Throwback: Wimbledon 2011

Seeing as how it is currently Wimbledon season, I thought I would do a throwback to Wimbledon 2011. When we went on our trip, one of the things we wanted to do was attend some tennis tournaments. CS is a huge tennis fan and so am I, and since we were in Europe we decided we had to take the opportunity to catch Roland Garros and Wimbledon. We also managed to catch the quarterfinals of Monte Carlo, which was amazing partly cos of its wonderful location.  

In any case, this post is about Wimbledon. Unlike other grand slams where you just buy your tickets online, Wimbledon has a balloting system for tickets where each household can submit their application to try for the ballot. We weren't lucky with balloting and thought that was the end of it, luckily we realised they also have a queue system where anyone can queue for tickets to have a chance to catch a match on Centre Court, Court 1 and Court 2. There are limited tickets available for each court so if you desperately want to watch a certain match, you would need to arrive early to ensure your place in the queue. The Queue (yes in capital letters) is so famous it has its own Twitter account, there is also a good write-up on Guardian about it. 

The day we decided to queue happened to be 2nd Monday, and as Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal were on Centre Court, there were some diehard British fans who started queuing since Thursday night for Monday's tickets! We arrived in London early Sunday morning and quickly set off for the queue. We had bought a cheap 2-men tent in preparation for the queue, equipped with our tent and a fully charged iPad, we set off for Wimbledon. The tube journey took forever and it was interesting to be in a part of London that was very residential. We were rather lucky that the day we queued was a lovely sunny day as the entire week before was raining like mad. When we arrived we were informed that our queue number would place us on Court 1, obviously there was no chance that we could have gotten on Centre Court since people have been queuing since Thursday so we were rather thankful that we got Court 1.

We quickly set up our tent and started exploring the place. As it was a sunny day, most of the people in the queue were out playing games or chilling just outside their tents, reading, sunbathing etc. We have never camped before and it was an interesting experience. The Queue was really well-organised with stewards around to ensure everything was in order. There were also toilets in the park so that was another thing being taken care of. I remember there was a group of Japanese housewives who were fully equipped with all sorts of sun-protection accessories and brought their own bento meals. There were also other campers who came equipped with air mattresses and portable stoves and cooked their own meals. As it was really quite hot that day, we spent most of the day hidden in the cool shade of our tent. I can't really remember what we did but I do remember watching The King's Speech. As we didn't bring any food with us except for a few light snacks we were grateful that there were local businesses that delivers food to the area. 

all the tents nicely lined up

By about 10pm, the stewards went around to make sure everyone is in place and to ask everyone to settle down to sleep. As Wimbledon is a residential area, the Wimbledon organisers try to minimise the disruption to the residents. Although it was quite hot in the daytime, temperatures drop quite a lot at night and I remember feeling quite cold. As we were sleeping in the tent with no sleeping bags, it was also rather uncomfortable and we took quite a while to settle down.

We woke up early the next day as we wanted to beat the queue at the toilets as well as the left luggage facility. We are not allowed to bring in bulky items or items which are considered advertising so we had to pack up our tents and deposit them at the left luggage facility. After doing all that, the queue finally started moving and we got really excited about finally getting into Wimbledon. 

Beautiful morning, all getting ready for matches!

Right before entering the grounds, there was one final security check, which I have to say was very thorough, it was like going through the airport security checks! After the final security check, we bought our tickets and were really lucky to be able to get 2nd row court side seats!

Court 1, 2nd Row

We entered the grounds really early as they had to usher us in first and then let the people who are queuing for grounds admission in (as you can see, the Brits are really big on queuing). We had a lot of time to kill before the matches started so we explored the grounds and as a Wimbledon tradition, got our strawberries and cream!

Henmen Hill or Murray Mount?

Strawberries and Cream, Sir?

