travel plans...

the holiday season has arrived.. and thinking back to the past.. holidays were always the best!!!! it all started in the new years of 2004.. bored of celebrating in singapore joshua su, james pinto, chengyan and myself decided to try celebrating elsewhere.. and that place (due to our very low budget) was BATAM!!!!

we took a 30 dollar two way ferry to batam on the eve of the new years.. changed 100 singapore dollars and got ourselves a stack of Indonesian dollars. wasnt easy when we arrived.. we were counting everything in thousands for the first time. the hotel we were staying at had a new years party in their disco on the first floor so since we didnt know where else to go, we went there.. there was a lucky draw going on. it was our lucky day cos we won a bottle of remy marting.. and a 30inch TV.. but we didnt really win the 30inch tv though.. our number was 007. they read "kosong.. kosong.. sembilan". since none of us knew how to say seven, let alone nine in malay.. we assumed we won the price. james pinto walked to the stage with much confidence but was later turned away because sembilan actually meant nine!!! sad that our plans for selling the tv and staying a few nights has failed.. we continued to drink and then met these ladies who brough us shopping, bowling and to eat...

here we are at the bowling alley.. all the way to batam, just to bowl!!!!!

we then went to a karaoke bar and sang.. cos there was nothing much to do in batam. we returned to singapore the day after... 4 months later.. we planned another trip.. this time, further away.. it was hongkong. to visit our friends howard, JJ and nathan who have moved to HK from singapore...

this was the poster and our trip was called the "Havoc Bastards World Tour 2004"

this is us sitting at some shopping center.. myself, jackie, JJ, pimp, ruben, joshua, chengyan and howard..

riding the MTR which resembles singapore's very own MRT. its pretty much the same thing.

took a day trip to shentzen, china where we shopped for the cheapest fake stuff and took pictures with random people followed by the cheapest meal we will ever have in our life.

back in hongkong we took a picture in the middle of the road. dont know why. but this picture features pretty much everyone we met in hongkong. from left, ruben, nathan, joshua, howard, myself, jackie, pimp, chengyan and JJ.

and four of us got this tattooed on my leg, joshua's hand, howards back and rubens rib.. two years later joel ng got a plus sized version on his leg.

it was back to batam for our cheap getaway part 2.. this time unfortunately the only camera we had was my vintage LG camera phone which took photo's as small as my pinky. this time it was jackie, mark jeremy, myself and fabian lee. we returned after eating, drinking and smoking. (after realizing how boring batam was, we never returned again)

it was this vacation that led to many more and many more to come. it was thailand in 2006.. ruben and i took leave from camp and joined melvin and elen in our first trip to bangkok. others didnt dare follow, but us four guys dared the impossible.. and learnt alot of valuble lessons like never take advice from a tuk tuk driver on where to eat cos we payed 200 baht for tomyam soup. after realizing how fun bangkok was.. we just had to return.. this time.. with MORE guys!!!

the love of bangkok for elen, melvin, ruben and i led to this.. the second bangkok trip which was nicknamed "BangBros 2007". which had 8 other's join us. this was the ultimate vacation. even a theme song was composed and written by melvin koh and myself which can be heared http://www.myspace.com/beggarsect . the bangbro's were (as pictured above from left to right) myself, gabriel kang, melvin koh, fabian lee, ian pillay, ruben, kenneth, gerard, elen, ronald, shaun and eugene who is not in the picture cos he was on a separate flight.

the food was amazing, these were the best times other than clubbing because they were the only times we were mostly together as a group as we normally split up into groups of four to go shopping.
dressed to kill as we partied at the best clubs such as Route 66 at RCA, BOSS at god knows where and zeed where someone took out a gun and started shooting causing everyone to duck and run. after that we didnt know where to go cos we couldnt go back to zeed.. so gerard came up with the best idea, in his own words "lets go to the most happening place.... narai hotel!!!" and we had a good nights sleep.

it was a trip to genting to celebrate the last days of freedom for joel and bhuvan as they were heading to the army!!! it wasnt that fun, lost 50 ringgit in the casino's, food and everything else was expensive, clubbing was boring, the fun parts happened in our hotel rooms and we made so much noise getting us so many complaints and fabian and i shouting out the window and locking each other out of their rooms when they were just in their boxers or in my case, wrapped up in the bedsheet. the trip to genting was nicknamed "GentBros" with joshua su, joshua ng, kenneth pang, fabian lee, joel ng and myself.

and ofcourse.. like i said.. the holiday season is here.. and ours will start almost a month after it ends. its the third bangbro's trip. this time with some old faces as well as new ones, 3rd timers, 2nd timers and even first timers. currenly the first confirmed list of us who will be going is : eugene ong, mark jeremy, melvin koh, kenneth pang, elen, jackie ong, ruben balasurian, dil marc, gerard lowis, gabriel kang, fabian lee and mud mel. thats 12 of us!!! last trip started with 4 and ended up with 12!!! this time god knows.. we still have 2 months to go before we depart for bangkok, but im pretty sure the list will end up to atleast 20.