Hoo!!!! I think I drowned in desserts that night.

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10 kissed Nicole

  1. That's some impressive fruit.

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  2. Your "adventure" & life as interesting as always ....... You'd be a "tourism ambassador" or something like that ....to add to the "many hats" you're already wearing (Entrepreneur, star paper columnist, blogger, product ambassador )...In short, "super-women" you're

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  3. Brilliant!
    Have a nice weekend!

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  4. You look so stunning!!! Lovely photos..

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  5. Hey, I'm a fan of fruit carving but I must say that the better designs should whet our appetite even more now that it's so beautifully done...lolx...

    this is my first time coming to your blog other than reading your articles on the newspaper...come visit mine some day ya...and leave me something too...

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  6. how is the airport situation ?

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  7. oh cool blog, I'll look at your pictures regularly

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  8. Emm.. I have not been to this part of Thailand

    Just wonder if it is still safe

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  9. singha beer is one of my favourite beer...cheers!!!

    ReplyDelete