Thai travelogue: Our trip ends...

Veggie friend and I were up early; we knocked lightly on our neighbour's door but didn't get any response. They ventured even beyond us last night and we didn't know when they returned. There were a couple of things that we wanted to try out.

We took the metro (BTS) to Lumpini Park - this was our first ride in the metro; you kind of get used to metros if you have used them anywhere in the world. Slight differences would apply in the way fares are calculated but otherwise they are pretty similar. The minimum fare here was 15 Baht for a single journey - depending on the destination station, fares varied. The single journey tickets were plastic cards with magnetic strips that you could get from the vending machine. Fare information was easy to figure from the diagrams and we didn't have any language trouble in using the BTS. Within the train there was a led route display indicating the stations we arrived at. And just like in other places were there are multiple metro lines like the blue line, green line etc. here also they had 2 lines. In Bangkok it is called a sky train and not a metro because these lines are all above the ground unlike Washington where the metro runs underground.

Lumpini park was in the middle of the city just like you have large parks in the middle of New York. It was well maintained. The park had fitness equipment as well that could be used by anyone for free - the instruments were very sturdy; even if you tried hard it would be nearly impossible to damage them - such was their quality. In different spots of the park there were different equipments - no electronic or electrical machines; only manual ones. In the centre of the park was a large pond that gave a soothing effect. The place felt so good that it would tempt you to jog and exercise. It wasn't crowded but maybe since it was nearly 10am there was hardly anyone in the park.

We walked some distance to peek at the Queen Sirkit park; this was also huge with a huge pond in the centre surrounded by walking and bicycling tracks around it. This didn't have any of the fitness equipment. We went half the distance around the pond before returning to our hotel. The maintenance of both parks was top class.

The last 3 hours in the city I spent shopping for souvenirs in the MBK mall while the other 3 went to purchase their TVs. You will sometimes see freebies being given in shopping malls for tourists - MBK was giving away free T-shirts - you had to take the advertisement from their booklet and show it along with your passport to collect the gift. They also had an entire section with plenty of small shops selling mementos like the Emerald Buddha, elephants etc. Keep looking around and enquire for prices before you purchase anything; sometimes you'll find the same item selling for different prices! And in many of these shops you can bargain - I made one shopkeeper happy since i bought most of my items from her shop; before me I don't think she was having a good sales day!

You also find a lot of Ferrari style t-shirts and caps; duplicate items that you get cheap but look good.

Do buy things from the city because in the airport the mementos were quite pricey.

For most of the flight trip the three of us spent time chatting at the back of the flight - our expert friend was off to the dream world. We brought some food from the airport since in budget airlines everything is charged and even if you are willing to pay you might not find something that you like.

And with that we end our Thai adventure! Will be back with another one soon...

Thai travelogue: Things we can learn...

The ATMs felt odd for us in Thailand; we are very used to having ATMs within small closed rooms but here the ATMs were lined up on the footpath - anyone walking on the street could see you and there was no security for each ATM. We felt insecure in operating them! We had a forex card to withdraw money - the forex card is loaded in dollars so you can withdraw from any country; it would get converted at the current conversion rate and you will also incur a transaction charge. If you are making large purchases like a TV then you can use the card directly in those shops and avoid the transaction charge. Also if you are converting cash then $50 and $100 notes will get you the best exchange rate compared to using lower denominations. I've noticed the same in a couple of other countries as well.

(Pic is of the BTS metro station at night)

Healthy dinner

For today's dinner we tried out a few dishes from the hotel itself. And strange as it might sound, we ordered chicken conjee! Conjee or Kanji is a rice porridge; we do consider it as being healthy but definitely not something that we order in restaurants. The Thai version of the conjee was quite tasty. After dinner, our expert friend and me decided to visit an ex-colleague who had settled in Bangkok with her family.

Armed with the address we asked the hotel receptionist to get us a cab. While we waited, we saw a few cars in formation pass by. It seems it was the Queen travelling - I wonder how the situation would have been had there been traffic on the road; would they stop all traffic to let the Queen through?

The receptionist stopped a taxi and told us that we'd need to only pay the meter fare. After some confusion about the location it was again the mobile phone's GPS that came to our rescue. We spent about 30 minutes in the residence and learnt a few more things about the Thai way of life. There is a minimum percentage of local workforce that companies have to maintain in Thailand - so if they take more foreign workers they'll have to increase the local workforce to maintain the percentage. Our friend also said that generally Thai people are not aggressive in terms of wanting designation changes and fighting to go up the corporate ladder; they like to keep a good work life balance. Wouldn't it be nice if we had the same in India? If a person doesn't want to go up the corporate ladder, let him be where he is - but in India we have office pressure, peer pressure and society's pressure - "Is something wrong? By now you should be leading a team. See your classmate, he is a manager and is in US". The comparisons from childhood continue to office.

