The Kingdom of Thailand – Day 13 (26 June 2009)

Had to get ready quickly in the morning and pack the remaining stuff. Separated the VAT refund items and put them into a different suitcase. Switched on the television and found “BREAKING NEWS – The King of Pop is dead” all over CNN and BBC. Michael Jackson's personal life was rather troubled, with all the child molestation cases on him and his transformation into a walking freak show with all those cosmetic modifications and plastic surgeries. Still, his music united people all over the world and made him a music legend. He'll be missed by many. The King is Dead! Long Live the King...



Went down for the breakfast buffet and all that was left was to get the suitcases and get in the van.

The view out my window is something I'll miss – the blue and turquoise waters, the clean and sandy beaches, the mountains covered with a blanket of forests. And so we left around 1pm for the airport.




Traffic was held up a bit because of an accident (the first one I've witnessed in Thailand on my trip) and the going was slow till we got where we wanted to go around 2.10pm. We through-booked the luggage to Chennai, so that we wouldn't need to identify the baggage once again at Suvarnabhumi. Enquiring about the VAT refund, we found that they wouldn't give us the refund for two of the items we'd purchased (hence a loss of 2000 Baht) because of some silly rule that the VAT forms and the bill date need to be the same. Now this discrepancy had arisen thanks to Powerbuy at MBK not having the requisite forms on the date we made the purchase, and we were asked to come on Monday and collect the same. It wasn't our fault and they certainly weren't willing to give us the refund. Most unhelpful they were, quite the opposite of the experience we had with the VAT refund at Singapore. The Thais aren't ones to give up lightly when it comes to giving away money, so be aware of all this trickery if you ever go to a store that gives a VAT refund for a tourist.




Boarded the flight to Bangkok after browsing through the duty free sections of Phuket (wasn't that much in the way of variety, just a few shops) international. The one hour flight saw us at Suvarnabhumi (the Thais say merely “soovarnabhoom”, they leave the last “eeee”) around 4.30pm. And the flight that would take us to Chennai was scheduled at 9.25pm (local time, not IST), hence there was quite a lot of time to kill. Thus began our sojourn through the enormous variety of duty free shops that Bangkok airport had – and what a variety it was!! All kinds of expensive watches, perfumes, designer items, big BIG brand names, expensive chocolates. It seemed like we'd gone through the equivalent of two full floors of Siam Paragon (on one floor of duty free shopping in Suvarnabhumi) by 8pm when we decided we'd finally head to the gate and wait to board the aircraft;. By then we'd had a snack at an eatery and lots of ice-cream at Dairy Queen (a very taste brand of ice-cream sometimes found alongside Burger King stores) :D . Also bought myself a slightly expensive Fossil watch with a metal strap and brown strips of leather down the strap with a brown dial. This particular design I had seen at a high-end watch store in Bangkok. But we thought we'd get a better deal at the duty free on the way back to India. So I waited. We even saw the same watch at Phuket's duty free but decided to look at it in Bangkok because the boarding call at Phuket had already sounded. Thus, we searched the huge number of stores in Suvarnabhumi's duty free endlessly (most of the similar looking watch and big brand stores stock the same brands but different pieces) until we finally found it at one store. It was well above 5000 Baht, for which all the duty free shops had a discount of 300 Baht. The one where I found it had this sales-person who said “We give discount for coupon only”, until we held our ground that all the other shops run by the same management were giving the discount. Soon she relented and said “Ok, I give you coupon, no wolleee... there discount”. Note again how they will make a profit off you if you're not vigilant.



After that, we headed on to gate D7 and waited for the boarding call that came very late (for an international flight) at 9.05pm. This is really late for an international flight considering the large mass of people that were to board this one to Chennai. On top of that, they let people queue up and suddenly popped a board saying they wanted only Star Alliance and Thai Royal Silk Class passengers first. Then came a board that proclaimed Row 51-71. To top of this, there were two Thai Airways officials going around looking at people, trying to lift their hand baggage and see if it was too heavy. When they found any that they felt were (at random), they'd pull that person aside without a complete explanation. A number of passengers would suddenly get given this atrocious treatment. This resulted in pretty much a rush to get to the gate the moment the other boards went down and they announced “Rest of the passengers please board the flight”. People were scared they would be charged for excess baggage (Later I found it was kind of a customs check as well) and they ran. As you can imagine, the majority of people on this fight are Indians. And several Indians, as always, cut the queues and went around other people in line, and one guy pushed aside an American woman (whose “Hey” went unnoticed) in an effort to get to the aircraft quickly.



