My sojourn in Thailand, Malaysia & Singapore

Hiya everyone! After a long wonderful 14 day break to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, that hiya feels so carefree. I had never been to any place in the eastern side of the globe. The furthest being Kolkatta where I had been to a few years ago, and so this holiday was much awaited, beyond being the break from work. I'd like to give a feel of the sights and sounds of the places of visit along with the tips I picked up during the travel, so I hope you enjoy my little (?, ok ! so this is just the first paragraph) travelogue.

After a flight directly from Mumbai, we arrived in Bangkok's newly opened Soovarnabhoomi airport. It is touted to be the largest in the world, with more duty free shops being added for the shoppers. The liquor we found to be cheaper than the Singapore duty free, but the variety of chocolates were more in Singapore's duty free shops. There are a few Thai traditional structures built in the midst of the shops where traditional dances (Like thai puppet shows, music) are performed during the day. I found the airport a tad too large, the amount of time to move from one terminal to the other (which we had to do during our return flight) took too long. One of the terminals took ages to cover and that too with no walking escalators, it is very lengthy for the elderly.

Presently there are only taxi and bus shuttle services to reach the city, but plans are on to connect it to the city by the sky bus service called the BTS, in Bangkok. A taxi took us directly to Pattaya within 1.5 hours where we met our tour group. We were a day late due to some initial hiccups and had missed a wonderful show called the Alacazar show the day before. From what I heard it was a must-see show put up by scores of thai dancers and very traditional. Our group members were very surprised to later know that all the lady dancers were infact men. They just couldn't believe it. There was also a tour of Mini-Siam, which it seemed was overshadowed in the memories of the tourists by the wondrous Alacazar show.

Pattaya (pronounced by the locals as 'Patayaa') is a beautiful touristy city laced with white sandy beaches and crystal blue ocean water. The weather was great in the morning with a lot of sun (sun-block cream a must!). We made our start with a motor boat ride to a large jetty in the middle of the ocean, where all the para-sailing activities take place in Pattaya. With life-jackets on, we had all the 50+ aged tourists in our group queueing up first for a spin. I found as the tour progressed that the more we humans age, the thirst to enjoy new experiences increases that much more!. All were strapped into a harness and then strapped on the shoulders to a parachute. A short run and then the motor boat lifts you about a 100 feet into the air. I've tried para-gliding before in Manali and its much like that, just that this one lasted longer, obvious reason to me was that the parachute was better at defying the gravity compared to the glider. After everyone had a spin, a few opted for a underwater-walking activity. The rest of us went to a island to enjoy more water sports and a chilled nariyal paani(coconut water), after which we were to be taken on a 'glass bottomed boat'. Now I admit that I was enthralled with my imagination of a glass-bottomed boat, but the one in which were taken seemed like a average wooden boat with all of us seated along the perimeter of the boat. Once driven to a shallow water area where I presumed were the coral reefs, we were asked to lift two wooden planks at the bottom center of the boat and there it was, the glass bottom. All of us were asked to cover our heads with the beach towels we brought along, to see the 'corals' better. Well all we could spot was a hazy sight of some corals, but what was most visible was a large black tyre ! I wonder who ferried cars to this tiny island. It seemed like the Thai guide we had also had noticed the tyre a lot, because he kept asking us whether we could spot his car's tyre, in good humour ofcourse. I think he was about the only thai who could speak English, albeit with a very heavy thai accent which most of the middle aged crowd found very difficult to interpret.

