The Cube

I have just realised someone was posing for me in the photo... don't know who that was...

Long, long time ago, Thailand was associated with voodoo, no thanks to all the movies back then and my mother's nerves. Despite growing up in north of Malaysia, I have not been to Thailand, not even Hatyai which was only about 2 hours away from my hometown. My first visit to this neighbour country of Malaysia was in 2006. Many Malaysians probably visit Thailand once every few years or even once a year. This was my second trip to Bangkok, after a long ten years. That's a scary thought, isn't it? I mean ten years.

Ten years ago, I travelled with a friend. Ten years later, this friend is now living in Bangkok. What's better than to include a visit since I am back to the good old South East Asia. As I have been to the usual touristy spot albeit a decade back, I just want to eat and walkabout. I left it all to my awesome friend for his recommendations.

First order of the day - food! In my probably dazed state, I thought we were going to have lunch, then back to his place before heading out again so I left my camera in his apartment. My friend had other plans. It was food and walkabout till night. I decided to let it be and asked my friend to loan me his phone to take photos when I want to... hahaha. Imagine me putting out my palm, not for money for to borrow his phone and yes, we are still friends. Hahah.

Chicken rice at a road side stall in Silom, if my record is correct, 2 plates for 120 baht

We had the main meal, so next up was Shibuya Honey Toast at After You Dessert Cafe. We went to the branch in Silom Complex and there was no queue at all. Maybe was our good timing. I don't remember the cost, my friend picked up the tab for this.


After keeping the tummies happy, he brought me to a museum. I have not been to this one, whilst I am not very big on museums but it was an interesting museum. My friend called it the Multimedia Museum but after asking the old-wise-Google, I think the full name is Rattanakosin Exhibition Hall. Entrance fee was 100 baht / ~RM 13 / ~AUD 4. Audio guide was free but not a complete guide; however maybe because I was the only one who don't understand Thai language, the staffs would come over to give me some explanations of the exhibition.

At the time of visit, there were two different exhibition. We did the one showing interactive multimedia giving information on history, arts and culture of the Rattanakosin era and the past kings. Photography is allowed but as I was playing along with the multimedia exhibition, I didn't really take any photo along the way. There is also an observation area on the upper floor.



After I bought the tickets (my friend entered for free due to a train card, I think) but before the start of the exhibition tour, we went to have an early tea time. Haha, yes, there was a lot of eating. According to my friend, this was a popular place called Mont Nom Sod. These two pieces of toasts cost 40 baht / ~RM 5 / ~AUD 1.60. I know they don't really look appetising but they were delicious. The one in yellow was corn cream soup and the one in green is pandan kaya. I picked the pandan one and my friend chose the other. When he told me he wanted the corn cream soup toast, I gave him a suspicious look and even asked him if he was sure that was what he wanted. Surprisingly it was good, my apologies for being skeptical. :P


We didn't order any drinks (friend said it was the bread that was famous) but picked up a coffee each from the road side. It was good coffee, mm.. actually any coffee is good after spending 2 weeks in Sri Lanka.

After a couple of hours at the Rattanakosin Exhibition Hall, we walked around the old city area towards the metal temple first because we were unsure if the temple was closing soon. Metal temple or Loha Prasat, located in the grounds of Wat Ratchanaddaram is an impressive structure. At a glance, the obvious difference is the black metal unlike the rest of the temple. I was told though that works are being done to cover the black metal with gold. Personally I prefer the raw black metal colour. I didn't go in to the temple as I was in shorts and t-shirt, and wasn't sure if I was dressed appropriately.


From there we backtracked to the opposite direction, passing Democracy Monument then towards the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration City Hall.

Bangkok aka Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit

Crossed the road from here to the Giant Swing and continue onwards to Rommaninat Park. 



We took a cab to the Chao Phraya River side after that and walked a bit before settled for dinner at one of the restaurants. I don't know the name of the restaurant but my friend referred this as touristy eating place, after all it has river view.




After drinks dinner was just downstairs from here, we just picked one of the stalls and sat on the bench. Haha.


Side note: I was going to write 48 hours in Bangkok but I got too long winded, so I changed it to this current title. Haha

Pre-travel / Others
 - 10 random things or thoughts about Sri Lanka
 - Breakdown of travel days and links to accommodation
 - Food in Sri Lanka


Colombo:
Day 1 - A relaxing day in Colombo


Habarana:
Day 2 - Getting to Habarana and stayed for 3 nights
Day 3 - Climbing the lion rock, Sigiriya and checking out the roof of Dambulla caves
Day 4 - Back to the ancient Polonnaruwa in the hot sun and getting up close with some elephants in Minneriya National Park


Kandy:
Day 5 - A lazy day in Kandy
Day 6 - An attempt to see the tooth on a Poya Day and other things


Nuwara Eliya:
Day 7 - Train ride from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya and things to do in Nuwara Eliya.


