Auld lang syne
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And so, another year has passed. Lots of ups and downs, unexpected
surprises and disappointments and a fairly stagnant year of personal
development with...
The Last Pole
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I stood upon the ruins of what was once a city;
Warsaw is nothing more than a mere wisp of a memory now,
As it was not, ever since they had arrived.
I stare...
I've been gone quite some time from my blog, I know. This has been one hectic semester at college, not to mention the onerous task of filling in and completing applications to universities for my higher education. Had to pop over to Hong Kong for a bit and to Shanghai for an IEEE conference where I presented a paper of mine. And my most annoying exams played their part in keeping me occupied too.
So now I'm back ... kinda. I still have a few days pending from my Egypt travelogue to complete. Then I'll have the customary College Chronicles post up, to be followed by a detailed description of my days in Hong Kong and Shanghai - what I saw, where I went etc.
All this will start trickling onto the blog one by one after the 11th (that's 4 days away). A little bit busy till then though. I'm happy now that I'm averaging above 1500 unique page visits each month consistently over the last few months too. :)
Apparently, Rorschach has been running around the world - leaking his diary on the net, embarrassing some powerful people and such. Props if you get the reference. ;)
Here's hoping you'll be there for the upcoming posts. Happy holidays!
Another breakfast that filled us to the brim. Cairo and the pyramids beckoned us today. Set out with Tiger, leaving behind the beautiful beach resort of Fayid. Stopped at the War Cemetery, very silent place with well maintained grass and stone buildings and tombstones. A peaceful place for the final slumber of the many brave men who died here during World War 2. On the way to Cairo, it's pretty much empty desert on either side of the road. Now and then a military compound would show up to break the monotony of the desert. All of a sudden 2 air force jets flew over with a loud whoosh. Looking to the left, we saw 4 tanks going about in the desert, obviously on some sort of exercise.
We reached the place the Egyptians call Heliopolis (no, not the ancient city), a section of the city where the affluent build their homes, and where the airport finds its place. The roads were excellent so far, flanked by plenty of greenery. Pretty amazing for a so-called desert. No one cuts lanes here. And speed cameras do exist, marked by a "Speed Camera" picture. Tiger turned on the radio and it blared out some Arabic music. Very few two wheelers though, and no autos. No wonder it wasn't unruly on the roads. From Heliopolis onwards into the city, we followed a series of huge elevated expressways.
Soon enough we got to our hotel - the 5 star Pyramisa. All along the way I'd noticed that young girls (I mean teenagers and above) do wear a headscarf. However, it never covers the face, just one's hair and the with this exception tight form-revealing dresses seem to be their norm. Not to mention the fact that they bring along their accessory - a.k.a boyfriend - held tightly in one hand wherever they go. Lol. Not at all like a Muslim country. In fact it's much less restrictive than India.
Went over to the Papyrus museum in the afternoon. You guessed it, they make paintings on a base of Papyrus - from the pith of the Papyrus plant (Cyperus Papyrus). This is the way the Egyptians used to make them. You'd have seen imitations around the world but this is the real thing. Expectedly, prices are truly sky high. Bought 9 pieces or so, and they dwarfed the price of the 160gb PS3 we'd purchased on our last international trip.
On to the Pyramids of Giza from there. We alighted at
Started from home at 1am. We were on an Etihad flight. Service was just about OK for the self-touted "World's Leading airline". We were going via Abu dhabi, which turned out to be pretty small an airport for an oil rich state. Seating was extremely limited and people can be found lying down in the passages leading to the different gates when there are a large number of flights arriving or leaving at the same time.
On the plane to Cairo, the guy sitting next to me murmured Salam maleikum while he was taking his seat, at the time I thought he was addressing some friend of his across the aisle. Turned out that he'd directed his greeting at me. Started speaking with Mohammed (that was his name) and he told me he was working for an American oil firm in Pakistan as an engineer. Apparently he was on his way to meet his family in Cairo. He was an electrical engineer and we were soon power talking about M.H. Rashid's "Power electronics" (pity IGBTs, drives and choppers were the topics I made conversation on with a person from half the world away on the very next day that my exams were over), besides all about the places to see and how to greet people in Egypt and what not. Very friendly (and might I mention good looking) guy, he even offered to help us contact our driver if he didn't arrive at the airport in time to pick us up.
This time around, we chose to take our vacation to Egypt. 10 days of fun in the sun, or baking in the oven whichever way you look at it. 10 days of taking in views of monuments that have made it past thousands of years worth of hardships.
