A News to Share

This morning, at 10:47am, while I was on the phone with colleague, my mobile phone rang.

It was a call from the chief editor of a local travel magazine, Travel Preview (旅风). Previously I submitted 2 articles to participate in their travel article writing contest, organized by Malaysian Chinese Tourism Association.

The first article I submitted was about Yellow Mountain. When I got to know we could submit multiple articles, I submitted the second, about Wuyuan. The Wuyuan article then won a third prize :)


It's not exactly the same as what I published in my blog. I slightly edited it for the submission to that contest.

To be honest, I haven't read any issue of Travel Preview magazine, but I'm going to do it soon. According to the phone conversation just now, they publish 4 issues per year, and the subscription fee is RM12 yearly. (see details here)

The results will be in the June issue. My "award-winning" (hehe, make it big) article will be in the September issue. I'm quite glad with the news. It's been years I never win any writing contest (coz of no participation also).

I know good things will keep coming. I will tell at the appropriate moment, just like now :)

Last but not least, a sincere appreciation goes specially to Feng (now in NZ), for suggesting to go to Wuyuan last year.

Mae Sai

After some strawberries shopping, we hopped on to the car, headed towards Mae Sai, the Thailand's most northerly town.

Aof told me, there was a big market, and things were sold at very cheap prices. For example, she said she got the above sunglasses at just 40B (approximately RM4)!

We still met a lot of roadblocks on the way. Mong Kon, the driver, would say "SAI KAP" to the police. I asked what did that mean. Aof told me, SAI means Mae Sai, and KAP is a courtesy word said by a man. Overall, it meant, we are going to Mae Sai.

If a woman were to say the same, it would be "SAI KAH".

Reaching Mae Sai. To be honest, previously I thought it's a downtrodden town, but it was not really so.

We got off from the car.. and the shopping spree started!!

Too much choices, but limited time and money?

Pardon me for bombarding you with lotsa photos again. There is really not much to talk about. It was just a simply walk around.

Aof had got a list of items to shop. I asked her to buy the things first whilst I'd just tag along and take some photos. She actually felt kinda not-so-good, but I told her, no worries, just do your shopping. I don't have any specific to buy.

The area was loaded with cheap goods from China, Thailand, and Myanmar.

Since the cheap stuff might not have very good quality, perhaps buying some junk food is not a bad idea.

The passion fruit.

The stalls in Mae Sai are even more "multi-lingual" than those in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.

Eh, where is the person-in-charge?

A chestnut stall.

Originates from China, right?

Out of somewhere, this little boy followed us, asking for money. Aof told me to ignore him, by not giving any response.

All the while, I only heard "Chinatown". I first encountered with "Chinesetown" at Mae Sai :)

Ah.. we saw a stall selling sunglasses. We were curious if we could get a pair of sunglasses at 40B, as what Aof told me earlier.

Finally, we got it! Bargain is a must when you shop here! However, the man scolded Aof for helping a tourist (me) to bargain. I didn't know what his exact sentences were. I don't understand Thai.

Aof bought 12 of this for 100B. She said, at Myanmar, the same price gets you 3 more packets.

A very happy character with nice smile.

Three for 50B!

Is she a Thai or a Burmese?

While writing this post, I realized that I missed something. If you get to Mae Sai next time, don't forget to visit a temple atop a hill to overlook the town - it's a Thai market town built around a river, which cut through the middle of it.

Photo by Adam. In this picture, the top half above the river is Burma and the bottom half below the river is Thailand.

"Everything looks normal at first glance, but when you look closely you can see a bridge over the river with no vehicles, just lots of people carrying luggage, and a checkpoint at either side. And Burma is so close, you feel you can reach out and touch it." ~ by Adam

Read more about Mae Sai here

Blog to Mention

今天心情好，所以多写一点。

还不是时候说为什么心情会好。只能说，一步步向梦想前进的感觉真的很好。

多希望人生中的每一刻，我都可以那么积极、上进、快乐。

时常浏览右下角那blogroll的人，一定会发觉近来多了个“忆静当下”。由于拥有者是我从小就“玩到大”的老友，所以一定要特别提一提。


她的文笔真的很好，最主要是不像我那么啰嗦。不信？看看她曾在这里发表的留言，就知道我没有骗人。

我一直都很鼓励别人写部落格，不是因为这是现今很流行的玩意儿，而是因为这是一个很好的互相了解、保持联络的管道。之前Sam少说他也是受我影响，当时真的有点受宠若惊。哈哈！

这一次，我还特地弄了个wordpress的帐号，来协助她学习写部落格。

认识我越久的人，再浏览一下我的blogroll吧！你会有更多的惊喜。

因为当某人开始写部落格，通常我都是第一个被通知的。

对于如此的“虚荣”，老实说我是很光荣的 :)

Souvenir from Chiang Mai

Short Note: Got in touch with my student/friend who's working in Sichuan. He experienced the earthquake but is not injured. He's still able to go to work as usual (his company did not collapse, hehe). His family is safe too. Nice to know that :) I used to say, maybe I go find him someday and go to Tibet. Seems like this would stay just as a simply saying.