Nuwara Eliya / Ohiya: 
Day 8 - Short morning in Nuwara Eliya and moving on to the middle of nowhere, Ohiya


Ohiya:
Day 9 - To World's End and back, followed with a train ride in the observation car in the hill country to Ella.


Ella:
Day 9 & 10 - Getting up to Little Adam's Peak and a cheat version of Nine Arches Bridge, finished with a cooking lesson in the evening


Mirissa:
Day 11 & 12 - Bumming on the beach and some whale watching


Galle
Day 13 & 14 - R&R in the fort



Side note: Emirates global sales ending 23/1/2017. 

Making of a kottu

Ok, I'm just going to go through all the food photos that I have taken, some might be taken with more effort, others not so because my friend doesn't really do the taking picture of the food thingy...and the first one that came up was rice and curry... so, here goes.

1. Rice and curry
There is no bad rice and curry, and you can get it anywhere in Sri Lanka but the best one according to S was Matey Hut in Ella. So if you find yourself in Ella, do try it at Matey Hut. There were always option of vegetarian or non vegetarian and if you opted for non vegetarian option, the norm choice were chicken curry or fish curry and they would be served with the vegetarian curries as well.



2. Hoppers
Hoppers are Sri Lankan version of thin pancake with crispy edges and thicker middle part. The main ingredients are rice flour and coconut milk. There are also version with egg, just referred to as egg hoppers. They are served with chilli and/or dhal.

This photo is probably the only one I have of vade, definitely need to mention them too as they are delicious.



3. Devilled dishes
We probably had a poor version, none of the food was tasty. Devilled dishes were described as sweet, sour and devilishly hot  but the one we had was a different version of sweet and sour dishes.


4. Kottu
Kottu or kothu is a Sri Lanka dish made from roti chopped into small pieces and stir-fried with vegetables, egg and/or meat and spices. It is easy to hear when kottu was being cook as the chopping of the roti with a blades looking like dough scrapper makes loud clang sound. (See the first photo).


5. String hopper
String hoppers, I think usually sold by 10s and eat with dhal and/or curry, also made with rice flour. I personally much prefer hoppers, not so these stringy ones.



6. Roti
There is the plain coconut roti (or pol roti) that is usually served during breakfast or the ones with fillings. Dewmini Roti Shop in Mirissa does good varieties of roti with filling.

Cheese, egg and prawns roti

Cheese, tomato and avocade roti

Coconut flat bread

7. Red rice
I'm putting this here because it was served as one of our breakfast and I have not had red rice before this. Brown rice yes, but not red rice. It was a simple cooked red rice, served with onion, tomato, cucumber and dhal.


8. Lamprais
It is a Sri Lanka Dutch Burger delicacy and consists of wrapped and baked rice and other components to make up a complete meal. I really enjoyed this, I think it is time to google if I can find this in Melbourne.




Side note: Have you read Marie Kondo books?

They were also professional tourist prop and charged for fees

Galle (pronounced "Gaul") is one of Sri Lanka's fourth largest city but the tourist attraction is the fort, an old Dutch quarter. Galle is close to Mirissa and takes only about an hour or so to get there. We hired a tuk-tuk to get us to the fort for LKR 1,500 / ~USD 10 /~AUD 14. 

I think because the fort is walled, it was hot to walk around during day time but cools down at night. Most of the guidebooks has a walking guide that you could do but we took it easy, poked our noses in the shops, ate, checked out bigger monuments like the light house, ate, walked around the fort for sunset, ate... that was pretty much it.

Some random cafe, mm.. actually it was Serendipity Cafe

A very non mosque looking mosque

There was not really any sunset, more clouds than sun actually

The locals hanged out at the fort looking for the sunset too actually

Some random shop

This was our last stop in Sri Lanka. From Galle, we took a train back to Colombo and then off to the airport. We took a tuk-tuk to get to the train station and yes, the tuk-tuk driver would rather sit around and not earn anything if they didn't like the price. We paid LKR 150 / ~USD 1 / ~AUD 1.50 for a tuk-tuk. Mind you it was a really short distance, just outside the fort.

It was probably a better sunset from the train bounding to Colombo Fort from Galle that we took, but this was taken from inside the train.