Thailand is probably one of the very few countries in Asia that has never been colonised in history and the reason why most of the thais do not understand or speak English. This makes it very difficult to communicate with the average Thai on the streets but the people are very friendly and with a lot of sign language you do get across. And yes, the sign language makes you feel like a fool at times and a bit frustrated at times too, but I guess the feeling would be mutual. Pattaya fares worse than Bangkok in this department. I was actually surprised that such a huge country that relies very heavily on tourism, with a large amount of western tourists (we found the maximum western tourists in Thailand compared to Singapore and Malaysia put together) still didn't need the English language to sell itself. During the travel around the country and in particular in Pattaya I realised that one of the reasons could be night-life opportunities that are available in plenty. I also noticed that there were a lot of single western men touring Pattaya and with the skewed gender ratio in Thailand (there are nearly 2 women per man in Thailand), it seemed very obvious that I spotted easily one of the reasons for the popularity in this destination. Nevertheless, this was a beautiful place with lovely experiences in store. With over 3000 Buddhist temples and the worlds largest gold Buddha (1.5 tons in solid gold) and the largest reclining Buddha in Bangkok, Thailand has a 90% Buddhist population. I always felt that Buddhism preached non-violence (adharma) as one of its main principles. But I was very surprised with the abundance of the weirdest sea animals sold in a variety of formats as street cuisine. I know most of us have seen all of these on travel shows, but seeing dried manta rays, fried roaches is really amusing. They have large tubs of water where the sea animals are live and kicking with tubes of gas that oxygenate the water to keep the pre-sea food 'fresh'. You can pick and choose what you'd like to eat. Our Thai guide explained that the Thais have a saying which translated to 'We eat all that flies apart from the aeroplane, all that swims apart from the boat and all that walks apart from the human being'. A new explanation to us about the gorging on non-vegetarianism from our Thai guide was that the Buddha did not see what his followers ate, rather it was what they did. (Seems what they did to make their food didn't count!). Well to end this topic, it was not until we had a Chinese guide in Malaysia did I get this new Buddhism philosophy right. Well until then, let me get back to the rest of Pattaya.

I think the real highlight (after the much praised Alacazar show) was Nong Nooch village. Its about 200 acres of land that a rich Thai lady has cultivated into huge landscaped gardens. But the real entertainment was the cultural show (at scheduled times). We got a glimpse of the Thai cultural dances which had a lot of beautiful women in the traditional highly ornamental head gears and jewellery dancing with graceful hand and feet movements to the tune of stringed instruments, a show of traditional Thai kickboxing and sword fight. Later was the wonderful elephant show. The elephant is the most revered animal in Thailand (probably they should correct their saying to say they eat anything that walks except the human and the elephant!) and besides a lot of wild elephants, many are trained like the ones we watched. A cute show displaying the varied talents of these intelligent giants. From a game of darts, bowling, a football contest complete with a goal keeper elephant, to dancing and even painting, it seemed like a trunk and a brain to match was all you needed to master these skills. The dartboard was a range of balloons and the elephants would stand on their hind legs, holding the dart with their trunk there would be backward bend and a few strained moments before the dart was released to blow up a balloon on the dartboard spot on. After each performance, the elephant's perogative would be to come to the audience to be cheered and fed with bananas (sold for a few baht by young children). You could take your picture with the elephants for a few baht and moving to the exit, even a large adult tiger, some orangutans, kingfisher birds, monkeys, all for a 40-80 Thai Baht (the Thai currency which is slight higher equivalent to the rupee).

Shopping in Pattaya is to be avoided as much as possible. Most of all of this is available for less than half in Bangkok, so not much was spent here. We were all taken to a large Thai massage spa. In Thailand, there are several schools for Thai massage which is a dry massage technique. The spa consisted of large halls with wooden raised floors and large single beds to rest while a large party of Thai masseurs made their way in with minimal equipment. None of them could communicate in English, so what followed were amusing (for both parties) sign language conversations. I think what mostly amused the Thai masseurs was the Indian side-to-side head movement for 'ok'. Well mostly what they laughed at, we will never know and they us. The massage reminded me a lot of the massages that Indian new borns are pampered with in India minus ofcourse the oil since its a dry massage. So many of the elder ladies & gents had their legs stretched to all possible angles they thought not possible at that age. Yes, the gents also had lady masseurs and many a jokes were exchanged on the way back for dinner, all in good humour.