The order of play for Court 1 that day was 

Marion Bartoli vs Serena Williams

Novak Djokovic vs Michael Llodra

Roger Federer vs Mikhail Youzhny

Wimbledon Champion Bartoli

Champion in the making Djokovic

Outgoing Champion Federer

As we were sitting so close to them, it was quite interesting to observe the players up close. Marion Bartoli's quirks are even more obvious and Serena William's screams are scarier.  Back in 2011, Djokovic was not the player he is today, he was good then but Llodra didn't play that well either. By the time Federer came on court,  I was super sleepy cos I couldn't sleep the night before. We're not fans of his so we left and went out for a short walk around the grounds. We did go back after a while to finish the match though.

Azarenka strolling by with her iPod

We all remember this match which went on and on and on.........

All in all it was a really fantastic experience for a tennis fan. The queuing, being up close on Court 1, watching the players in such close proximity, wandering around the Wimbledon grounds. Definitely a must-try in a lifetime for tennis fans. 

Throwback: Ayutthaya and Saraburi - August 2013

It's been so long since we've even looked at this site that I'm surprised it hasn't died off already. In any case, we'll try to put in a little more effort in updating. Since we haven't been anywhere in a while, let's do a throwback to 2013 where we visited Ayutthaya and Saraburi. My original plan was to talk about Ayutthaya and Sukhothai in the same post since they are the ancient civilisations of Thailand but the post would be too long and unwieldy, so this post will just be about Ayutthaya and Saraburi instead. All photos are taken with my iPhone so let's not expect any National Geographic quality pictures here. 

Ayutthaya is less than 2 hours drive out of Bangkok, so it's easy to do a day trip there and back from Bangkok. There is also a train from Hua Lamphong station but it supposedly takes longer than the stated time so I would say driving is a better option unless you really like trains. There are also minivans that depart from Victory Monument to Ayutthaya and I think those run rather frequently. 

We drove there so it was easy for us to visit the various temples at Ayutthaya. You could walk around but having a bicycle or motorbike would make it a lot faster. Within Ayutthaya, there are charges for individual temples, so you should do some research as to which temples you want to visit. I actually can't remember the names of the temples we went to except for what I can Google but I think we only visited 3 or 4 that day as it was really hot the day we went. Since our main purpose to Ayutthaya was to visit the temples we had to be appropriately dressed (i.e. no sleeveless tops, no miniskirts/ shorts for ladies) as a form of respect. While some of the temples are no longer in use, they are still religious sites, so the dress code still applies. 

We visited Wat Phra Mahathat, which is famous for the tree which has grown around the Buddha's head. This is a popular tourist spot so there are tour buses full of tourists who come here. Most tourists come and take a photo of this and leave for the next temple but the temple grounds itself has more to see than this tree, so take your time to walk around and explore.

Wat Phra Mahathat

 I actually cannot remember where this was taken, oops

 same for this, not sure which temple

We also visited Wat Lokaya Sutha which has a large reclining Buddha. It is apparently 37 metres and 8 metres high, yes it was so long I couldn't fit it into my iPhone frame so the picture below is what you get instead. 

reclining Buddha at Wat Lokaya Sutha 

Since it was a really hot day, we didn't really feel like temple hopping much so we decided to go to Saraburi instead to visit the vineyards and waterfall to cool down. 

The vineyards were open but sadly there were no grapes, I think it was the wrong season to visit. And proving that I cannot blog for a living I do not remember which vineyard we visited. There are quite a few around the Muak Lek district and they are all situated quite close to each other so if you don't see one you like you can just move onto the next one. We bought a bottle of lychee wine but since we are not wine connoisseurs I can't tell you if the quality was any good. We did rather enjoy it though so that's what counts. 

After the vineyards we went to Namtok Chet Sao Noi National Park to visit the waterfall. You can swim in the waterfall but we just took a short break to enjoy the scenery and had a small picnic.  There were lots of Thai families and teenagers there enjoying the cool breeze, making it quite an enjoyable place to just relax. 

there are supposed to be 7 levels for the waterfall

All in all it was a rather enjoyable day out. If you are looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, do consider going to Ayutthaya and Saraburi for some temples and greenery.