I'll be updating the blog regularly (once every 3 days or so) with descriptions of each day (and what I saw there) of my trip. They'll be more like travel notes than fully formed paragraphs I suppose, since I'm a bit short on time. Before that, a few points you should note:
Greet people with As-Salāmu `Alaykum (just say "Salam aleikum'), i.e. Peace be upon you. Even if you want to ask the receptionist to send someone to get the luggage from your room, say the aforementioned line or ask how he/she is and then proceed with your request or question. Helps a lot.
Egypt's currency is the Egyptian Pound. Smaller units are Piastres. Sadly for ye who are from India, 1 Egyptian Pound = 8.xx rupees. Yup, even Egypt costs you a lot.
Despite all the advice I'd read on the net about touts being a constant bother, just say 'No thank you' "La Shukran" (that's pronounced Shook-Run) a few times while you keep walking away and they'll leave you alone without you having to put the cops on them.
The police are always around. Plainclothes, with a handgun. Uniformed ones in white or cream with AK-47's (yes, police with AKs, not sticks).
Friday's a holiday here for prayers, but some places might be closed on that day. Plan accordingly.
Drivers say Cairo is the worst place to drive. They apparently are yet to drive in an Indian metro like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai or Kolkatta. Drive in an Indian city and you can tolerate driving in any place in the world.
Cairo taxi drivers may be quite insistent. They'll keep lining up offering you a ride. Saying no again and again is made a little difficult because of the language barrier (unless you're fluent in Arabic).
There are lots of cats around. Not too many dogs, but plenty of the feline kind.
Everyone has plenty of makeup, and hair gel for guys. Even little kids seem to sport a perfect haircut and quite a bit of makeup.
Many Amitabh Bachchan fans, they put him on a pedestal above their own stars, but not too many know Shah Rukh Khan or Aishwarya Rai. We did meet a guard who just loved Amir Khan's movies though.
No Swensen's here, that's one thing I noticed. No big ice cream shops. Only smaller eateries and big bakeries have ice creams. And most often they're the packaged kind (Nestle).
10am to 4/5pm is the only time when most attractions are open. Sightseeing places close beyond 4pm (eg. Saqqarah) and 5pm (eg. pyramids of Giza)
In case you're a student (doesn't really matter what you're studying, could be fashion, could be could be medicine, could be meteorology), bring your university ID card or school ID. Quite a few sightseeing spots offer tickets at half price if you can prove that you're a student.
Quote Amitabh Bachchan to shopkeepers and tell them you live two blocks away from him ;) , everyone likes him, and you may end up getting a discount. This of course, is because they jack up prices by a few pounds when they see that you're a foreigner.
If you're vegetarian, you're gonna find it very difficult. Most eateries (even five star restaurants) will use animal fat to cook the rice. It'll have that characteristic sticky rice feel to it.
Folks drive on the right side of the road here, not the left.
During summer, the temperature is very high, but the humidity's low, so you won't feel like you're sweating. But it tires you a lot.
Growing up, I went to school like everyone else. Whenever it rained, I was always hoping for a holiday. Sometimes there would be a test coming next week for which I could study in the event of a holiday, sometimes I'd just want to sit in my room, look out the window at my long driveway and enjoy the rain. I love rain!
So it was that every rainy season, I was glued to the local news channels for my fill of the weather report. The news that a depression or cyclone had formed in the Bay of Bengal would thrill me no end. This news of course was (and still is) delivered by a great man, Dr. Ramanan.
S.R. Ramanan (first from left in the below photo), director of Area Cyclone Warning Centre, Regional Meteorological Centre. He would tell how the day went, weather-wise, and finish it off with the news I was waiting for - "In light of the weather, a holiday has been declared tomorrow for all schools and colleges in Chennai".
Sometimes the last line would never come, but that was the Pièce de résistance. The final dish of the meal that we would savour the most, that would make or break the entire show, the part that we would sorely miss if absent.
Predicting weather is serious business no doubt, but as youngsters the part of it that had us hooked was obviously the possibility of a holiday. His appearance on Sun News or Kalaignar TV's News brought new hope each time it rained cats and dogs, every time the wind blew hard, every time the sky darkened. He was and is a hero to a number of my school and college mates, saving them when there is almost no hope to be had - granting them that one day of reprieve. But for all this, he's an unsung saviour, one that works in the background, whose efforts we scarcely appreciate. This man single-handedly saved my entire class at college from disaster in an Electronic Circuits end semester exam :D . Most days when it got really cloudy and poured, we'd just say "Inikki Ramanan solradhu paakkalaam da" (We'll see what Ramanan says today). That's the extent of appreciation he got from our part.
