Bangkok: 15.10.2008
My first visit to Thailand started on a groggy note as the midnight flight was for 3.5 hours and allowed for very little sleep.
Bangkok seemed to be a brother of Kuala Lumpur – same sort of streets, traffic, flyovers, MRTs. It is a bit more cheerful though. “The land of smiles” as the Thai promotional posters glibly announce. But the biggest turn-on in Bangkok is the food. Right from stalls to posh restaurants, the cooking is good and light. We had lunch at a food court in an industrial area for just 40 baht (~ 500 baiza) of pork in soya sauce with rice. We had a similar thing at night at a proper restaurant and the bill was the same! Amazing.......
My first visit to Thailand started on a groggy note as the midnight flight was for 3.5 hours and allowed for very little sleep.
Bangkok seemed to be a brother of Kuala Lumpur – same sort of streets, traffic, flyovers, MRTs. It is a bit more cheerful though. “The land of smiles” as the Thai promotional posters glibly announce. But the biggest turn-on in Bangkok is the food. Right from stalls to posh restaurants, the cooking is good and light. We had lunch at a food court in an industrial area for just 40 baht (~ 500 baiza) of pork in soya sauce with rice. We had a similar thing at night at a proper restaurant and the bill was the same! Amazing.......
.
The whole day went in chasing one customer from one of his branches to another and we found ourselves at MKB finally, one of the biggest supermarkets in town, 7 stories high, with a MRT station attached. That place was wasted on us – totally meant for wives, though the floor-full of electronics and mobiles and software held us no end. Every product was cheaper than you would expect, varying from 10% to 50% cheaper than gulf prices. Goods mostly made in Taiwan. Easwar bought a dual-SIM gsm, with touch screen and TV, for just RO 45/-.
People here are friendly, but it is soooo difficult to understand their English. Becomes quite embarrassing sometime. The whole nation seems to be like my son before his tongue operation. Very nice to hear, but cannot understand a word.
In the morning, we also went to the Myanmar embassy and applied for Myanmar visa, where we were scheduled to travel 17th morning. I was talking to a Punjabi who had settled in Myanmar. Why was HE applying for visa? It seems most of the companies in Myanmar are unregistered, as registration fees are exorbitant, so the companies do not have labour clearance. Therefore he is working on a series of business visas for both himself and his family! The place is extremely safe to live in, he says, with crime practically non-existent, thanks to the government’s intolerant attitude towards criminals.
We had dinner at a restaurant at MBK itself and returned around 10.00 pm by Skytrain, which has a station fairly close to the hotel.
The whole day went in chasing one customer from one of his branches to another and we found ourselves at MKB finally, one of the biggest supermarkets in town, 7 stories high, with a MRT station attached. That place was wasted on us – totally meant for wives, though the floor-full of electronics and mobiles and software held us no end. Every product was cheaper than you would expect, varying from 10% to 50% cheaper than gulf prices. Goods mostly made in Taiwan. Easwar bought a dual-SIM gsm, with touch screen and TV, for just RO 45/-.
People here are friendly, but it is soooo difficult to understand their English. Becomes quite embarrassing sometime. The whole nation seems to be like my son before his tongue operation. Very nice to hear, but cannot understand a word.
In the morning, we also went to the Myanmar embassy and applied for Myanmar visa, where we were scheduled to travel 17th morning. I was talking to a Punjabi who had settled in Myanmar. Why was HE applying for visa? It seems most of the companies in Myanmar are unregistered, as registration fees are exorbitant, so the companies do not have labour clearance. Therefore he is working on a series of business visas for both himself and his family! The place is extremely safe to live in, he says, with crime practically non-existent, thanks to the government’s intolerant attitude towards criminals.
We had dinner at a restaurant at MBK itself and returned around 10.00 pm by Skytrain, which has a station fairly close to the hotel.
Bangkok: 16.10.2008
Another working day in Bangkok, with some sightseeing thrown in. We had a little time in the morning and went to see the Grand Palace and the big Sleeping Buddha, but as luck would have it, we reached at 12.00 noon and the premises were closed to non-Buddhists from 12.00-2.00 pm. We had not time to hang around like that so we saw a Standing Buddha nearby and left..
......
.
Had lunch at a new Indian food place who, after serving lassi to Easwar, forgot that we had ordered two veg thalis and took up the matter when we reminded them after 30 mins. Then we collected our passports from the Myanmar embassy with their visa stamped and went back to MBK because Easwar was having some minor hiccups with the gsm he had bought yesterday. I walked around severely resisting temptations and almost bought things like 8” DVD players and CCTV for doors. We took the skytrain again and the transport is very efficient and popular.
There is really not much to see in Bangkok itself otherwise. There’s the ‘night market’ of course, as the Thais call it, but we didn’t go that side. The customer whom we met in the evening took us for dinner (at 7.00 pm – they have early dinners here) to a seafood joint and we had the mostly delicious crab-meat curry and lobsters. In spite of not being the least hungry, we did great justice to the food.......
There is really not much to see in Bangkok itself otherwise. There’s the ‘night market’ of course, as the Thais call it, but we didn’t go that side. The customer whom we met in the evening took us for dinner (at 7.00 pm – they have early dinners here) to a seafood joint and we had the mostly delicious crab-meat curry and lobsters. In spite of not being the least hungry, we did great justice to the food.......
.
Our customer was describing the hullaballoo going on in Thailand for the last few weeks. The ‘people’, a protestant group, have camped in the government house and not allowing any official proceedings to proceed, in protest against the way the Prime Minister is conducting the country. They are supporters of the King. Meanwhile, border skirmishes have broken out between Thailand and Cambodia. The inside news is that the PM, aware that there is oil just across the border, has made a deal with the Cambodian King that Thailand will ‘capture’ the area after some fighting and then lease out the oil-producing land to Cambodia.
All in all Bangkok is a good shopping and eating place. Of course a full travel of Thailand would show up many beautiful spots and it is a place to be visited with family. We leave early tomorrow morning for Yangon (earlier Rangoon) by the 8.00 am flight.
Our customer was describing the hullaballoo going on in Thailand for the last few weeks. The ‘people’, a protestant group, have camped in the government house and not allowing any official proceedings to proceed, in protest against the way the Prime Minister is conducting the country. They are supporters of the King. Meanwhile, border skirmishes have broken out between Thailand and Cambodia. The inside news is that the PM, aware that there is oil just across the border, has made a deal with the Cambodian King that Thailand will ‘capture’ the area after some fighting and then lease out the oil-producing land to Cambodia.
All in all Bangkok is a good shopping and eating place. Of course a full travel of Thailand would show up many beautiful spots and it is a place to be visited with family. We leave early tomorrow morning for Yangon (earlier Rangoon) by the 8.00 am flight.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment