BKK BAWLING

I finished The Ink Black Heart (all 1012 pages of it) in Bangkok, and am consequently feeling more literary than I have for a long time. Which makes one thing clear: a good, long book is always an essential travel item.

But I haven’t written anything for a while, save for tedious advice on the legal problems that plague the G0v+ (what? You mean the G is plagued by legal problems?!?!), so this will be structured like one of those. If you found this readable and easy to understand, you are most welcome to go to my LinkedIn page and endorse the relevant skills I have demonstrated. 

Background

I was determined on this trip that we would do something other than take the Chao Phraya tourist ferry (one of our favourite things to do, hasn’t gotten old). Accordingly, we ended up at: (1) SEA LIFE Bangkok Ocean World (“Aquarium”) – totally unplanned – and (2) Safari World Bangkok (“Confused Zoo”) (sort of planned, but evidently we did not plan ENOUGH as you will see). 

Food and accommodation

We had enough Golden Circle points from previous holidays and staycations in Singapore to make staying at Shangri-la Bangkok (again) worthwhile. We got a suite, which had a sofa in the “living room” that converted into a bed, where we unceremoniously told Them they were to sleep. They had a blast, of course, saggy mattress and likely unwashed sofa cushions notwithstanding. 

The shops in the area mostly survived the pandemic – I went back to Serene Massage (about 5 minutes’ walk from Shangri-la) for a full body massage, foot reflexology and a pedicure; the coffeeshop across the road was still bustling, and I recognised the roasted meats uncle from when we were last there. The noodles didn’t taste as great as they did the last time, but I put that down to Their being able to squabble more loudly and coherently now. 

Sarnies Sourdough opened just down the road from Serene Massage. The food is great, and if you’re lucky like us you’ll get to see influenzas in action, posing in front of the quaint and cute storefront (I typed that with a small eye roll), and holding up plates of eggs benedict while smiling appealingly at the iPhone wielded by their long suffering insta bfs.  

Things we did

(1) Aquarium

12/10 would recommend going:

a. Nicer vibe, more thoughtful exhibits than the S.E.A. Aquarium. Jon’s thoughts on this are summed up thus. The S.E.A. Aquarium was RWS’s afterthought, built to distract from the main business of the casinos. The Aquarium felt more like it had been built for its own sake. 

b. We paid for a combo ticket that gave us free popcorn and Pepsi (Coke?) (which we didn’t redeem), and a 4D Aquaman show. Which turned out to be a highlights reel of the Aquaman movie (i.e. the worst one in the Marvel franchise, ever, or so I was told) in 4D. You decide whether you want to skip it.

c. Also included was a glass-bottomed boat ride, and entry to Madame Tussaud’s Bangkok. The former is quite short – the boat just takes you around the tank that makes up the underwater tunnel exhibit – and the guides are enthusiastic young people who speak heavily accented English that isn’t the easiest to understand, but it was cool enough and it’s always nice to see young people enthusiastic about something meaningful (in this case marine life, and its preservation and care of). We skipped the latter, because we spent a good 3h or so in the Aquarium, inclusive of said boat ride. 

d. Highlights of the Aquarium include the spotted garden eel, and manta ray feeding – look out for the other fishes fighting over the scraps the manta rays failed to grab with their flat, always smiling but are they really mouths. 

e. The Aquarium is located in Siam Paragon, which appears to have been renovated since the last time we were there pre-pandemic. The oyster omelette at the Bangkok’s “Best Of Hawker Food 2022” pop-up was better than the one we had in Chinatown (we didn’t manage to get a table at T&K this time so went to the restaurant opposite), and the “award-winning” tom yum seafood noodles were so-so. BUT there is a Smokey’s in the food court, with proper baked beans.  

(2) Confused Zoo 

Confused Zoo is divided into two parts: Safari Park and Marine Park. The latter is a bit of a misnomer, because there were more than marine animals there. 4.5/10, but maybe this was because we didn’t do enough planning? 

We naively thought it would be like the Singapore zoo (Bangkok generally gives me a Singapore-esque vibe, it’s quite efficient and clean) – buy tickets online, rock up and enter by scanning the QR code. 