The next day en route to Bangkok, we visited the worlds largest gems gallery. Thailand is very famous for its blue sapphire and the ruby and with a short ride on a boogie that took you through some of the historical significances of the Thai jewellery and gem stone, we were escorted by personal assistants to have a walk around the gallery. The jewellery mainly was in white gold which the Thais prefer to wear and some sections do consist of the gems set in gold or a mixed variety as well. All price ranges are covered and various semi-precious set jewellery are also on display and available. With no obligation to buy, a lady's paradise, it would take more than the few hours we were given to browse through it all. They even house some very good authentic Thai silk items but the gallery is known more for the gems with a lifetime guarantee (local). Proceeding with our travel to Bangkok city, we were greeted with empty roads, but we were told not to be fooled by this since it was a Sunday and sure enough the next day we were always experiencing the Bangkok traffic jams. We checked into the Belaire princess hotel on Sukhumvit road in Center of Bangkok. This hotel was by far the best we stayed among all the ones we stayed out throughout the tour and one I would recommend. It was also interesting to note that a garlanded Lord Ganapati keeps vigil at the entrance of the hotel reception with a continuously lit diya next to him. The same night we dressed up for a formal dinner cruise over the Chao Phraya river that flows through Bangkok city. There is a lower and a upper deck and we were on the lower one. With live music and good Indian and Thai food. The cruiser floated to all the brilliantly lit palaces and skyscrapers along the river. Its a wonderful way to see Bangkok city by night, while all the oldies in our group had the time of their lives dancing on the floor with the singer who belted out some English numbers to begin with. Then we had a thai-accented SRK number, the fave-Indian number there - Dhoom (just to remind you, Tata Young is a Thai). Our Thai guide called all the men in the group as 'Kaka's, so in his words all the Kakas were having a great time dancing with the Thai singer. I've had many cruises in India and Europe, but this was a new experience really.

Bright and early the next morning we made it to the animal safari park on the outskirts of Bangkok, where vehicles (in our case our tour bus) takes a drive into the roads in the park. A visit to the marine park followed with a dolphin show, Sea lion show and a few stunt shows such a James Bond and a Cowboy stunt show. These were all in the Thai language and personally, were not very entertaining. I've been to some of the shows in L.A. and one in Holland, the one in Holland being in Dutch as well, but they were much more fun than the ones we watched here. Given a choice, I'd give this entire bit a miss. Save for the chance I got to feed a tiger cub and take pictures with it for 80 Baht. It was the cutest thing drinking milk from a large feeding bottle in my arms. Mom got pictures taken with some exotic birds perched on her arms and one on her head. I think she really enjoyed it a lot, guessing from her large grins.

At night we were taken to shop at the Sumlum night bazaar, a very colourfully lit bazaar with small shops and restaurants and a few rides like a giant wheel on the river bank in Bangkok. I would recommend this bazaar to all those picking up souvenirs, if you know how to bargain well. Its a place we got a lot of good bargains and so did many others. The bazaar is mostly known for souvenirs and interior decoration artifacts such a Thai silk (probably not authentic) bed linen, coffee table mats, bed runners, wall hanging fans. When buying in multiples, do remember to reduce the price even more. On an average bargains can be got at about 70% of the quoted price. Don't be shy to go back to a shop that quoted a lower price than all the others you visited. To travel around in the city there are many options such as the sky train, taxis, buses and tuktuks (Thai version of the auto rickshaw, named so for the noise that it gives). The advice by our Thai guide was to stick to the taxis, buses or sky train and to avoid the tuktuk as the drivers resolve to a lot of haggling on the fare after reaching your destination, even though you might have agreed a price prior to the journey. Taxis are affordable but can get a little expensive due to the traffic jams in the cities, so the sky train is probably a good option and a fun ride.