A stroll late night

Being our 2nd last day in Bangkok, the four of us decided to roam around the city at night. We didn't have any plans on things to cover - it was just a walking night. A few local guys surrounded us - they asked us if we wanted to go for massage etc. They also had pamphlets which they kept waving. The good thing is that they don't pester you beyond a point and so you don't feel threatened.

Even after midnight, the streets felt safe to walk in. Many places were dark but you didn't feel like you would get mugged. The streets were clean and I felt that even women would feel safe walking alone here. Wouldn't it be nice if we could say the same back home? The restaurant where we had oyster bhel puri for dinner yesterday was winding up at 2am. They were not only cleaning their area but even a portion of the road near their restaurant. Everyone did their part to keep the city clean.

It was early in the morning at about 3am that we hit bed. Our veggie friend and I planned to visit a couple of things in the morning. Can't believe that our short trip had almost come to an end! Today morning we did have discussions about extending our trip but it was a little too late since we'd lose money on our flight tickets - and i don't think any of our managers back home would have liked a sudden change in plan! The one thing we had missed on the trip was Phuket.

Thai travelogue: Red Fanta offering...

In the morning, from our hotel we had arranged for a trip to Safari World which is within Bangkok. Again it is better to go through an operator since you will get a better deal than buying tickets directly. And almost every hotel can help you with making the arrangement. Breakfast was sumptuous and it had some typical Thai cuisine items - like the Tom Yum soup with a coconut flavour and Pad Thai (stir fried noodles).

Safari World is pretty much like a zoo with a few animal shows. There was a lot of crowd when we reached in the morning at around 9am - lot of school kids as well as Asian tourist groups. Our driver purchased the tickets for us and also stuck a sticker on all our shirts - seems like every tour operator uses a sticker of their own with a number to help identify which group you belong to.

There was one thing that stuck to my mind and I guess it will influence me whenever I see animals in future. The first show was an Orangutan (they are animals like chimpanzees) boxing show. The chimps looked pretty old and were clothed in shorts and t-shirt and women's dress as well. And they had to perform a set of routines that were obviously not part of their nature. I wondered how we would feel if we were made to perform such things with an audience watching us and laughing at us? Looking at the chimps I felt sorry for them and I felt bad that I was in my own way contributing to this. There have been news stories about chimps being smuggled for use in this zoo.

The giraffe area was different in the sense that the giraffes were free to roam within a large enclosure and visitors were permitted to feed them. There was a standard seal and dolphin show. And there were animals and birds in cages. There was a bird show and there was a explosive stunt show (pic on left). And as usual, in shows involving water, the first few rows would definitely get wet. To beat the heat, I thought it would be good to sit in the front. The zoo was charging money in case you wanted to feed baby tigers - we saw a small girl feeding a tiger with a baby bottle! In the evening at about 4pm, the driver took us on a mini-safari; you can drive your own vehicle through this open area which has entrance like a smaller version of the Jurassic park gate - it opens and closes automatically. Once inside there are wild animals roaming freely; not entirely freely since there are some nets and fences but the area available for the animals is large - must be better than being enclosed in a cage; you can see rhinos, tigers, lions, deers, pigs, peacocks etc.

Buzzing street by the malls

For the night while our expert and veggie friend went to check out TV shops (TVs are a lot cheaper here than in India but be careful from where you get them), our photographer friend and me took a stroll towards the malls. On the pavement were many small handmade craft shops - not really shops but people who put their stuff for sale on display. There were plenty of items and I guess it was a way to make some pocket money - create some stuff and sell it on the weekend in the evening over here. The whole street was buzzing with activity and in a way it reminded me of Times Square.

Our photographer observed an interesting trend - we would see red fanta bottles (filled with Fanta) kept near statues and shrines; and it wasn't just in one or two places but in many. Some sort of offering? On Googling I read that it is offered for appeasing the spirits - and red probably because it is the colour of blood meaning vitality or maybe because it is for luck - http://asktheblindpastor.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/red-fanta-offered-to-the-spirits/

The pavement shops (left) and the red Fanta offering (right)