This, of course, was not the case. It was an exceptionally crowded day, and we ended up queueing for close to an hour before we got to the counter to scan the QR code to get hardcopy tickets, which were the only means by which one could gain access to the Confused Zoo. 

Our Grab driver initially offered to queue for us – the queue for Thai citizens was relatively short – and we think he wanted to drive us into the safari, but because we had no clue what to except, we rejected his offer. We ended up having to queue for tickets for the bus to the safari as well. 

I’m on the fence about whether the queueing was worthwhile (hence the 0.5 deduction to 4.5/10):

a. Because of the above, we missed the not-to-be-missed orang utan, dolphin, and elephant shows. But this could have been mitigated through better planning and research? We caught the sea lion and bird shows though. Overall, Marine Park was more like a show-based theme park than a proper zoo with exhibits for learning about animals. 

b. Kids generally like seeing real giraffes, zebras, tigers etc., so that was nice for Them, because we got to see said animals in their “natural habitat” in the Safari Park (on that note I heard a HK tourist say to his companions that he asked whether he could walk through, and was told that it was a 7km journey. It would in any event have been dangerous. Best to go to the Safari Park after visting the Marine Park). 

c. The Confused Zoo is probably best suited to young adults wanting a laugh and something different from the usual Bangkok eating and staycation without parents activities (sniggers): the energy to get there, into, and back from the place; gawping at the cage-on-a-truck from which tourists can feed tigers (an additional 1200THB which we did not pay and anyway it was all booked out); signs peppering the tiger enclosure in the Safari Park entreating you not to get out of your car under any circumstances, and if your car stalled, to stay in your car and keep horning; the wild west stunt show at Marine Park that featured a lot of shooting and people falling into “wells”, and had a scene where two characters were caught in flagrante delicto (the many children in the audience notwithstanding); and the piece de resistance, the “MUST-GO” River Safari which had robotic animals, extremely politically incorrect exhibits (life-size dioramas depicting a “tribal” village, complete with dark-skinned robot natives holding spears and a captured (robot) white explorer hanging upside down above barking (robot) dogs), and a SCARY CAVE meant to depict coal mining but how do you explain the (robot) wild boar which pounced out at us?! Here's a YouTube video of the entire River Safari. A throwback to the 90s and a simpler, more uncomplicated time. 

d. You can feed giraffes at Marine Park (I TOLD you this was a misnomer), but Jon and I were too drained from queueing for tickets to engage in this activity, even for Them.

e. The Indian buffet looks marginally better than the International buffet (this place came with a “buffet lunch”) but Jon made us choose the International buffet, whereat I could only bring myself to eat Thai mango salad and slices of guava. Word to the wise: best pack your own food and bring it in surreptitiously. There was a bag check which suggested they would confiscate food not purchased there.   

f. The journey to the Confused Zoo took about 45-50mins from the hotel. Obviously we didn’t plan for how we were going to get back to the city; Grab predictably failed us and Jon ended up having to walk to the main road to get us a taxi, which only agreed to bring us to the nearest mall (it was called Fashion Island, I kid you not, and was surprisingly modern and crowded).

(3) Last full day in Bangkok

This was the day after we went to the Confused Zoo. We had breakfast at Sarnie’s Sourdough, Jon went for a run in the hotel gym while I went for foot reflexology and a pedicure while They played Woodoku on my phone. Then we all went to the swimming pool, ate hotel food poolside, then went up to the room and piled into the big bed after we all showered and watched NatGeo and ordered more hotel food. The boys declared this their favourite day of all 5 days we spent in Bangkok. 

Conclusion and next steps

I hope you enjoy your next holiday. Or, you know, you could just save the airfare and staycate again (see third activity). 

Perth/Margaret River: Running Auntie and Slacker S**t Parent Edition

In this post, I will discuss the three things we prioritised on our recent trip to Perth, as well as give you a pro auntie tip, for living your best Singapore life on holiday (why would anyone want to do THAT?), in better weather. Follow my guide, and you can too! Caveat: if you go during the December school holidays (summer in Australia), there might not be better but potentially worse weather. At least the sun sets a couple hours later and it’s cool in the morning?

