Crazy plan!

This is a crazy plan!!

I am planning for a solo overland trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia in 9 days time.

Why?

PNB has a policy of making it compulsory for all employees to take 5 to 7 consecutive days off work every year. I'm taking mine starting next Thursday, 15th of November, for one straight week. I thought of just lazing around at home for a week, but that idea seems to be pretty dull.

I have always had the idea of travelling north on a train, but I never thought about it seriously, until this morning. While browsing the net looking for ideas, the memories of taking a train to Singapore few months ago came to me. I thought "I've been down south to Singapore on a train, why don't I go somewhere north now?".

What is the plan?

So, after work today, I browsed through some website, and devised three plans.

• Take a train to Bangkok from KL. Stay a night or two in Bangkok, then take the train back to KL.
  


• Take a train to Bangkok from KL. Stay a night in Bangkok, then take another train to explore the Kanchanburi area, infamous for its World War II 'death railway'. Stay a night there, and then head back to KL through Bangkok on another train.



• Take a train to Bangkok from KL. Stay a night in Bangkok, then take another train to Aranyaprathet, 15 km from Thailand - Cambodia border. Cross the border at Poiphet on foot, and take a bus or a cab to Siam Reap, where Angkor Wat is situated. After a day or two there, take a flight back to KL.

After much thinking, I decided to choose the Angkor Wat plan, because the other two sounds a bit too easy and straight forward. And I think Angkor Wat is a place worthy of a visit. Currently, I know nuts about Thailand, Cambodia and Angkor Wat, but I'll make sure that I know everything that I need to know about those places before proceeding with my plans.

At the moment, I'm doing some background research on the viability of the plan. So far, I don't foresee any problems for the trip to go ahead, except the followings:

• Mum won't allow me to travel alone in Asia.


• I don't have a credit card. It might be risky for me travel with cash in my pockets. I've been wanting to apply for one since last year, but I never got to it. I don't think the banks will approve one within the next 9 days.

Haha...

The musical

I went to P. Ramlee The Musical on Wednesday. It was the in thing to do for the past three weeks. Almost everybody that I know went to watch it.

I think Sean Ghazi is really good, for Malaysian standard. I've heard his song Ku Impikan Bintang being played at PNB events. Heard that the Chairman is a fan of his music, so everyone started to play that song to curry favour. Personally, I do like his type of music. For someone like me who has never ever bought an album before, to actually consider buying Sean Ghazi's album is a big thing. His music is quite relaxing, justifying the album's description in wikipedia, 'jazzed up versions of Malay classics'.

Interestingly, the first time I saw the album was at KLCC's San Francisco Coffee. It was being sold there, next to the coffee counter. This unconventional, but brilliant marketing gave him an access to the untapped high-end Malay market. Professionals who wouldn't venture to the Malay section at the music shop might come across his album at the coffee shop and buy it.

Anyway, saw Tiara Jacquelina after the musical. She's hot!! I was browsing through The Edge a few weeks ago. They were doing a write up on this musical, and there was a photo of Tiara next to it. She doesn't look a day beyond 30!! In fact, she was the hottest person that I saw in the newspapers that week (I know this for a fact because my department rate the photos of celebrities published in the daily newspapers... Haha).