A city tour was the next days itinerary which included the world's largest Golden Buddha at Wat Traimit, the largest reclining Buddha and the spires of Phra Maha Chedi Si Rajkarn. Then onto the Baiyoke Sky hotel, the worlds tallest hotel at 308 metres in height (85 floors), we enjoyed the city views on the revolving deck outside the highest observatory deck in the hotel and then a complimentary drink in the cafe at the top.
Shopping avenues are in abundance in Bangkok and we were taken to the MBK shopping mall which is one of the largest in Bangkok. Next to it is the Tokyo mall which has all the branded goods, while MBK was more for the economical variety. We got some very good deals in MBK for souvenirs, interior decoration items, shoes, apparel, handbags (value-for-money products for as much as 250 INR!) and since we had shopped beyond the time given by the tour guide we decided to get back to our hotel by the BTS, the sky train. And as luck would have it, we were haggling for a wonderful Thai angel metal artifact made in pewter and realised that we had run out of money. We needed to save some money for the train ride, and would have to let go of the piece. On communicating this to the Thai sales girl who desperately wanted to make a sale, we got a maximum bargain. Something that was quoted as 2500 Baht was sold to us for 1200 Baht! We were sent off with a loud melodious 'Kobkhunkhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa madaaaaaaaaaaaaam' (Thank you in Thai), which was the case in all shops we shopped, but this one was particularly the loudest one. Well Kobkhunkhaa to you too!

The next day was a flight to Singapore and this was when we actually admired the Soovarnabhoomi airport and the wonderful traditional art work on display. There is a lot of mythology taken from the Hindu religion and a large artwork depicting the churning of the ocean for amrit was present with the asuras and the devas on either side and the naga dev and the tortoise. There was a lot of concern after the recent coup in Thailand, but I never saw any military presence anywhere during our visit. The people revere their King with the highest regard who has been educated in Europe and has agriculture research centers in some of large palace premises!

My first impressions of Singapore was the obvious well-manicured gardens, roads, residence localities, basically everything around was well manicured. The interesting thing to note was the immigration card of Singapore, probably the only one I've seen so far which say in bold red, 'Warning - Death for drug traffickers under Singapore law'. There are many severe laws in Singapore besides these, where capital punishment is liberally awarded for several crimes, which makes it one of the safest cities. There are high fines for spitting, littering, breaking traffic signals, etc which are humorously depicted on Singapore souvenir Tshirts. Everyone converted their currencies to the Malaysian Ringit and Singapore Dollar at the Mustafa shopping center which is supposed to give the best forex rates in Singapore. We dined at the Bombay Magic Indian restaurant near the shopping center, the Indian food that we ate in Singapore was strictly ok, although we did eat worse food in Genting highlands, Malaysia. I'm guessing we were not taken to the right places to eat. Since there is such a large Tamil population in Singapore, I would have expected better food.

The next day a bus ride of about 8 hours to reach Malacca in Malaysia, we passed through the Singapore and Malaysian immigrations on the way. Singapore was initially known as Singhapoora or the Lion city and got its independence from Malaysia and is separated from Malaysia by a kilometer long bridge over the South China sea. Malaysia is called the melting pot of Asia with its history of many groups from different cultures having come into Malacca, in particular to trade. There are a lot of Chinese, Indian, Thai cultures that have mixed with the native Indonesian people. The Indian traders first named the region Malay, meaning hills or hilly region from where the country was later named Malaysia. True to its name, the landscape is truly covered with never ending beautiful low altitude hills. The flora of the region is truly tropical with a variety of palm trees (Malaysia is the largest exporter of Palm oil), banana trees, different species of large ferns all interspersed with each other creating a feel of being in the tropical glasshouse section of a beautiful botanical garden. For me, the jungles and the countryside were the best feature of Malaysia. With refreshment centers at every 30 Kms, the travel by bus was very comfortable. On reaching Malacca, we went around the local sight-seeing places such as the Dutch square, a maritime museum and a Chinese temple that follows the Zionist, Confucianism and Buddhist principles. The highlight of Malacca tour was the trishaw ride. The trishaw is a cycle rickshaw which is highly decorated. Each one in its own unique way with flowers, peacock feathers, some even had a old music speaker with the latest Bollywood tracks played. Yes, Himace bhai here too along with Karan Johar movie songs. Well apart from the trishaw ride, the place was not much fun. Next was the drive to the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur (KL) to where we took a cable car to the Genting Highlands, which is a lovely hill station and a gamblers haven. This place was built into a larger entertainment center mainly Casinos, more than 40 yrs ago. The family that owns it has built the entire complex that has several hotels with a total of more than 15000 hotel rooms! Malaysia is a muslim country and we all know that gambling is not encouraged in Islam, hence the question was the viability of casinos in such a place. The Chinese who make up 37% of the population are fans of gambling and sure enough apart from the tourists, the large amount of the guests in the Casinos were the Chinese. I am entirely uneducated in the various games and so was just a spectator. For those who have never been to one, imagine a table full of atleast 150 tokens (not sure how much each costed) bet on various numbers. The ball rolled on the wheel chooses a number to sit on, and all the tokens sitting on the numbers not chosen by the ball get cashed by the casino! And yet the tables were all full of people waiting for a table to play at.