The issue of checking people for extra weight in their hand luggage (and there were quite a few who were carrying several bottles of brandy among other crap in their cabin baggage and deserved to be charged), the checking should have been during check-in. Not at the last moment when people are trying to board the plane.

It’s like they do some racial profiling, like they expect that people on this flight to Chennai are trying to smuggle in large quantities of liquor bought from duty free stores at the airport. Initially I thought that there'd be just a few such “Kuruvis”, 'cept later I found that there's a lot of them on this route. Lots and lots. Oh god, the flight was hell. Near us was a bunch of uncouth buggers arguing in Cheri Tamil (all the words you'd expect to be used in slums even) about how only one person had paid the customs official for their “Padayappa” (that's the code word for all the booze the fools were carrying). The way they were talking was as if they were back in their own sweet homes (sweet... hardly). We Indians should really learn to conduct ourselves in a public place. No wonder they treat dark skinned Indians in general poorly on this flight. Sadly, the racial profiling is spot on in this case when it comes to these “kuruvis”. Offensive term you say? Hardly. For the ruckus that they created throughout the flight, the way they grabbed the luggage even before the plane had parked and the seat-belt lights had gone off (in fact, most Indians on the flight did that – not us though, we hate that), the way the air hostesses treated them was justified.



Sigh.... flying used to be something I loved until a few years back when all this crap started getting let on a flight. We Indians need classes in school on public etiquette, perhaps some rules to enforce the same, else I don't see things improving. I'm being elitist, you say?? Nope, just practical.



Anyway, by midnight it was back to the heat of Chennai (not that it was any cooler in Thailand) and the dirt, grime and indiscipline of our roads. We made our great escape from customs (more like Chennai customs is not very insistent unless you act suspicious) with the cameras and the PS3 and the gold and stuff in our bags :D . Coming back home was a bit of a relief, thanks to my buddy Cactus who was faithfully waiting at the door along with the watchman. Paid the Akbar Travels driver in Rupees, and not per person, for a change. The loot could wait the next few days to be unboxed. Needed some sleep urgently.... Ah the comfort of my own bed.



And thus ended our Thirteen Days in Thailand. Certainly something to experience, though be sure to take lots of money along ;)

The Kingdom of Thailand – Day 12 (25 June 2009)

Took a walk down to the nearby export market after breakfast. Clothes, bags, wallets, curios – these are the kinds of things you get here. Not very expensive, but they don't reduce the price much and they're least concerned if you walk away. Sometimes they'll resort to underhand stuff like reducing the price for a watch and then saying 50Baht extra for the box. After some shopping there we came back to the hotel.



Tawpoo had been telling us about a place called Boat Lagoon. So we hired a minivan to go all the way there around 2.30pm. Our driver this time was the same guy who came for the airport pickup. Oh, this bugger musta been the slowest driver in Thailand. Finally we got there and found that this wasn't a beach. The Boat Lagoon is another resort which has mooring points for a large number of yachts and private villas that you can buy (if you have money like Vijay Mallya that is). Total waste of time getting all the way. Tawpoo and the reception staff would hear of this (to their bad fortune) in great detail from my aunt much later when we got back.



Moreover, Mr. I'm-the-slowest-driver-in-the-world was like Frankenstein. He knew how to get from Point A to Point B, but anything we asked him (even if asked the way you'd put it to a pre-schooler) wouldn't quite get through clearly. Damn these fools and their ignorance of English. After just lazing around the resort for a while looking at the yachts, we left the place and headed to Phuket's Central Festival – one of the big mall's here. This is one of several of the Central Group's malls in Thailand, with many of them at Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket to name a few locations.



So we did some window shopping at many of the big designer stores here, had something to eat and bought a few cakes. Once again landed up at a Power Buy showroom and bought a few Bluetooth headsets. The prices of the 5.1 and 7.1 sets here are good, but we can't carry them to India with us :'( Also got myself a Diesel watch.

Took the shuttle back to the hotel by 6.30pm. And the reception staff got an earful. Started packing soon after that, while watching Roddick's match at Wimbledon against some Russian (Kuntzyn I think). We'll be checking out by 1pm tomorrow, we have a flight back to Bangkok. A few hours there until we board the next flight and then it’s back to good old Chennai.

