And so last Friday was the day when I started perhaps the craziest trip that I’ve done in the past 2 yrs: Fly to Bangkok to watch the 2nd leg final of the Asean Football Championship between Singapore and Thailand, on my own.

Another first is flying out from the Budget Terminal for the 1st time, and the 1st cockup of the trip.  I rode over to T2 and thought, hey BT should be close enough.  No point talking across whole of Carpark C back into T2 to take the free shuttle.  Just walk over lor, how long can it take.

Not long, only 20 minutes.  Not alot of things to carry, just my backpack, a small daypack, a camera bag and a tripod.

Smart right?

I didn’t expect much from BT, but I guessed it was pretty fine.  Imagine a giant warehouse, with a/c.  Warehouse i kid you not.

DFS Shops, dun worry, BT also can buy liquor

What I liked were the cheery colours and the various small makan outlets in the Departure Lounge.


So everyone mulls around the area until the gate opens, and surges there, cos 1st come 1st served seating.  The plane wasn’t full and the cabin crew claimed that they have to distribute weight, so it’s sorta of assigned seating.  I convinced them that with my long legs, I should sit at the emergency door row.  What more with my weight, it’s better i sit near the mid-section of the plane, then can balance mah

2 hour flight and I was greeted by this huge ass airport in Bangkok.  Really really huge, probably the size of T1 and T2 combined, with the immigration area as big as either T1 or T2 alone.


So that led to damn long Qs at immigration, which I thought i was very used to, with all my JB experience.  But 30 mins, this takes the cake!  World class airport to challenge Changi? erm…

You’re supposed to check the LCD screen to find out which belt to collect your luggage from.  Mysteriously Tiger Airways TR118 is not on the screen.  So i walked ard for 20 mins, in the equally big luggage area trying to find my bag.  And i found it lying on the floor next to the luggage belt.  Thanks yea.

The cab ride into the city was pretty smooth, with the driver hitting 130km/h pretty often.  No problem with that for me, 30 minutes to get to Sukhumvit Soi 25 where my hostel is.  A quick check-in and I was ready to hit the streets.  Went over to the Silom area, where the Suan Lam Night Market is. 

Esplanade as well, but i think more mainstream than our durians.  Theirs look more like erm..pomelo..

The main difference between Singaporean and Thai culture became clear outside Silom MRT Station.

Do this in Singapore, be prepared for holiday, at Changi Hotel.

I settled for a bottle of beer and garlic stir-fried sliced pork with rice..Beer Chang!


A lot of small shops selling craft, clothes and home deco.  I wasn’t coming to shop, so i settled for 3 beer t-shirts.  The kind that you always see my Taiwan buddy wear one..haha!

Part 2 of makan over @ a nearby outdoor food court.  You buy coupons from a main counter and the food stalls only accept those coupons.  Tried the papaya with pork salad and fried sea mussels but wasn’t pretty impressed.

Decided to go back to the hostel just after midnight, and the taxis there are the same as Singapore.  They don’t hide before 12am, but after 12am, all the fare meters mysteriously spoil and they quote u ridiculous prices.  The tuktuk drivers are the same as the taxi drivers, except they do it whole day.  So being the cheapo, i paid 50baht for a motorcycle taxi.  1 word, shiok!

Went for a walk in the red light district near my hostel.  Don’t worry, i’m still pure after the walk.

Serious!

And so the TNP reporter called me yesterday, after his friend told him that i went bangkok to catch the final.  He asked me if I was going for the Under-21 game between Singapore and Pakistan.  The truth is that I’m not going but normally I have the time, i would go.  However a pre-arranged meetup with friends resulted in me not going, and I told the reporter so.  He sounded very surprised that i’m not going, like “how come this fan can go Shah Alam and Bangkok for the matches, but not this local youth match.”

So a short conversation led to this article having some of my quotes, which were of course selectively chosen for publishing.  Like I talked about how young soccer fans in Singapore are getting the wrong kind of football education by being exposed to so much foreign soccer initially.  I grew up watching Malaysia Cup, then the now-defunct Premier League and later the SLeague.  Youth games are a favourite as well, but with time constraints, i can hardly go to as many games as I want to. 

All these of course is not mentioned.  And folks, pls dun ask me to get involved with the Official Lions’ Supporters Club.  I dun believe that u need to join a fan club to show that you support your national team, and I simply cannot be bothered to be forced to sing the cheers.  Ziwei can testify to that, there was once when we caught a game @ jalan besar and we were literally forced to cheer when the cheer ic pointed to us… not to mention getting half-deaf thanks to the drums.  No Sir, i would pref to sit at least 20m away from them during matches..

And so thailand only got a reprimand for their pitch walkout during the 1st leg match in Singapore.  This despite their players obviously showing dissent, physically and verbally abusing the referee.  The best part was that the coach sanctioned the walkout and he became a national hero back in Thailand.

I guess this is so Asean, the policy of non-interference with neighbours, even though it makes the whole region look like bloody clowns with no backbone.