For those of us with no dare to bet, there are two theme parks, an outdoor and a indoor one. Both very entertaining, the outdoor one had all the thrillers like various roller coasters, the space shot (a vertical shot into the sky to about a 100 metres) was a particular favourite of the oldies! Even I couldn't get myself to sit on it. These people are truly adventorous. The Indoor theme park had a artificial Snow world. Unlike the one in Dubai, Brayhead (Scotland), etc, this one doesnt have the various snow sport adventures. It has a simple tyre slide and we all enjoyed a real long snow fight with each other which was great fun. We are not allowed to take in our cameras and this is Genting's way to make some money. Professional photographers give you the option to take pictures that you can buy for a price once you get back into the natural world. But the pictures came out really good and for a 'special' price, Ha ha! Well we needed something to take away, so most of us did pay up. They have some combo deals here, so do keep a watch out here. Some of the people at counters did not speak very good english and with our desi oldies crowd there were a few miscommunications that ended in many having to shell out more than necessary for the pictures. At 9pm, we attended a optional show called the Mysteria show which had a group of western dance groups, a magician Tim Kole who has been commended by David Copperfield performing magic, a very fine crossbow shooting act and the Chinese Henan acrobatics troupe performing their acts in a Egyptian pharoah story format.

The next day, we got back to ground level via the cable car ride and travelled back to Kuala Lumpur. On the way we visited the Batu caves. In these caves is a 113 year old temple dedicated to Lord Murugan. There is a 42.7 feet statue of the Lord Murugan at the start of the climb of 272 steps upto the cave, which took 3 yrs in all to build. This cave has very well-formed stalactites and has lots of natural light from a opening at the top of the hill, unlike any caves I have seen till date. At the base of the hill, there are temples of Shanni dev and Ganapati. Also are a large number of Tamilian shops and restaurant where many of us had lovely indian coffee and South Indian dosas. We ordered for a paper dosa just to have something light to taste and we were served a 3-feet dosa! Very tasty food.

Here we were greeted by our KL guides, one of them being the Chinese guide I earlier mentioned. He was Mr. Ooui un Ken who was a very kind and knowledgeable guide. He kept giving us information on the similarity of how much Feng Shui and astrology has relevance among the Chinese and Vastu Shastra to the Indians. The similarity of how the Chinese considered astrology while choosing names like in India. Ooui was his family name, Un a name given to all of those born in his generation and Ken was his first name. We were taken to the Petronas towers which is the 2nd tallest tower in the world and is a commericial center built by the Petroleum National corporation in Malaysia, hence the name Petronas and the technology used to build it was imported from Japan and Korea, that would help the towers during earthquakes (which are not experienced in Malaysia). Also a visit to the KL tower, the tallest telecommunications tower in the world where we enjoyed the sky view of KL. We were given options for audio tours while enjoying the views and one of the language options was Hindi! Among the many monuments we visited were the national monument, the King's palace from the outside and Putrajaya the administrative capital of Malaysia. Malaysia has several states, nearly all having Sultans and a few with governors. The Sultans elect their King every 5 yrs from among themselves who acts as a figure head of the country, having little authority. Much like the President in India who signs off the Parliament bills to legalise them, the King here does this. The country is a democracy and the Prime minister who actually runs the country. The Sultans are highly educated and many are lawyers and extremely rich owning lots of inherited property.