The Kingdom of Thailand – Day 11 (June 24th 2009)

Got up a bit late. Took my time at the breakfast buffet, a pretty nice spread. Mum and Aunt took a walk to the nearby export market while Dad sat checking his bank details over wifi on my laptop.



Earlier, a certain Mr.Tawpoo (an employee of the hotel) had told us about the places we could see and he negotiated a price for today's sightseeing behind the back of the reception. AGENT ALERT!! Mum and aunt got back soon and we all got ready to go out. Then there was some pretty heavy rain, the likes of which I've seen most often on CNN when they show a hurricane with driving winds uprooting trees. But within an hour the rain had ceased and the sky was clear and blue. Our driver was Mr. Tawpoo .... First stop, the Phuket Butterfly park, more like an insectarium. All kinds of insects – giant hissing cockroaches, stick insects, praying mantises, huge tarantulas, even a few big scorpions – apart from the wonderful variety of butterflies, more than I've seen in most butterfly parks including the one at Sentosa. Next, we moved on to Wat Chalong. On the way Tawpoo told us he could show us a place near the hotel where we could get good seafood on the way back tonight ... AGENT ALERT!!



Wat Chalong is the biggest Buddhist temple complex in Phuket. The central temple is the tallest, with several floors having statues of Buddha, and the terrace giving a nice view of the surroundings. The striking difference from temples back home in India is the neatness of the entire place, it’s like they've swept the whole complex clean and there is no rubbish lying around on the grass either. Moreover, the people here and everywhere in Thailand never ever litter, they throw garbage in dustbins, even if it’s just a small bit of plastic. There is a stark contrast even between a public dustbin in Thailand and an Onyx / Neel Metal Fanalca bin in Chennai. Whereas the former has all the crap inside of it with neat surroundings, the latter has crap overflowing as well as all around it, so much so that people would actively avoid even that part of the pavement. It’s not just this temple complex, every bloody place, every road, every sight there is to see, every bit of pavement, is kept spic and span. Lots of cats at Wat Chalong, every nook and corner in the temple has a fat, healthy kitty taking a nap and sometimes a rub against a tourist/worshipper's legs.



Wat Chalong was followed by a 6km drive up a mountain road to the Big Buddha. One should remember that Phuket is to Thailand as the Andamans are to India. Yet, the perfect roads and guard rails all along the way would give a different impression. This little island even has the big names like Tesco, KFC, Burger King, McDonalds, Swensens.





The Big Buddha rests on top the mountain. About 40m tall, the Buddha is white, with a white marble lotus seat for the statue being in construction right now. The Big Buddha looms over and you get a fair idea of the size of it once you're through with the climb to its base. There's also a smaller (yet pretty sizeable) gold statue of the Buddha near the base.




Another long drive down the mountain and to the end of the island and we were at Cape Phromthep. This viewpoint rests on the tip of Phuket. Alongside the viewpoint is a lighthouse used to demarcate the territorial waters of Thailand (green light shines within this limit) and Malaysia (red light here). It’s named in honour of the 28th child (yeah, you read that right) of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), who was an admiral trained at the British Royal Navy Academy and instrumental in training the Thai Navy.



The view from this point was positively awesome, the clean blue waters all around lapping at the rocks, with the pristine green forests leading right up to the shoreline and blanketing the hills. The sunset was supposed to be at 6.46pm, but the clouds moved in right around 6.15 and they never left. So we got to see only a slightly muted sunset. Oh well...

On to Patong Beach, a long stretch of coastline that resembles Pattaya's beach road most closely with all the brands and restaurants we saw there and a few malls too. Took a bit of a break here for around 10 minutes, not much you can see at a beach in the dark, but the calm waters belie the true power of this destructive (as well as constructive) element of Mother Nature. The people who were on this beach on that fateful 26th December would surely have been witness to an awesome sight, sadly the price of seeing this marvel of nature would have been death for most.



It’s been many years since, but from the look of beach road, people are willing to carry on with business even with such a risk at their doorstep. Literally, since the beach road is so damn close to the waves. And certain other roads are similar to those at Pondicherry, where the road is separated from the water by not more than a few metres (still even these roads are perfect). The inevitable AGENT question: “You go airport when sir?” popped from Tawpoo's mouth on the drive back. Thailand doesn't seem to be short of tourists though, even off-season. I shudder to think what the place would look like during tourist season. Avoid the season at all costs.



