Vampires in Bangkok Palace Hotel

Last weekend, I was on my company annual holiday trip. Sixty of us were shuttled in two AirAsia flights to Bangkok for four days of bliss and relaxation. Personally, I have been to Bangkok a few times on business-related trips, but this is the second time I was there as a tourist :-)

I was looking forward to the infamous local Thai food and bone-cracking massages. We did the customary tour on the floating market, temples and palaces.



Unfortunately our most memorable moments in Bangkok were not of the wonderful times we had but rather of the "vampires" we encountered at our hotel.

Vampires in Bangkok Palace Hotel

After a long day on the flight, walking around the city and visiting the many tourist destinations, we were extremely tired when we reached our hotel. Our tour company, Mayflower Acme Tours, in arrangement with the local tour operator booked us to stay in Bangkok Palace Hotel.





We promptly went to bed at around 1:00am as we had to wake up earlier for the next day's city tour. At about 4:00am, I was woken up by George, my colleague. He told me that he wanted to change room and he showed me the rashes and swellings around his neck, arms and abdomen.


This is a video showing the bed bugs we caught.

We did not know what caused the swelling and rashes, but George was itching as hell. He said he saw a small cockroach scurrying off his bed. George being short-sighted and was not wearing his glasses, had not realised that the "cockroach" was actually a well fed bed bug. You can read up more about the little blood suckers on Wikipedia.


Photograph of a bed bug from Wikipedia.

George managed to catch it and squashed the little bugger. After removing the bed covers and checking our pillows, we found another four and two of them from my bed. I caught and put them in a glass. During that time, George went down to the reception to request for a change of room.

After about 10 minutes, the hotel staff came up and we showed him the bed bugs we caught. He told us that our new room was ready and that we could move in anytime we wanted. He was NOT even surprised. That really pissed us off.

The "Vampiric" Aftermath

The next morning at breakfast we found out that 8 of our colleagues had the same "vampiric" experience the night before.

















We complained to the tour operators and they arranged for some of our colleagues to change rooms as well. If this were to happened to other tourists, I doubted if the hotel could have gotten off so easily.

In any case, this hotel is on our banned forever hotel list! Anyone thinking of traveling to Bangkok, be warned not to stay at Bangkok Palace Hotel, lest you become the next victim of these vampires!

Drinking Chinese Cooking Wine And Then Some

Recently, an open source company (Open Dynamics) I was involved with, organised a seminar called "Automating Your Business Processes The CODE-LESS Way" in Jakarta, Indonesia. The seminar was held on Aug 9th, I was in Jakarta for a good 3 days.

Here are some of the highlights of my trip... :-)


I discovered this cheese snacks that was really tasty... :-) Brought a bunch home. Will buy more the next time I am there.


A very tired colleague of mine on our way back to KL.


It was really weird for me to see a street peddler selling real human hair!


Check out the complete selection of human hair for sale! Creep me out!

A Night of Fine Chinese Dining and Cooking Wine

The night before the seminar, me and my colleagues were invited to dine in a very nice and classy Chinese restaurant in Setia Budi One. I believe the name of the restaurant was called Ming. Our Indonesian patron was Pak Kuang and through him, we met Jason, although just met, felt like a long lost brother!

Pak Kuang and Jason were very close friends and Jason had just gotten back to Jakarta from Hong Kong, and that night was their night of catching up with old times. We were fortunate enough to be invited along to share in an experience that none of us would easily forget :-)



Before dinner was served, we were surprised to see Pak Kuang and Jason being served a bottle of Chinese cooking wine. The wine was poured into a clay test-tube like container submerged in hot water in a tall clay cup. A smaller wine cup was was placed on top to contain the heat. (I am poor at explaining this. Watch the video :P) In any case, the intention was to heat up the cooking wine before drinking.





Needless to say, we were all very curious. Why were they drinking Chinese cooking wine? Hey... cooking wine for cooking? When we asked, we received a very logical explanation... LOL.