He's the hero we needed, but not the one we deserved. So I salute this not-so-average scientist, for he commands my respect, for I've listened to his words far more than I've listened to my own parents ;) . I look forward to more miracles, more rain and more holidays thanks to him. He's the superman we never see. I know him well, but I'm sad to say that he does not know me .
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 :(
We got up early today at 7.30am (Considering I usually get up at 11am during the holidays). Got ready, had breakfast and left the resort to go to the beach. From there we took a boat to a platform far away from the shore. Accompanying us was a guide who came as part of the package we had taken for today - The Coral Island tour - and an American and a Phillipino woman (nope, they weren't part of the package :P). This platform was essentially a large barge with a covered shelter built on top of it and half of it left open. Its a place from where you could go para-sailing. Around this barge there were speedboats moving in a wide circle and they had people with parachutes attached to them by a line from the stern.
I took a shot at it and it was certainly a nice feeling to fly effortlessly through the air. Of course, if the speedboat slowed down the parachute's altitude would decrease and you'd get dipped in the water before they sped up again and brought you back up to a 100 feet in the air. The guide (a Thai man) was all "Namaste" when he spoke to us, and it was really funny with that vegetable-cutting Thai accent.
After that we transferred to another boat (a slightly bigger one this time) and went on a 1 hour cruise. I could tell from the look on my Mum's face that she wasn't quite enjoying the up and down motion of the boat, a Domstal would set her right. Going past a few islands, the boat stopped at one of them and we took a smaller one to the shore. This boat had a glass bottom and we got to see all the corals on the sea floor before we got to the beach. The beach was the kind you would see on Discovery Channel, clean white sand with deck chairs a bit away from the water, and pristine turquoise waters lapping the sands gently.
On arriving we had something to drink and some fresh corn (yes there were shops just off the beach, Thais never ever miss the opportunity to make money). Following that we spent around 2 hours in the water enjoying the gentle waves and clean, cool water with Mum and Dad trying to prove they could swim (No, they couldn't). But think twice before you take a swim in really salty water – your eyes as well as any slight wound on your body will burn. Then there was lunch – pineapples, different kindsa salads, egg fried rice, fish, chicken and green melon soup.... the list is long. After that we sat around enjoying the breeze till 2.30pm and then left by the same boat that had brought us there. A 1-hour cruise later we were back where on the Thai mainland and we took a taxi back to the resort.
There's this show in Pattaya called Alangkarn. We went to Alangkarn around 6pm for the 1-hour extravaganza which included moving stages, pyrotechnics, elephants, a huge number of actors in an incredible variety of costumes, trapeze artists, and martial artists. It tells the legend of the sun god and moon god, the legend of Ram and Raavan (the Ramayana is part of Thai folklore as well), the creation of Thai lettering, the battles in the formation of the Thai Kingdom etc. This is one thing you shouldn't miss. Photography isn't allowed inside though.
While we were waiting for a taxi it began raining. What started as a light drizzle devolved into a cats-and-dogs downpour before we reached the hotel. We waited for the rain to stop and went to this middle-eastern restaurant for dinner. The food was wonderful. To top it off, we had some Coconut ice cream put inside a real coconut with coconut milk on top of it and lichees in it. Something you have to taste to believe.
Hit the sack around 11pm. Another day of fun awaits.
As a family, we love travelling and we've gone to a large number of holiday destinations. This holiday season (no, not December, I mean May-June, that's when we have school and college holidays) we decided to take a break and go to Thailand. This time my aunt was coming along too.
Do read the entire series of articles I post on the days I spent in Thailand. Most of it is interesting, but some day you might find this useful when you plan your own trips to a foreign land such as this.
This trip (which was planned several months in advance) was in jeopardy initally due to the civil unrest in Thailand which resulted in martial law being imposed. So we decided to apply for an Australian visa and shift our vacation there. However, my passport expired (in mid April) and no one realised it until we booked the tickets. That obviously left too little time to apply for the visa (the Aussie embassy takes a bloody long time, evident from our previous experience with an Oz visa) and we were left praying that the situation in Thailand would improve sufficiently. Hence there was a mad rush to renew my passport further compounded by the Regional Passport Officer's arrest and subsequent closer scrutiny of all passport applications.