And so our sightseeing came to an end and it was time to head back to Phuket city. The drive back took a long time and once we got there we took a walk around the area. The security guard at the hotel reminded us that the food was good at a particular restaurant nearby and that he could get us a particular taxi or tuk tuk driver to take us there for a special price. We said no thanks, just walking. Damn, everyone and their uncle here's a broker. This is like the Matrix; anyone could be an agent, anywhere!!! ;-)

Had dinner at Chester's Grill, followed that up with a big Banana Split among other stuff at Ice-Cream Heaven a.k.a. Swensen's :D . It’s like Swensen's, McDonalds, KFC, Burger King etc are littered around every street in Thailand, they sure must make a killing if they're gonna be profitable with 2-3 restaurants of the same franchise on one street. Must have gained 4-5kg on just this trip to Thailand. Oh, I'll miss Swensen's when I get back home :(

The Kingdom of Thailand – Day 10 (June 23rd 2009)

Had to wake up early today, cos the flight wouldn't wait. The front desk had forgotten to book the car to the airport, so there was a bit of last minute bungling before they found a taxi. The driver kept negotiating the price and toll till we reached the first expressway. When we got there, Dad gave him 50Baht more than he'd asked, and he gave Dad a hug and said “Thank you vellllly much” before he left.



Bangkok airport is a masterpiece, marvelous design, easy on the eyes, yet intricate.

Just after we checked in and were about to go for the security check, a “Suwatdee Khrup” startled us and we found a smiling Thai airways rep who enlightened us in great detail of the facilities we could avail at the information desk (of which he was particularly insistent on the tours and hotel bookings he could do for us, when he learnt we were on the flight to Phuket). He asked us how we could “spend some time and get info” because there was quite some time left before boarding began. The minute we mentioned that our bookings were all made and we'd already arranged what we wanted to see, the poor bugger's smile disappeared and he said “Oh, very good, please go right ahead then sir”.



Spent some time window shopping at the electronics and watch showrooms in the airport. Mostly we were just doing price comparisons of stuff we already had (like my Longines watch) or that we'd bought in Bangkok (like the cameras), though I did see another Fossil watch that I liked. Still the range was a bit limited and I'd be back at Bangkok's international duty free on the way back home (Phuket ---> Bangkok ----> Chennai), so I thought I'd just wait and see till then.

The 10.55 flight to Phuket got there around 12.15 in the afternoon. When the flight taxies off the main runway, you can see that the runway is right next to the sea. Phuket's airport was chock full of touts looking to grab the live bait that stepped off the plane. Once again, Americans and Europeans are few and far between thanks to the recession, even considering that its off season in Thailand now. Phuket city (and the hotel) is 30km or so from the airport and our private minivan (courtesy the hotel, not the touts) took us there quick via very good roads with greenery on either side all the way.



Phuket seems a bit like Pattaya, but with the more laid back feel of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Restaurant chains are less numerous, but the road network and public infrastructure are still brilliant.

There was a guy at the lobby who (even before we got the rooms ready) tried to talk us into a scuba diving trip. Didn't work. A bit of time later, we headed up to the rooms with our luggage and the bellboy in the lift. The bellboy tried to coax us into a boat cruise and canoeing. Looks like agents are ubiquitous. Can't let your guard down in Phuket for a minute.



Freshened up and went back downstairs for lunch followed by a quick walk. Around 4.15pm we had our private minivan take us to Kamala Beach – pretty far from the hotel (Mum was tsunami-phobic and insisted on a hotel well away from the beach). This stretch of sand is so tranquil, but a memorial here reminds us of the lives lost in the Tsunami. When the very waves that make this beach so attractive slammed down on it and destroyed so much property and swept away people in the thousands regardless of their nationality. There are clearly marked escape routes and instructions to be followed (separate for tourists and locals) in the event of an earthquake here. While locals are supposed to run further inland, tourists are instructed to run along the beach until they get to the road leading up to a safe spot. Along the beach with a Tsunami heading your way?? Oh well, if you're a tourist, tough luck... Played with a plump little cat for some time, wondered whether he even realised all that had happened here so many years ago....






