19th Jan 2008 : Day 2 Part 2
2nd day of the trip was to the zoo, bo sang and shopping mall! food food food~

After washing up at our hotel room and while waiting for Hazel and Edward to finish their spa treatment, we decide to pay the IT mall a visit. Pantip Plaza, it's about 5 mins walk from our hotel.

If you have been to the Singapore's Sim Lim Square, this Pantip Plaza is sort of like it. Although there were a lot of unoccupied shops in there. But it's pretty much styled like SLS.

The prices there are pretty much the same as SG, computers or cameras.

Our favorite transport! :D Can't emphasize more.
Our next destination is Bo Sang handicrafts, we wanted to see some crafted umbrellas... etc etc. But before that we need to have lunch first, so we asked our driver to bring us to somewhere for lunch and he recommended this restaurant Sate Sinlp that has nice curry noodles. Khao Soi. We didn't really catch the name of the restaurant but only judging by the logo on the menu, I only managed to make out the name Sate Sinlp. :( It's somewhere in Bo Sang.
Khao Soi, comes with very tender beef and very nice curry sauce. I'm missing it now! It is delicious. ^^
Apart from ordering Khao Soi, we ordered Moo Sa-te (pork Satay) and Khanom Pang No Moo (Fried bread with pork)
The service is good, food is nice and the enviroment was relaxing. Nice and enjoyable experience ^^

After that we met up with our driver to continue our handicraft tour. At first he quoted us 400baht for this Bo Sang trip, but we bargained it to 200baht, it wasn't even a long and hard bargain. :) And he was willing to bring us to where ever within that area and as many stops as possible too.

He had a standard route to bring us to all those craft factories.. etc but we can request to go anywhere we want. so it was quite flexible, although Bo Sang wasn't really that interesting... the only interesting thing that we saw was the making of the beautiful umbrellas.
Look at the brilliant colors and the drawings. :D
We tried out the simple wood carved drilling tool. I would love to have one of those!
Drilling with no sweat at all!
These ladies at work have no problem with us taking photographs at them at all,
The unpainted umbrellas.
Artist at work, drawing pretty butterflies, he can draw it on your bag, jeans or anywhere you want it at a small fees. :)
All he need were very simple tools and his creativity! I wish I can draw like him!
Too bad we haven't have a place where we can decorate with these lovely crafts, so we didn't purchase anything. Perhaps we will get some in the future. :)

We also went to the gem factory, saw the people working on the gems and jewels, honey farm - don't expect to see any bees there! it's really just a shop that will convince you that their honey is the best and they are actually from the same flower that opium came from. The Poppy flowers. With the different execution, you will get opium but other than that, you can get honey and Royal jelly from them too. We bought a bottle of honey back home :P cost us 650baht.

After that we visited the Silk factory, it's a mixed feeling to be at the silk factory, one side u see how they breed the worms and right next to that they were cooking the cacoons to get the silk.

Nevertheless, the whole process was interesting.
We left Bo Sang area at about close to 6pm and our driver was willing to drive us to Kad Suan Kaew The Shopping park & hotel complex.

We greeted us when we alight from the vehical was street vendors! :D Flea market style with clothings, cosmetics, little random cute items, shoes, manicure, foot massage... etc etc.
Then as we progress up the stairs, we see lots of street food vendors :D Yum~
Please enjoy the following evil food photos. hehehe, they look really yummy~
dip dip? :D
We tried this tiny sunny side up quail eggs. Couldn't remember how much is was... about 20baht?&
high cholesterol hehe
Different ingredients for you to choose from...
Lovely looking strawberries and lots of fruits, I have to say that their presentation of the fruits were really inviting.
Can't miss these... fried insects, but we gave it a miss. They are interesting to look at but I doubt it's interesting to try them. ^^;
quite impromptu dinning area :D just make your order, have a sit and enjoy your meal!
Trying out the little eggs. Eat eat
Mister Donut~ Eat eat eat

After browsing in the shopping mall, we settled down in Sizzler for our dinner, it's good. Eat eat eat eat! Went back to the hotel after that to have an early night rest. We tried Tuk-tuk as our transportation to go back to the hotel from the shopping mall, great experience but Song Thaew is still more comfortable! :D

 

Good Night~