Anyway, it came through and we quickly turned in our passports and documents to VFS Global for Thai visas (which surprisingly take just 1 day to be approved). And with all that's happening now down under with Indians getting beaten up all over the country and little effort from the Australian police to take any action against the culprits. Some of my Mum's friends and one of my Dad's colleagues had their money returned by their travel agents for holidays they'd booked to Australia in light of recent events.
Note: For those of you who plan to travel to Thailand, note that you can avail visas on arrival under certain conditions. Just look it up on the net.
We left home for the airport at 9pm on the 13thof June. The flight was at 0020 hrs. And we had our usual fights with our line cutting fellow-countrymen. Why can't people respect a queue. Is it worth being impolite and unrefined and blatantly not following rules just to save 2 minutes of having to wait in line? We Indians never learn courtesy unless its shoved down our throats.
So back to the trip. A three and a half hour flight later, we were at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport. From personal experience, the buildings at the airport themselves aren't as big as London's Heathrow (though airports like Chennai and Delhi are but specks on the horizon in comparison to this one), but they are extremely beautiful to behold, with a brushed aluminium and glass look to the whole place. It looks a bit like KL's airport and Bangalore's new aerodrome takes its design cues from Suvarnabhumi. A very neat place and all systematically done.
Took a taxi from the prepaid taxi stand at the airport. Leaving this place even by taxi takes quite a bit of time. The airport's area is HUGE, there's no end to the raised freeways running around the airport and between buildings. It takes around 6 minutes of driving atnear 100kmph speeds to just get to the entrance of Suvarnabhumi.
Then it was onto the main highway that leads to Pattaya, a wide multi-lane road flanked by greenery and smooth to a fault. The taxi driver hardly knew any English, he couldn't even understand that we were asking him how long it would take to get to Pattaya. "Yeah" seemed to be the only word he knew in English.
And we finally reached Pattaya Hill Resort in under two hours. The staff here were most polite and we got our rooms (always prebooked via RCI or Club Mahindra, since we're members) well ahead of check-in time. Perhaps it has something to do with the Tourist season finishing in the beginning of June and the monsoons here starting towards the end of the month. The rooms were pretty spacious and had wonderful views of the Gulf of Siam and Pattaya's skyline.
After an hour or two to settle down, we had lunch and took a taxi down to Pattaya's Underwater world. This is very much like Sentosa's Underwater world (in Singapore), but slightly bigger. Being the National Geographic and Discovery channel buff I was, I enjoyed the experience.
Apart from the various underwater tunnels and wide variety of sea creatures here (Sentosa had a better range of jellyfish though), there's even this fish large fish tank here with two holes in the middle and glass attachments shaped such that the water doesn't seem to flow completely out when logically it should. Apart from the physical effect, the act of putting your hands in through the hole (don't worry that's allowed and there aren't any sharks in this tank) and letting the little fish grab all the dead skin and dirt from it is pretty fun. The 2 otters here at Underwater World do a number of tricks during their show. But what happened outside the outer enclosure during the display had a greater impact on me. This little boy standing with an ice cream dropped the ice-cream's wrapper on the floor. Without a moment's hesitation, he picked it up and walked right to the dustbin. That is how people everywhere should be, and that's how they are in Thailand.
Once we'd seen all that, we went to the Nong Nooch Tropical Gardens. This is a large private resort with a number of stage shows (showing the history of Thailand and its dance and martial art styles), animals, birds, and eateries (anywhere you go in Thailand, there's always some place to eat). The animals and birds come from all over the world.
The highlight of Nong Nooch is their elephant show. A massive number of these majestic and intelligent beasts go on to perform stunts that you'd hardly thought possible by such a huge animal – football, dart throwing, painting specific things, riding tricycles, bowling, everything you could imagine. And nothing untoward ever happens. While we were walking to the show area, someone brushed by my right side. Looking around I found no one, before I realised there was this orangutan walking away from my right leg to his handler. There are many of these animals performing various displays all around Nong Nooch. Apart from this, the place also has beautiful gardens and displays of several animals.
After a short walk, once Nong Nooch had closed, we took a taxi back to the resort and got some well-needed sleep. For dinner, we headed to the rooftop restaurant (this hotel has TWENTY THREE floors). This Vietnamese and Eurasian restaurant offers a beautiful view of the tourist town of Pattaya, its beaches, and the Gulf of Siam beyond.
A hearty meal and we were back in our rooms for some more sleep in preparation for the next day.