The driver did his best to persuade us to book another tour through him (without the reception needing to know) but he didn't hit the target.




Headed to Phuket FantaSea. Its dubbed a Cultural Theme Park. But its more like a carnival / amusement park where everything's a bit more posh and refined for the foreign tourist. We got there right at opening time. An artificial waterfall greets you at the entrance, with a pond teeming with colourful fish.





Right inside the park the first building to the right has an entry to the “Tiger Jungle Adventure”. This goes through a series of rooms with live displays including ringtail lemurs, deer, hamsters (in a huge pen with all kinds of stuff for them to play on), a reticulated python (on a glass ceiling right above your head), 2 white tigers (in a large enclosure that reminds you of an Indian palace), and a spotless and huge white room with 2 pure white peacocks, fluorescent lighting, white albino crows, white doves, and white cockatoos – all so clean and well maintained – not to mention the pure-white clad lady in the same room who showed us the way to the next display ;) .



There are lots of souvenir shops here inside FantaSea (apart from the wonderful surroundings, green grass, water, elephant rides etc) and all the stuff inside is pretty expensive (one particular piece – a globe bedecked with jewels all around is worth 3,000,000 Baht). Plenty of fairground games like dart throwing and shooting among many many others all over the place.



The much hyped restaurant at this theme park is the Golden Kinnaree. This hall seats upto 4000 guests at any one time, though I'd hardly call this a great achievement considering that the tables seat 10 people or so each and seats are pre-assigned (the number is on your ticket) to maximise seat distribution, so you're seated mostly with other people sitting right next to you or across the table. A large Indian marriage hall could do that easily if you're gonna seat people like its a mess. Note that I mean only the seating arrangement, the decor, the seats and tables themselves are all pretty good.



They promote this buffet as the “World's greatest” in their ads. Bah, humbug I say. Bullshit. Its good, there is a pretty nice spread, but nothing special. There wasn't even any mousse, cheesecake or ice-cream at the dessert section. Decent? Yes. But nothing to write home about. These guys could learn even from the buffets at The Residence at Park Sheraton and Anise at The Taj. Above and beyond the 400 Baht they charge (per person), just for the food, they don't even give you a free drink, leave alone the silly seating arrangement.





Around 8.40pm we headed to the “Palace of the Elephants”. A large theater reminiscent of the Music Academy hall at Chennai, albeit with a much more elaborate stage and lighting and sound system. The show here which starts at 9pm is the highlight of FantaSea. They charge you a bloody lot for it too – 1500 Baht for a normal seat, and 1750 for one right down the centre of the auditorium. This place does seem to have a one-pricing policy though. The majority of Thailand's attractions and hotels have dual pricing – they charge tourists a hefty premium over locals. But they do it in an underhanded way by writing lower prices in Thai numerals below the price in the normal numeral.

The concept of this show is similar to Alangkarn – showing similar scenes, elephants and such. Differences here include the larger number of elephants and the kinds of tricks they did, the larger scale, the heavy use of pyrotechnic and other special effects, laser shows, a great number of magic tricks, more kinds of dances and martial arts etc. Its more a difference of scale and more technology. The trained animals running across the stage during a love song really had us all smiling – roosters, lambs, pigeons, even tigers. The roosters were the funniest – one of them even slipped and got back up and ran the right way. Of particular note are the trapeze artists who perform far above your heads in UV reflective outfits in a section of the show devoted to their death defying acrobatics. The falling paper in this section of the show combined with the UV light would have us believe we were in a strange glowing land where snow was falling. Wonderful work on the effects and the trapeze. The show almost justified the price, 'almost' because with the number of people visiting they could have reduced it a bit and still made ends meet. Still, a wonderful show.



For anyone visiting Thailand and wondering whether to see all the shows, give Siam Niramit (in Bangkok) and Alangkaarn (in Pattaya) a miss and see this one instead. And Tiffany's is more than enough, you can well afford to drop Simon's cabaret in Phuket from your list.

We'd had to check-in all our recording devices at the entrance of the Palace of the Elephants and we collected them after the show. Mum and Dad still carried the balloons they'd caught at the end of the show (it literally rained balloons).



And so we left and got into our minivan as the driver drove us back to the hotel. Tired with today's sightseeing, we didn't need any encouragement to hit the sack.

