Day 1 - Touring SouthEast Asia - It's my birthday, and I'll run if I wanna, fly if I wanna..

Prologue: The last 9 days & 10 nights I've spent having the craziest amounts of fun, bumming around, eating like a hog & being this close to attempt-at-murder.. whilst touring Thailand & Malaysia with my husband & his newly-wed cousin and wife. And this blog entry is the first of the series..

It all started with the airport, ofcourse. Strawberry cheesecake & chocolate brownie, calls & messages, all to celebrate my birthday.. It started fantastic, until.. I was seated behind a bunch of over-enthusiastic singing Parisians, they were having a hellu'va time, and I was a sleepy & grumpy Garfield. I was granted my wish, I slept through 7 hours, but missed 2 whole flight meals, yum yum (who knew how it tasted!), knowing I missed a meal, made me hungrier, grumpier. Garfield back with a vengeance.. The Parisians looked & tasted good to me. Ahem.

I enter a 4-star hotel & see a Golden Buddha statue atop a fountain in the lobby. We're served welcome-drinks, I'm too tired to make out what it is, but it tasted ecstatic! The room faced a river that passes in Thailand, oft-used by ferries, and a big-ass swimming pool with dainty little sun-bathing chairs on the ground floor. Fantastic view. But I was to spend only 4-5 hours in my room for the next few days, getting sleep deprived & rushing to be ready for the next day. What a waste! You should be able to live here for a week without bothering to get out. That's what I thought, my husband disagreed, ofcourse.

You've guessed it, I entered the hotel, after 12 hour journey, and left it in 1 hour. Arrghh! We were on the streets until midnight. The first time we walked around the place like lost souls, an absolute stranger came up to us, giving us directions, talking about places to go, talking about his intentions of marriage... Wait a minute! Is this a hoax, is this guy for real. Turned out he was a friendly cop. We bumped into many more people, patiently giving out their time to us, opening themselves up. People here seemed so mellow, that whilst we were shopping, we happened to use the word 'Please' to bargain. It worked like magic! They were willing to drop their prices down by 40%! Im very coy, especially when it comes to clothing, what I saw initially stunned me. Women around here wore shorts & skirts no matter what size they were. They carried themselves so casually, there wasn't anything crass or indecent about it at all! By the end of the day, I summed up the people here: They're marshmallows, soft, sweet & and might I add, polished white.

After our shopping spree, we hunted down an Indian restaurant, I was sung a birthday song in Thai & had some fantastic ice-cream in the honour. My husband's cousin brother lit a lavender scented conicle-candle, and nearly blazed the table-cloth. I finally came back to my hotel room, to test the comforts of the bouncy bed; and on the night table was a coffee-flavoured cake with my initials, a packet of candles and a lighter, compliments from the hotel. I went high on gelatin & Thai sweetness all over again.