Thailand – Not Enough

Cheap air travel may not be the theme today with the rising crude prices. But on 16th May 2008 (Day seven) we flew from Phnom Penh to Bangkok for a paltry Rs.1600 per head (A shade less than 40 USD courtesy AirAsia.com). The flight was rather empty but we were incredibly busy reading up the heavy Wikitravel.com printouts. We understood right then that even if we spent all our four days in Bangkok we would still have more to see. Nevertheless we did have a plan.

Suvarnabhumi International airport is one of the largest terminals in the world. After a half-hour walk evading hundreds of taxi touts we managed to board a pre-paid taxi. There is some kind of a strange logic about addresses in Bangkok. The fundae behind the ‘Sois’ and the ‘Nois’ of Bangkok made for an interesting read but locating the River View Guest House was a real challenge. But it was all worth it ‘coz the view of the Chao Phraya River from our balcony was simply breathtaking.

Every time we stepped out of the hotel room, the first mode of transport was the ferry we took from the N3 pier. We ferried straight to N8, the pier nearest to the Wat Pho. Wat Pho is the site of the world famous ‘Reclining Buddha’. About 49 meters long, this gold Buddha in the “Anantha sayanam” pose is a master piece. To keep him away from gold-scratching tourists there is a barricade with a 2-3 meter wide gap from the iconic Buddha. Till date I didn’t know that around this part of the world the Buddha is considered one of the dasavatharas.

Hunger pangs took us to the Siam center where after a heavy meal and a few rounds of mall hopping we started feeling the tiredness from a week of sight-seeing. Our aching legs made us decide that our next two days at the Pattaya resort were meant for rejuvenation.

Pattaya has something on offer for the tourist of every age. Our first memory of Pattaya is the beach where we spent hours tanning in the waters. Stepping out of the beach we filled ourselves with satays of the choicest meats. We also happened to try out some brilliant banana pancakes. I’ll post the recipe for this simple dessert soon.

Later in the evening we decided to explore the famous Go-Go’s and Beer bars. While these places have interesting themes we soon realized they all these were merely veneers for prostitution. The first place had exhibition Muay Thai (Thai kick boxing). The matches were pulsating but the lady bartenders were vying for our attention hoping that we would pay the bar-fine and take them out with us. A quick exit led us to a place specializing in board games. I was soon with an incredibly striking Thai beauty (Ms. Aio) playing a board game called four in a row. While I couldn’t take my eyes off her, I managed to win a game with a bet of 100 baht. Boy! It was a nice feeling and I kept playing. Only when I was at minus 300 baht I realized that I was being milked. After promising her that I would take her out the next evening we made a second exit and by then it was like 3 AM.

We woke up around noon on day nine and headed straight to the beach. After the ritual dip we negotiated parasailing for 1100 baht (for three guys). Parasailing at Pattaya is quite different from the ones at Miami and Cancun. This one was precision personified with the speed boat driver making you take-off and land exactly on a small launch area. But the aerial sojourn is only about 3-4 minutes long, way lower than the 20 minutes sail offered in the Atlantic beaches. The afternoon and the evening were spent walking along the shoreline and going on a shopping binge at the Big C. We ended up using the bhramastra (a.k.a Bank of America credit card) for the second time in the trip.

Day ten started early. We took a ‘songthaey’ to go to the bus-bay and went back to Bangkok. A heavy rain greeted us but we had made up our mind to go visit the King’s palace. Adorned with so much gold the Royal palace is a great sight. Little did we realize how blessed we were that day. When we reached Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn) that afternoon, we came to know that we were seeing the sacred ‘Visaka Buddha’ on Buddha Jayanthi itself. It was a perfect culmination to a great trip. After some more eating in the streets and some evening shopping at Chinatown we packed up to leave next morning to Calcutta and eventually home. There is so much more to see in Thailand and hopefully I can come once more and spend at least a couple of weeks here. Yeh Dil Maange More!

Cambodia – Pristine Beauty

Apparently it had been raining hard around Siem Reap and thus an aerial view of the muddy country-side made it look like a huge bowl of milked tea :-). The morning of day five we reached the small but impressively clean Siem Reap International airport terminal.

We exchanged $50 at the airport and collected a hefty amount 187,500 Riels. The instant lakhpatis, that we were, hired taxi driver Mr. Vannak in his bright green Toyota Camry to go to Golden Temple Villa, our abode near the old market area. From what we learnt in Wikitravel.com we also negotiated with him for $30, a whole day trip around major historic sites and a trip to the Landmine Museum some 20 miles outside the city.

Akira, the curator of the Landmine museum, has indeed got a touching story to tell. He joined the Khmer Rogues when he was barely nine years old. From there he was captured by the Vietnamese army where he was taught how to lay mines. Later he planted mines for the Cambodian army. While he admits that he indiscriminately planted deadly mines for more than a decade he has been making amends since the early 1990s defusing about 50 mines everyday. Well, with around 200 Cambodians dying in landmine blasts every year even today, he still has got a lot to do. Just outside the museum sat a war victim whose hands and legs were blown apart by a mine. This only added to our anguish as we were just coming from Wat Thmey (The killing Fields), where a few hundred skulls from the savage ‘Pol Pot’ regime were on display in a poignant glass stupa.

Well, all this was just history from the near past and we had no clue about what we were going to witness as the day progressed. Our first historic stop was the Ta Prohm temple (currently being restored by archeologists from India). I think everyone will understand something different from this site. While there is some kind of an unimaginable silence around the temple ruins, I could sense the battle between nature and man-made relics. Trees (each 500-600 years old) have, with their roots, brought down beautiful temples. I’m sure that in a few years archeologists will restore some of this temple’s lost glory. But what you witness today will tell you who the eventual winner will be.

From there we headed to the Angkor Thom city area which had the beautiful Bayon temple at its centre. The trademark face-towers of Cambodia come to life at the Bayon. As for me, the Bayon is the most enigmatic structure I have seen in my life. A mass of four-faced towers creates a mountain of ascending peaks and the incredibly complex bas-reliefs depict everything from Apsaras to wars to scenes from daily life. This is one place where you should have your picture taken (See mine above).

A highly ruined Bapuon temple is just a short walk from Bayon but the series of short round pillars that support the causeway are an incredible sight to watch if you are ready to bend your backs and look down. Climb up the Phimeanakas only if you have the guts. While my friends decided at the outset not to climb the narrow steps I regretted after climbing up. The real challenge is getting down. By the time we took sneak peek at the Elephant terrace it was 3 PM and time to drive down to the biggest attraction in town, the Angkor Wat temple.

The Angkor Wat, I bet, will not disappoint anyone. The superbly serene temple is the world’s largest religious monument which also makes it the largest Hindu temple in the world. Michael Freeman calls Angkor Wat the microcosm of the Hindu Universe. The moat around the temple is supposedly meant to represent the mythical oceans and all the towers meant to represent the peaks that surround Mount Meru, the abode of Hindu Gods. In fact there is a gradual ascent as you go inside the temple and this is some kind of an imitation climbing up to God’s abode. The authors of ‘Ancient Angkor’, the guide book we used, recommend multiple visits to appreciate Angkor Wat’s beauty. And apparently, only in August can you can see the trademark orange hue of the temple towers at sunset.

After a hard day we went to Zanzybar, in town, where some local girls invited us to play pool, which was only a guise to lead up to a round of incredible neck massages. Before it led to anything else murkier, we tipped them a dollar each and headed back for a good night’s sleep in the idyllic Golden Temple Villa.

Early morning on day six, we wanted to take the hydrofoils to go to Phnom Penh. But with the waters receding in summer we had to settle for the bus. It took us about 4.5 hrs to reach Phnom-Penh. After quickly checking into Comfort Star Hotel (Monivong Blvd) we hired a tuk-tuk for an afternoon sojourn around the city. Phnom Penh is an incredibly organized city. We managed to visit the Royal Palace, the museum and take a walk down the Mekong riverfront. Let me not forget to mention an incredible game of kick-badminton we witnessed at the riverfront. Later we went to check out the notorious Martini Pub, but had to wriggle out early ‘coz we had an early morning flight to Bangkok. Apart from the steep $25 departure tax, every penny spent on Cambodian soil is well worth the money. You bet.

Malaysia – Truly Asia

On a mildly sunny Saturday morning, 4.5 hrs after we started from Chennai, the team reached the surprisingly quiet KL International airport at 8:45 AM (6:15 AM IST). A few times I felt we guys were creating the only few noises in the airport. We quickly finished the immigration, picked up our bags and also took a tourist SIM card each and called home (5 Ringgits talk time on an 8 Ringgit activation card was not bad at all). Deciding to take the fastest mode to reach KL Sentral, where our hotel was located, we took the non-stop express and reached in 28 minutes flat burning 35 Ringgits apiece. At KL Sentral we learnt our biggest lesson of the trip. A suave Tamil speaking taxi-driver hoodwinked us into paying 10 Ringgits for a less than 0.5 km distance to the hotel. We remembered an old lesson “Don’t believe any Indian doing business abroad unless you know fully well what you are getting into”.

Hotel Florida is ideally located just 5 minutes by walk from KL Sentral. Being a predominantly Indian area there was no dearth of Indian food options. Food is very cheap in the vicinity with a sumptuous meal for us three costing only about 20 ringgits. We quickly swung into action and took the train to KLCC that very afternoon. KLCC is Kuala Lumpur convention center and is among the happening areas in the city. Petronas Towers, Aquaria KLCC and the KLCC Park are the main attractions. We got to know that PETRONAS issues about 1000 free visit passes everyday in the morning from 8:30 AM which meant that passes get over by 9 AMJ. After spending some time in the SURIYA Mall at the base of the twin towers we headed to the Aquarium. It was rather a mini-zoo. Lots of fishes plus tropical snakes, lizards and insects were on display. Admission is a flat 38 Ringgits per head but when I brandished my expired ISB student id they reduced my ticket fare to 25 ringgits. So when you go don’t forget to carry your old student id ;). Since it wasn’t even dark when we got out of the aquarium we decided to go to Chinatown. All shopping buffs don’t miss out Chinatown. There were stalls selling t-shirts, all kinds of counterfeit Rolex watches, Nike/Reebok shoes & T-shirts, decorative items, spare parts and many different eateries. I picked up a Chinese cool drink made of jowar (sorghum) and slowly developed a liking for it by the time I finished it up. Trying to apply some MBA style price-discovery and negotiation techniques I got booed by several Chinese shopkeepers. Anyhow our idea was not really to shop much on day one. Later in the evening we spent a good time at a rather expensive Hard Rock Café and decided to wind up at 11 ‘coz we were all sleepy due to lack of sleep the previous night.

Day two, we were in the PETRONAS visitors queue at 7:45 AM. Leaving L at the queue me and K went in search of a place to have breakfast. We discovered a place that served some dosas plus some other Malay food. I could not resist the temptation to open the folded plantain leaf, inside which was hiding some Malay breakfast. Inside was a ball of rice flavored with some dried chilly flakes in oil plus a small salted-sun-dried fish (Karuvadu). It was actually very tasty and soon enough K also finished one servingJ. After having been atop the Sears Tower, John F. Hancock and CN Tower going up only to the 41st floor of PETRONAS did not sound any bit thrilling. But the beauty here is walking on the sky-bridge that connects the 41st floor of either tower. An interesting trivia is that the towers were constructed by two different contractors. Looking at the Malaysian skyline from atop, I felt my first pang of jealousy at a country that came out of colonial rule 11 years after India. Soon enough we were in a local bus to Genting Highlands, an hour away from KL, the seat of Malaysia’s world famous theme park. From the base of the mountain we had to board a gondola of the Genting skyway. The 3.4 km skyway is claimed to be the longest in the world and in about 17 minutes we were up the 1000 m peak. In spite of reading up so much and planning so well, yours truly was wearing half trousers when we got down at the misty peak. Feeling quite cold we decided that we would spend the half a day or so let out in the indoor theme park. We should have taken around 10-15 rides. The ‘Flying Coaster’, which gives u a controlled experience of how it would feel if you were Superman doing aerial somersaults, was easily the best ride. It is a different story that L decided to sit out looking at the intensity of the experience and the pale faces that came out. The day ended very late that night but not before we discovered the Puduraya bus terminal and we dynamically decided that we were setting off to Melaka (Malacca) the next day.

After coaxing L to get up and wash first, we took the 3 hr bus from Puduraya to Melaka early on day four. We reached just before noon and decided to go around town first rather than finding a place to stay for the night. Melaka is a historic town, one that has changed hands so many times with everyone from the Persians, the French, the English and the Dutch having ruled over at different points in time. Before Singapore became what it is today Melaka was the trading center of the Bay of Bengal. Two museums and a view of Melaka from atop the newly inaugurated revolving tower we were at the famous Jonkers walk lined with nice little shops and resto-bars. Small town Melaka is a refreshingly cute city with beautifully decorated Trishaws to carry tourists around. It is so nice to walk around the town that after getting some rest we went around late in the evening picking up some satay and a Chinese version of Phad Thai for dinner. And yes we did some shopping at Jonkers walk.

Day four was literally wind-up-Malaysia day. We reached KL around afternoon and went straight to Chinatown. After finishing off some namesake shopping (L did get into a binge) we went again to KLCC but this time to the park. While L watched our bags we played in the water for sometime and then we all enjoyed the beautiful dancing fountains in the park (Please don’t imagine anything like the Bellagio fountains at LV, this was basic stuff). Things weren’t over. We came to know that our AirAsia.com flight flew out of a specially built airport called the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT). But the superb thing was the airline operated special buses started from KL Sentral, a stone’s throw away. Getting into the bus at 4:45 AM to catch a 7:00 AM flight to Siem-Reap (Cambodia) was not really a pain after capping a brilliant four days in Malaysia.