Jason believes that it is the drinking companions that one has, that decides how good the wine and food taste; and how enjoyable the night will be. With that philosophy in mind, if the companionship is not enjoyable, then neither would the most expensive bottle of french wine.

But if one's company is enjoyable, whether it's cooking wine or one of the most expensive french wine, you will enjoy and cherish that moment.

And true to Jason's words, all of us enjoyed the Chinese cooking wine with a taste that was of good friends sharing conversation, laughter and fun. Oh... and the food was good too... LOL.





We drank 4 bottles and wanted more... but it was getting late and we had a seminar to conduct the next day! The episode just begged to be revisited and we intend to do it soon... :-) The following are some videos I took of the occasion.


How to pour the Chinese cooking wine.


How to drink the Chinese cooking wine.

ASOCIO Multilateral Trade Visit to Macao and then some

In July, I had the opportunity to participate in a trade visit to Macao organised by the Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization (ASOCIO). ASOCIO is "a group of IT industry associations coming from economies in the Asia and Oceania region. ASOCIO is established in 1984 with the objective is to promote, encourage and foster relationships and trade between its members, and to develop the computing industry in the region."

The trade program was organised to coincide with Communic Macao 2010 & Digital Life Carnival which was held at Macau Fisherman's Wharf Exhibition Centre from 16th to 18th July 2010.

My colleague (Tiensoon) and I were first timer to Macao. Our aim was to promote an open source workflow software called Joget Workflow, which both of us are ardently involved in. The program was well organised and we had many opportunities to meet up with delegates from Hong Kong, Macao, Thailand, Singapore, China and even from Malaysia :-)

On the first night after our meetings, all delegates were invited to dine in a first-class restaurant (Bambu) in The Venetian. After dinner, we had the opportunity to explore the hotel and casino at leisure.

After the exhibitions and seminars on the second day, Tiensoon and I took the opportunity to explore Macao as pedestrians. Our approach was to take a bus to a single destination and then explore all the alley ways not accessible by cars... :-)

Our first destination was the famous Senado Square. We tried the yummy steamed milk pudding and the pork sandwich in Leitaria I Son dessert shop. After that, we basically wandered all the interconnecting streets and alley ways. From what I could see, Tiensoon was in photography heaven. It was dusk and the street lighting had just came on... if you had a DSLR, it was a moment of graphic pleasure... LOL.


Since I did not have a proper camera with me, I decided that I might as well use my trusty Dopod D810 phone camera to capture the photographer capturing the moment... LOL. I think I only took one usable photo at Senado Square... hahah. (http://goo.gl/maps/VIpj)

At about 11:30pm, after conquering Senado Square, we took the bus back to the hotel (I had a chore I needed to do... LOL). It was still very early and it did not feel right to be back at the hotel. And so at around midnight, we decided to head out again and walk the streets of Macao.... LOL.

We started from out our hotel (Golden Dragon Hotel) and headed out into the night, Tiensoon with his DLSR and me with my trusty Dopod... LOL. The following are some of the "visible" photos I took... LOL.


The Wynn Casino and Hotel.


The MGM Grand.


The Ponte Governador Nobre de Carvalho (Governador Nobre de Carvalho Bridge).


Hotel Lisboa. (http://goo.gl/maps/2XKA)


Tiensoon looking for that perfect shot!


Crystal Palace Casino.


Wynn Hotel. (http://goo.gl/maps/gv87)

During the course of the morning, Tiensoon took some really remarkable photos of the casinos and their beautiful surroundings. You can check out his photo streams here... :-) We were done about about 4:00am in the morning. We ate some instant noodles and drank a couple of local beers at a 7-Eleven outlet before we walked all the way back to the hotel. It was a great and fantastic experience!

The third day, before my flight back to KL, we decided to visit the famous St. Paul's Ruins. Again, we took a bus to Senado Square and made our way through a maze of narrow streets. The following photos basically documented our walk up to the church ruins and inside crypt.

















All in all, this trip to Macao was a very nice experience. Generally, the night streets of Macao are VERY safe to walk in. There are probably many more things to be done in Macao, like heading to the borders gateway to China... LOL. Maybe that will be reason enough for a return visit to Macao. But will I make a return trip back to Macao in the very near future? Lets just say... maybe... LOL.

