1:21’s Trip to ChiangMai

First and foremost, we sincerely express our regret and condolences to Michelle Gwee and her family, a member of 1:21 who could not make it to the trip with us as her grandfather passed away on the night before the flight.

1:21 has finally landed to the country of the Northern Rose – Chiang Mai,Thailand!

The first thing that hit us was the heat. After nearly a week of torrential tropical rain in Singapore. We were really unprepared for the oppressive summer heat of Chiang Mai. Add into the equation the recent haze that has been plaguing the region and one has a recipe for dehydration!

……Lucas interrupts me at this point, bidding “Hello!” to all our many (at least I hope its many) readers back at home!

Arrival at the guest house

Food Glorious, Food!

Chiang Mai has quite a selection of really cool food. Now, I am an evil person. I want to make you guys jealous of all the wondrous food we have here at Chiang Mai, so I’m just going to post pictures and lots of ‘em! Ahem…but at this point none of the photographers have passed us their picture…

Jorge – Eating the Seemingly Inedible

Jorge is really something. We went to a local street market-cum-food fair, and they were selling some really exotic cuisine. Suffice to say, Jorge bought them… then ate them. Lucas and Chris soon followed suit and er…. I’m lost for words here. I think I’ve been traumatised and my iron appetite lost forever. (FYI I can eat 5 double cheeseburgers and keep going, but after watching those three…traumatised …definitely traumatised).

Our guest house, Riverside House, is just 20 minutes away from the airport. The guest house is situated near the Mae Ping River and is just a short distance away from convenient stores and even restaurants. We had a quick lunch at a halal restaurant nearby (15 minutes walk). And the food was extremely affordable with one plate of chicken rice costing only 20 baht (less than $1).

After taking a short rest at the guest house, we are off to a shopping mall in Chiang Mai to get ourselves our daily supplies. We were greeted with the plethora of colourful Thailand artifacts around. There we purchased our very own prepaid card that costs 50 baht. For top ups prices range from 50 baht, 100 baht and 300 baht. It is also advisable to ask the shop owner to activate the line for you. 

And yes! If you are interested in eating bugs and insects, you can get it at the shopping mall. There are lots of insects to choose from, such as bamboo worms, grasshoppers etc. The nearest description that we can give you about how a bamboo worm taste like is that it tastes like a potato chip.

Later in the evening, we changed into our formal attire befoe we went to the local community radio station. We were told that the aim of the local community radio was to help locals to speak and improve their English at the same time. The radio deejays at the radio station work there voluntarily coming from all over the world namely Singapore, Malaysia, England, Scotland and more. We were given the opportunity to be interviewed live on Chiang Mai radio, 93.3 FM by the deejays for that night. It was a whole new experience for us as radio production in Singapore and the ones in Chiang Mai are different. How is it different?

The setting in the radio studio was different from the ones that we have in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. The interviewees for the talk show will settle down in a room separated from the main control room. One deejay will be in the room to do most of the interview. Another deejay will be in the control room, handling the audio console and will add in comments once in awhile. Nitha, Jorge, Cedric and Rabia were interviewed by the deejays. They got to share a bit about themselves to 93.3 FM radio listeners. The day ended with a late dinner around the corner of the radio station.