Today, Choi Har told me she's going to Chiang Mai soon.


While talking to her about some places in Chiang Mai, I couldn't stop myself from mentioning a souvenir I bought back from Chiang Mai earlier.

Honestly, I'm not sure why I like them so much. Originally, I planned to give to friend, but eventually I kept them to myself.


I feel they are quite special and unique. At least they are not sold EVERYWHERE at other night markets or roadside stalls. They are only available from a stall located at the Anusarn Market, near the famous Chang Klan Road.

The handmade products seem to be very delicate.


I slightly "interviewed" the seller. She told me, her brother did those key chains at home, and she was the marketing person to sell them at night market.

Two key chains were bought - one big and one small, for 250B altogether. The big one was 150B, whilst the small one was 100B - quite reasonable, right?


Actually I prefer to call them "bag chains" coz I'd attach them to bags instead of keys.


They were nicely packed in plastics after being chosen. Till now they are still intact as how the seller packed for me. I haven't got a most suitable place for them to stay.


I'd recommend you this if you wish to get any souvenirs from Chiang Mai.

Remember it's from the ANUSARN MARKET near the Chang Klan Road. Don't go there too early as many stalls might still be close. If you are the first customer of any stall, you could easily bargain for a good price.


They believe that the first customer will bring good luck, by using the received notes from the customer to "touch" the displayed items for sale. I'm not sure how effective is that, but it's always better to be optimistic.


I've a special feeling towards Anusarn Market. I'm not sure why. I spent a quite lot there, ate quite an amount there. Part of it was nicely decorated with colorful and comfortable lights.

P/S: Another trigger of this post is the text message I got from someone who utilized the Air Asia Free Voucher to Bangkok. She said she wanna send me a T-shirt. In fact, I didn't expect anything while giving away the voucher. Nonetheless, I learned in the past that at certain times, we should just accept and say thank you.

Strawberry Feast

Short Note: I have a student/friend, Mr Fan, from SiChuan. Thought of him when listening to the news about the recent 7.8 earthquake in China. Hope he's fine, as well as his family. Don't know why, humans always feel and appreciate the good things around, only from seeing others' unluckiness.

After coming down from Doi Mae Salong, we headed towards the next destination, Mae Sai.


On the way, we stopped by a shop at Mae Chan to take lunch. Originally, a so-called "buffet lunch" was part of the tour. Since eating is really not that important for me (a lot of times I skipped meals just to have more time to go around and photo-taking), I suggested just a simple meal together with the tour guide and driver.


As usual, I ordered a pork ball noodle soup. If not mistaken, that was already the 3rd day I had the same meal.

Honestly, the meal was just okay. Seeing the driver kept adding chillies, you know there was "something wrong". According to him, the food was tasteless!


After lunch and before reaching Mae Sai, we passed by some roadside stalls selling strawberries, manned by young and pretty country lass. The tour guide, Aof, had some orders in hand from her friends, to bring back few boxes of strawberries.

When seeing strawberries, the first person I thought of was my mum. She loves strawberries!


Attractive, right?


Strawberry is indeed a beautiful fruit. However I don't crazy for it.

According to Aof, January is the season of strawberries. In February, the price would be even cheaper. In Chiang Mai, you'd also see people selling "mountains" of strawberries, though the price was kinda dearer than those sold near the Thai border.


For your information, cold weather for a long period with not much rain is the most suitable climate for the growth of strawberries.

Upon arrival, we were immediately served with iced strawberry juice. Wow, yummy!


There were bottles of strawberry juice being sold, but it was not feasible for me to buy and carry.


Two bottles for approximately RM10 (100B). You definitely don't have any excuse to claim the price was not reasonable :) In fact, we were offered 100B for 3 bottles!


The stall owner's daughter was prettily dressed like a strawberry. She asked us to buy more, so that her mother would allow her to go to Mae Sai together with us.


Hehe... come on, don't be silly and think the mum will let go the daughter just for few more Bahts.

The sweet girl served us some other "side dishes"... such as some strawberries with sugar...


Those on the left should be dried strawberries, but how about those in green?


No joke, Aof bought strawberries in boxes! The seller packed the strawberries from basket into boxes. Big strawberries cost 100B/kg, whilst you could get 2kg of the small ones at the same price.


While in Dec 2007, strawberries were much dearer - 1kg for 250B.

Then, seal the box.


Besides, there were also strawberry wine to be tasted (FOC) and bought at 100B each.


Are you interested?