The Kingdom of Thailand – Day 9 (June 22nd 2009)

Our last full-day in Bangkok. This morning's trip was to MBK. Bought a suitcase to accommodate all our purchases. Bought a few more shoes. Made our way to MBK's top floor where there's a Cineplex. There was also a large watch store here – all sorts of premium brands. Dad bought himself a Timberland watch and one by Esprit. Kept quite myself cos my focus was on another possible purchase.



A cool dog we found at the station

Finally Dad succumbed and gave in to my demands for a PS3. We'd already found that the PS3 wasn't officially available from the lack of the console at Sony showrooms in Siam Paragon and Central World. So we looked around MBK for the latest (as of this writing) model of the console – the 160gb one with 2 USB ports (S/n: CECHPxx). Quite difficult to find, though we finally did at one shop – Pro Gamer. Negotiated for a while before buying the console along with Killzone 2.





That's Pepsi in Thai

It was 4.30pm by the time all this was done and we had a snack/ substitute for lunch at Burger King. Came back to the hotel soon after. Our relative was waiting there. After some chit-chat we left around 6.30pm in his car. The traffic jams were soooooo long, right until we got onto an expressway. He took us to The Mall, a big mall – as the name suggests :P - a bit away from Bangkok's city centre. More shopping (more shoes and handbags) and more eating followed.



Drove back to the hotel around 10pm. Was packing all the stuff up till late in the night.

The Kingdom of Thailand – Day 8 (june 21st 2009)

This morning we had a visitor, a relative of ours working in Thailand. He was joined here by two of his friends. So we had a long chat till they left around 12 noon. And then we left for some market called Chatuchak – mainly my Aunt's idea.



Took the sky train to Sala Daeng, where we switched over to the MRT. Don't do this if you just want to go directly to Chatuchak market. We took it just to see how the underground system (MRT) here was. Got off the underground at Chatuchak Park station and made our way to the market. You'll find lots of clothes, ties, furniture, souvenirs etc here. But don't mind coming here to do your shopping. They won't reduce prices one bit, just like I thought. It's no longer like the Thailand of old, the people here don't mind not selling something, they'll let you walk away without making a single effort to strike a bargain. And there's nothing here that you're gonna get really cheap. Had lunch from a stall somewhere in the market. Quite tasty, but the prices were obviously inflated when the vendor saw we were foreigners.



Onto Mo Chit station, and took the skytrain to Siam station. (We had a few gelatos – read: Italian ice creams made from Yoghurt – before we did so) From the station you can walk on elevated walkways all the way to Central world. There's absolutely no need to get down to ground level here. Prominent locations are serviced by such walkways from nearby train stations all over Bangkok.



Central world is another huge mall, lots of stuff to see, lots of window shopping to do. Another tour of the floors of this vast mall. Found another Powerbuy here, and Dad bought a phone for someone. Got myself a proper screen protector. The sales-girl who applied it on my phone new how to apply the thing properly, unlike the monkeys who eff it up here in Chennai. Walked around a bit more. Played with an iPhone on display for quite some time. Liked the smooth flow and navigation, sadly that's pretty much the main draw of the iPhone, a bit down on features for its asking price. Its the 3G version here, the 3GS isn't here yet. Later just near the exit from Central World back to the walkways leading to the station, found a Nokia display with a working N97. Quite a good phone and a decent touch screen but still doesn't beat the way the iPhone's menus “flow” so smoothly.



Guess what store this is - Indian, red background and white text, footwear..

From the station, it was back to Saphan Thaksin on the skytrain. Aunt had a revelation – “Let's go to Chinatown” - at around 7.30pm. So we took a Tuk Tuk (yes, the infamous Tuk Tuk – kinda like an autorickshaw), an essential, if a bit unsafe, experience in Bangkok. As expected, all the major stores at Chinatown were all closed. Walked around looking at all the weird stuff at the Chinese restaurants, then took another Tuk Tuk back to the hotel. For the distance we'd traveled, Tuk Tuks are CHEAPER THAN AUTORICKSHAWS IN CHENNAI. Finally something's cheaper here :D .



Had dinner at KFC nearby and topped that up with ice-cream from Swensen's.