We paid LKR 2,700 / ~USD 18 / ~AUD 25 for a called cab. The prices of tuk-tuk and taxi quoted from Colombo Fort to airport was too expensive and our haggling failed. So we rang up for a taxi from Kangaroo Cabs (yes, this is Sri Lanka, not Australia). S and I shared the taxi with another traveller who was also going to the airport.


Side note: Happy birthday to me...

The commute from Ella to Mirissa was one that I dreaded because it was a good five hours bus ride. Take bus from Ella to Matara (LKR 410 pp / ~USD 3 / ~AUD 4). Then take another bus from Matara to Ella (LKR 24 pp / ~USD 0.20 / ~AUD 0.30). I blame my inner ears as I am prone to motion sickness, both car sickness and seasickness. Thank goodness I tolerate trains and flights. In fact I could even be sitting on the opposite direction of the train direction and still be ok but not the rest. To combat car sickness, I usually close my eyes or make myself to sleep. Nevertheless, I survived the five hour bus ride and we found ourselves in a small town in the south coast of Sri Lanka - Mirissa.

S said this is her favourite spot in Sri Lanka and much to her amusement, I often tried to adjust my sitting position so my legs were not touching one another to avoid the stickiness. To be honest, I don't remember beach to be so sticky on skin. I didn't even had contact with sea water. According to S, this is the norm; however I have just returned from a beach holiday (another story later) and that wasn't the case though. Maybe higher salt content in the Indian Ocean? I don't know.

The zen frog at The Secret Root Spa

We spent 2 nights in Mirissa and the only two things we did were whale watching and a massage session at Secret Root (I know right, the name is a bit cheesy.. lol). Otherwise, the other things we did were only eating and bumming around.

Photo courtesy of Raja & the Whales. They have kick ass camera

We did our whale watching tour with Raja & the Whales and paid LKR 6,000 / ~USD 40 / ~AUD 55. S read the reviews on TripAdvisor and wanted to go with Raja. Please note that there are cheaper whale watching tours around, from memory at LKR 2,000 per person.

I did whale watching in Sydney awhile back and was initially apprehensive of going through the nausea and the terrible case of seasickness again but went for it in the end, all for blue whales.

This is when I need to introduce Avomine to you if you have seasickness and have not encounter this magic pill. I popped one just before I got on the boat and it was perfect. We were also advised to avoid milk ad it could induce nausea. There was no hint of any discomfort and I could even eat a plate of fruit platter. Yes, they actually served breakfast fruit platter on a plate per person. It took a lot of effort to balance the plate with one hand and eat. Before breakfast fruit platter, we were also served coffee/tea with biscuit. I was introduced to some yummy ginger thin biscuits. We were also served lunch of hot dogs with egg with toast and it was also served on plate. = ="

The water was very choppy on the day of our tour and of course, to move around we were told that we must keep on hand holding on to something. The staffs were very friendly and would always ask if we could see the whale and told us to move in front (especially since I am short.. lol). At one point, one of the crew hold my backpack when assisting me to move to another spot. Lol.

I took some shots with my camera but later on one of the crew offered to help me with the photos using my camera. He definitely had better view than me as he was sitting on the side of the vessel!



Side note: Why is packing so hard? :(

One can get rice and curry anywhere in Sri Lanka as it is their staple food, the reason I include Ella in the title is because of two reasons. One because we (S and I) did a cooking class, and the other because of Matey's Hut.

I'll start of with Matey's Hut. We had dinner at Matey's Hut the day we arrived in Ella. It was a very small eatery but the food was superb! It was too dark for any decent photo and we were too impatient to dig in but here's how the eatery look like.


Back to the cooking class we did, we heard it from the British girls who attended the class the day we arrived and came back raving about it. If you asked my opinion about it, I didn't think the class was that great. The best bits was we get to eat at the end of it but I would much prefer to have a more hands on class. On the day we had our class, everybody who attended were in a team of two. The class was structured the way that one person to write down the ingredients and steps as the teacher spoke, while the other assisted in cutting some vegetables or grating a coconut. That was it, the balance of work was done by the teacher.

We "made" six types of curry - bean, beetroot, carrot, pumpkin, fish, and dhal. After the teacher cooked, we were served the curries and teacher made a salad to go with it. I was surprised with the beetroot curry, more so because I didn't expect beetroot to be "big" in Sri Lanka.








Side note: The rice and curry in Sri Lanka restaurant in Melbourne just doesn't taste the same, must be the water!