hello, hat yai.

ye ol' blue sky of hat yai
taken from a tuk-tuk on the way to.. carrefour.

for about 10 seconds after i stepped off the curb at a busy junction in hat yai, the azure sky was directly in my line of sight: i had miscalculated my step resulting in my right ankle, followed by my butt, contacting the tar. the immense pain made it difficult for me to appreciate the glorious view as i more intent to regain my balance. i was rocking on my backside for a good while. meanwhile, my ankle quickly swell to the size of a walnut = serious ouchie :(

long story short, i ended up at the massage place where i was tortured for 2 long hours. it was a horrific experience. :'(

the Wongs documented my torture session (upon my request :P).
was thankful for their moral support throughout what must have been a boring 2 hours watching me groaning and crying out in pain, unless one's a sadist. haha..

when i got back to msia, i went to the local GP who advised me to NEVER GET AN URUT FOR SPRAINED ANKLE. apparently, the swollen area contains some anti-inflammatory stuff which helps in the recovery. an urut will make it worse - my elephantine foot easily testifies to that. i wish i'd known that before blowing 500baht (abt RM50) for the torture. bah!

so there, my first holiday related accident.


p/s: the trip was good otherwise :) [piccies here (for FB frens only)] but i don't think i'd return any time soon. the place quickly grew old, offering little [spent a good few hours in carrefour & tesco. srsly.] other than unsatisfying massages (i prefer Bali over Thai any time!) and delicious but a limited array of street food (mango sticky rice! tom yum kung! siew yoke! dessert! mcD pork burger! =)

hence i wondered why my parents returned to this place time and again, and concluded that it was possibly the most affordable "overseas" trip they could afford back then, hence the sentimentality. air asia effectively eliminate that by expanding our choices by hundreds of miles. my personal favorite ASEAN city is Hanoi (Singapore is a de facto first =) - which i think offers more in term of culture and food, and even tourist kitsch. =)

with the wongs & their extended family, outside their Juru (Pg) home
they have graciously offered our heads a place to rest the night before we made our journey up north

i like this pic of us :)
taken at the thai customs [easily the most lax i've ever gone thru. stamping your passport seemed like an option than mandatory. no kidding.]

hat yai, thailand
dec 27-30, 2009