I will answer the most important question first – yes, Aesop is cheaper in Perth, but not THAT much cheaper. Look up Singapore prices before you go and decide whether it’s worth the luggage space.

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Our No. 1 priority was staying near outdoor running routes.

In Perth, we stayed at Quest on South Perth Foreshore. The main pro of this property was that it was about 50m from the run/bike paths that circle the Swan River. I ran twice, the Strava maps are shown below. For exact details, you can follow me on Strava.  

Other pros:

• Connected to Mends Street Arcade, which has a Jason’s/ Cold Storage Fresh equivalent.
• Rooms come with a microwave, washing machine and dryer, basic cooking facilities, and the beds are turned daily. 
• Really good banana bread at Atomic Espresso in Mends Street Arcade.
• Two playgrounds in the vicinity. One is about 50m from the property, and the other is slightly further down, maybe about 400-500m away. 

Breakfast sandwich without barbecue sauce in the foreground, banana bread and Andy Lau in the background.

Cons:

• Nearest supermarket is a Jason’s/ Cold Storage Fresh equivalent, i.e. overpriced groceries at Singapore prices, even the fresh produce. But after travelling all that way with young children (the flight is only five-ish hours, how weak are we) you’ll willingly fork over the money for their ready to heat, surprisingly healthy meals.
• The nearest playground is a sand playground. Offspring will for sure truck sand back to the room.

At Margaret River we were originally booked to stay at Riverglen Chalets (where we stayed on our last trip), but had to give up the booking because we got COVID and had to postpone our trip. This cluster of chalets is quite near the town centre, maybe a kilometre or so, and a couple hundred metres from the entrance to Rotary Park, which is where the Margaret River parkun is held (Saturday mornings, check out the website).

We ended up staying at Chalet on Percheron (single chalet), a lovely if ulu property, essentially an Airbnb. It’s ~1.5km from the main Margaret River running/bike path, ~3.5km from the town centre, and ~3.8km from Rotary Park. But there are wild kangaroos and a huge backyard, where you will set your children free and be disappointed that they are still full of beans after running around for close to two hours.  

I did three runs when we were here, but am only showing two Strava maps because two of the runs were on the same path. Even if you don’t make it for parkrun, the route in Rotary Park is quite nice and has some trail (but nothing technical, mostly packed mud fairly free of tree roots. Why don't we have anything like that here?). The run to Prevelly is excellent, and if you don’t want to do an out and back, you can get your family to drive down to meet you (don’t worry your sweat will dry quickly and it will feel like you never ran at all) and have breakfast at The Sea Garden restaurant. The banana bread is good as well (sensing a theme here).

Admittedly there aren’t as many runners/ bikers as there are in Perth and definitely way less than on the PCNs in Singapore, so it takes some getting used to. But I daresay it’s pretty safe (nothing untoward happened to me, and I felt safe enough to not bring my phone), just go during daylight hours OR if you should be so lucky to have grandparents along, someone can watch the kids and you can go with your spouse. 

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Priority No. 2: Cooking. 

I suppose the point of being on holiday is not to have to perform such menial tasks, but I was already going to do laundry anyway, and I cannot resist the lure of fresh produce and an uncluttered kitchen. Also, there is only so much restaurant angmoh food Asians can consume.  

The no. 1 thing you should cook is steak, potatoes, and broccolini. The last time we came to Margaret River I also made cream of mushroom soup, but as Jon pointed out we prioritised regular runs this time round so there was less time and energy for cooking.  

Pro auntie tip: save the small containers of butter you will keep getting when you order banana bread (see first priority above), and which they give you on the aeroplane. You can use the butter when pan-frying the steak. It will be a bit melty, sure, but just stick it in the freezer the first chance you get.

I would also do a mashed potato, though I tried to do roast potatoes this time round. The problem is the ovens at most of the properties are a bit temperamental and don’t heat evenly so it’s not easy to get the nice golden brown one is used to with a familiar oven. 

From the Woolworth’s receipt below, you will see that I bought “chicken bulk” for $6.20. This consisted about 10 good sized drumsticks, which I roasted, took the meat off of, then boiled the bones for stock together with the chicken drippings and kale stems. 