The Kingdom of Thailand – Day 7 (June 20th 2009)

After breakfast, we left early with our guide – a woman named Oey (pronounced Oi) who kept talking a lot (good for me) in a minivan to Kanchanaburi province. Stopped at a store attached to a gas station for breakfast. Got some Fanta strawberry (Damn, why isn't this kinda stuff available in India) that was verrrrrry tasty. Here they add a lot of ice to drinks (hence decreasing the volume of the actual drink) just like they do at Mcdonalds, KFC, Domino's etc in India. But, the difference here is that you can ask them not to put any ice in and they'll leave the ice out and fill the glass right up with juice. Now that's the way they should do it. Shame on our retailers who so cheaply fill half a glass when we say “No ice please”.

Oi showed us some huge homes as we went past them on the highway and told us that a foreigner can't buy a home without marrying a Thai first. Also, to marry a Thai woman, the foreign man must earn atleast 40,000 Baht a month. Looking at me, she said “next time you come... I find nice Thai girl for you... very beautiful... then you can buy house”. I'm considering the offer ;-)



Our first stop was the War Cemetery. Here lie the graves of thousands of soldiers – of all ages, some as young as 20 – who died in WW2, fighting the Japanese forces and several of them being subjected to brutality in captivity, being forced to labour endlessly to build the infamous Japanese railway line – part of which is the famous “Bridge over the River Kwai” immortalised in movies. 115,000 soldiers and civilians died on just this railway line. 11 Indian soldiers are also honoured in this cemetery.





Next stop – the Jeath war museum (each letter of Jeath stands for a country / area of the world from where the soldiers came). War memorabilia of all kinds, as well as an exhibition of Thailand's past wars and great leaders and how Thailand was formed from the Khmer. Got friendly with an Iguana here, for the biologically–challenged its a big lizard 'nuff said. The lower section of the war museum displays Japanese articles – the bikes, airplanes, weapons, bombs that fell here, and the railway carriages used to imprison the POWs in harsh conditions.



Finally saw the remnants of the actual bridge on the River Kwai (shown above). It was destroyed by aerial bombardment and all that stands is a bit of it on the banks at one end. To think that so many died for this. Saw a few Japanese tourists there too, wonder what they would have thought about the handiwork of their ancestors.





After that we visited the new bridge (above) over the river Kwai which is actually a railway bridge. They let you walk across the structure though. But you have to be careful, slip anywhere and you'll fall into the river several metres below. Mum and my aunt decided to stay back at one end while me and Dad took a walk. Followed that up with buying a few silk shirts from nearby shops. At 11.20pm there was a train departing from the bridge's stop. The ride on this train is recommended for any tourist. It goes across the bridge and then passes through lands filled with greenery and mountains. The view out of the window is simply beautiful. A 1 hour + ride later we alighted at a quaint little station. A short walk found us at a restaurant where a sumptuous buffet was laid out, the building was made of bamboo, and the view from near the restaurant included a river flowing around a bend and a mountain in the background - the kinda stuff (apart from the killing) you'd have seen in “John Rambo”.





Yes, they did arrest me... j/k..

Once we were done with lunch, our guide told us that the car was waiting for us at the station we'd got down at. So we took off once more on road, this time to the Tiger Temple a good distance away.



Some of you would have heard about this place on National Geographic or the Discovery Channel. Its a monastery for Buddhist monks, where they take care of a number of animals like goats, pigs, buffaloes, deer..... and Tigers. The cats aren't drugged or anything, if that's what you're thinking. As part of tradition at this “temple”, the monks rear the tigers by hand from birth. So they're less ferocious than they would otherwise be and can be trusted around people. There are lots of tigers here, from small cubs to huge full grown tigers. A number of people volunteer here to help the monks look after the tigers. There was even this little tiger who'd run around a tree (under supervision of his monk master of course) looking at tourists as if he was a little cat ready to pounce on them. And I took plenty of photos with all these cats. Not like you get too many such opportunities coming your way every day now.



From the tiger temple, we headed back to Bangkok. The ride back was a long one, more than 2 hours. Heard the driver use the horn once during the trip (this must be the first time I'm hearing the sound of a horn in Bangkok).



Dad and I got down at Wongwian Yai (a Skytrain station) while the other two went back to the hotel. From Wongwian Yai, we took the train to National Stadium. You guessed it, MBK again!!! More tech shopping followed. More pen drives, one Panasonic HDD camera with a 50x optical zoom and 60gb worth of HDD space, and an Olympus camera with a 20x optical zoom and 10.7mp from Powerbuy. Got back to the hotel late after that.