New Year Day in Bentong Buddhist Nature Farm

On the first day of 2010, the family went on a trip to Bentong. We were invited by my sister-in-law, who came down from Ipoh, to have breakfast in Bentong and then pay a visit to a nearby Buddhist Nature Farm (together with all her Buddhist friends). My sister-in-law is a staunch practitioner of the Buddhist philosophy. She started her journey into Buddhism about 5 years ago when she became a full fledged vegetarian.

We reached the farm at about 1pm in the afternoon. The weather was just nice with enough cloud covers to make it a cooling afternoon. I took the kids for a walk around the farm. The farm is actually a sanctuary for all living things. The people who ran the farm accepts all kind of animals from anyone who wants to donate them.


The water lily lake in the farm has lots of fishes, mostly donated by the public. You can see my kids were not enthusiastic about getting their photo taken.


Things started to get exciting for them when I took them to feed the cows. They were scared at first... but after a while... no fear... LOL.


Then we went to the goat stalls and the kids just loved feeding the hungry goats.


Jodene and Jordan reluctantly looked at me, when I told them I want to take a photo of them.


A family photo with the goats.

After the "animal farm", we followed the entourage to Bentong's Hot Spring. By then it was 2 plus in the afternoon. To my surprise, the Hot Spring was right next to the highway.


A suspension bridge leading to the Karak Highway across the river. Only if you think you are as versatile as the infamous Indiana Jones, would I advise you to cross over. The planks were loose and some parts rotten.


Just opposite the suspension bridge was the Bentong Hot Spring, in it's full glory! Sad!

When we reached the Hot Spring, I wanted to leave immediately... It was very sad to see that the place was in deplorable condition. Irresponsible visitors just piled up rubbishes next to the picnic hut area. The picnic huts were dirty and the wooden floor rotting.

To make matters worse, the state government did not see the sense of maintaining this natural wonder. The guard house were run-down and all signs were hard to read. Compared to the nearby waterfall at Hutan Lipur Lentang, this place is a shame! I am no environmentalist or a tree-hugger, but I just think this is plain negligence on the State government part.

The odd thing was that you still see a lot of tourists sitting by the hot spring soaking their feet. Some even immerse themselves and their children in the water. I wish I had taken some photos of the water just to show how disgusting it was. To each, its own I suppose...

Sad!

Family Fun at Hutan Lipur Lentang

Exactly 10 days ago, a group of friends together with our families went to a waterfall somewhere in the remote foothills of Genting in Karak to celebrate a friend's birthday... sort of... LOL. The place is called Hutan Lipur Lentang.

Actually it was a prelude to a fantastic lunch at a famous restaurant sponsored by the birthday boys, yeah... two birthdays... LOL. We got our families together to let the kids (those of us with kids) experience the "wild". My kids were very excited. They were freaking out when they saw the giant ants foraging in the forest path. Out of impulse, Joel could not help trying to stamp his feet on the ants! I managed to calm him down and got him to appreciate what the ants were doing... i.e. searching for food... LOL.

I had to take this picture... the rocks looked ideal for trials... LOL.

The river was flowing very rapidly... not safe for swimming.

My two boys mesmerised by the flowing river.

Thanks to Uncle Joe, my kids had the paper binoculars to purvue their surrounding with. Blurred as hell!

The guys pointing to the tiny tree growing out from the shadow of the giant tree... :-)

There they go again with their binoculars...

The rain the night before made the river unsafe for swimming.

Fast moving water.

The river, muddy and clouded with sediments.

There they go again.

A view of the picnic site from high above on the paths.

The river flooded, almost overflowing the banks.

The picnic site. Nice and clean.

George, the birthday boy, getting rid of a leech... LOL.

The tent was set up for the kids... but too hot for them to stay inside long... LOL.

All the kids going after the food... LOL.

All in all it was a fun trip. My kids definitely had fun and so did I... :-)