The shredded meat was just about enough for two meals for the four of us, one of pasta and one of ramen soup (I bought a jar of miso paste and added about a tablespoon to give the soup some body). Pictures below. 

Ramen on our last night in Margaret River. Because Asian.

Tomato (cooked down), kale and chicken pasta

Steak in the background  (it was really very good), and not quite golden brown roast potatoes.

 

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Priority No. 3: Don’t bother about visiting wineries for food and wine (scandalous). 

If you can get a booking, great, but if you can’t, don’t sweat it. And if you don’t buy any wine, it just means you will have more luggage space to bring back 4L of your favourite detergent (AUD$17.80) which now costs a whopping $9.80/L at Cold Storage. 

How long will you last me? ㅠㅠ

A lot is said about how expensive eating out in Australia generally is, so here I present to you pies from: (1) Margaret River Pies; and (2) Witchy Pies (this is in Witchcliffe, which is on the way to Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse). Said lighthouse was undergoing renovation when we went though, so check before you go. We went to Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse instead this time round. The guided tour (by a very tall man named Paul) was good, as most guided tours in Australia usually are (it’s the angmoh accent perhaps), and I bought a book at the gift store called The Ways of the Bushwalker. 

Mexican Pie from Witchy Pies

Beef pie from Margaret River Bakery

Sausage Roll from Margaret River Bakery

Jalapeno Pie from Margaret River Bakery (similar to Mexican Pie, above)

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Picspam – what you're really here for, because it's easier to look at travel pictures, except these aren't really travel pictures, are they?

Offspring with red kangaroo at Perth Zoo. Admission is a bit pricey but well worth it. If you have to choose between the zoo and Caversham Wildlife Park, I'd choose the zoo. Unless, of course, you must join the ranks of Singaporeans who have 100001 videos of their children feeding kangaroos, and must upload a picture of your family with the wombat to social media. The #fomo is real.

I'm a sucker for all this naturally dried fruit. I'd skip the cauliflower puffs, and the avocado chips are available at Cold Storage.

The nice thing about this brand of yogurt (about the cheapest of the lot and readily available at most supermarkets) is that random jokes and facts are revealed as you eat the yogurt (the tub is clear plastic and said random jokes and facts are printed on the inside of the label). Just be prepared that your offspring will not stop with the knock-knock jokes thereafter. We had a joke-telling contest one night before bed, I think mine was by far the funniest: Knock-knock! Who's there? Ander! Ander who? No, Ander-roo! 

Fish and chips from Zamia Cafe at King's Park, Perth. I spent four hours at a playground there with the boys, because Jon had to work one morning. These fish and chips were surprisingly good.

Offspring at the playground near Zamia Cafe. The playground where these stone sculptures were located is pretty good (it kept Them occupied for 4 hours, so...). Not pictured, the awesome obstacle course. But D and his wife took their kids to the Rio Tinto Naturescape which he said has even more fun things (like a creek!), so consider this my PSA to go to the more heong King's Park playground.

View from the top of Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse (thank God for the beautiful rainbow); in front of Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse.

Other places of note:

• Underwater aquarium at Busselton - we couldn't get tickets this time, but I highly recommend it. 
• Swings & Roundabouts (restaurant, probably related to the winery) which is one of the first restaurants you will see when you drive in to Margaret River from Perth. We had some doubts but the supermarkets were closed by the time we got there on our first night, so we gave it a go. We had the inferno pizza (nduja!) and shared the duck rillette, and They shared the fish nuggets (real fish). 
• Eagle Bay Brewery. Food wasn't great and I didn't feel up to driving so Jon couldn't drink much, and who in their right mind goes to the Margaret River region to drink BEER?! But we didn't need to make a reservation (perhaps this post is really a lesson on the need to make reservations, but what kind of holiday is it if you have to make so many reservations?) and there was a large grass patch with a small hill for Them and Their ilk to roll down.
• U&I Cafe, Perth. Open 24 hours, serves pho and other Asian food. 

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I hope you have a nice time, if you choose to go. But maybe don't tell me you're going to Perth until you're back, unless you want to bring back more laundry detergent for me.