KL also offers a variety of shopping options, we visited the Songei wang plaza. I was in search of a laptop and hence did not spare any time for anything else there. On getting a few quotations for laptops I found them to be reasonably cheaper than in India, but since the guide advised to check them in Singapore I refrained from buying one there. Once I got back to Singapore I realised it would have been about 4000 INR cheaper to buy it in KL. But the advice was to ask for international warranty and to buy from authorised dealers since duplicates could be got in abundance here. Another point I noted was that the pirated software business was prevalent in KL just like in India. For 50 RM (malaysian ringit) the salesman told me he would load in a lot of popular software. Near the KL hotel (called the Quality hotel which is a good one to stay at) were street markets where you can get good deals for apparel, artifical flowers, etc. On the last day in KL, we visited the Sunway lagoon which is a water theme park with a few water slides and two large pools with artificially created waves, one of which had rides that people could surf on as well.

We then returned to Singapore the next day. Our travel was aboard a very comfy executive class bus. In Singapore over the next three days we visited the Marina bay where we had a boat ride through the financial centre and the view of the Merlion. The Merlion is the adopted symbol for tourism in Singapore and is a mythological creature that legends say used to be spotted in ancient Singapore. It is also a wishing well. We visited the Singapore zoo by night, where we took a night safari bus ride. Ths tram would take us through various spots where nocturanal animals would be in their natural habitat. There was a interactive animal show called the creatures of the night show and we enjoyed a dinner buffet at the zoo. Apparently there are options to even dine with a view of the animals at the zoo.

There is a bird park called the Jurong bird park which has a train taking you to various spots around the park and again various interactive shows to entertain everyone. Little India didn't really meet my expectations after seeing all the colourful snaps of it in the tourism booklets, but this is near the Mustafa shopping center which is a 24x7 shopping gala for anyone wanting to shop economically. Bear in mind, there isnt much of a customer experience here and the sales assistants are not much of help. I missed visiting the China town which I really wanted to visit. At the Singapore airport, the tourist information desk is by far one of the best ones I've visited. It has all the information and free booklets you would ever need. They even have walking tours around China town and other areas in Singapore, something I was interested in taking, but didnt have the time. I had taken a walking ghost tour in Scotland which was fun, hence the immense interest from my side. All in all, the highlight of Singapore has to be Sentosa Island.

Sentosa Island is a island at the southern tip of Singapore and would take a weekend to cover. There are cruises that you can enjoy, or you could take a cable car ride to the island like we did. The spots on the island are covered by using a bus transportation system. First we visited a wax museum called the 'Images of Singapore'. It took about a half hour to cover the scenes depicted in wax of various cultures ranging from Malay, Chinese, Indian, etc and also depicted the history of Singapore. At the end of the walk, we were asked whether we would like to take a free picture with a ornate Chinese girl. Sure we would want that. Once you come out to collect you picture, you are asked to pay for it. So never be under the impression that its only the pandits outside Hindu temples in India that want to fleece you of your money. Well, the snaps came out beautiful so I did end up paying for it. Next was a ride on a 360-degree revolving deck that cranes upward and you get a beautiful view around Sentosa Island. Again you get to take your 'free' snap here. Okay, I think I need to tone down the sarcasm a bit :-).

We then went to the Ocean world, which is the under water glass house. It was simply the best aquatic experience I've had. You have to see it, to believe it. The water and the glass above are crystal clear and you have the full view to watch the sea animals in action.
There was a wonderful 4-D movie that we watched. I've never seen a 3-D movie and had to exchange notes with a cousin who had to understand how it was different from the 4-D one I watched. It was simply out of the world. The movie was about a boy playing pranks on some pirates who were invading his island and you would feel the spiders coming to you, the water splashing on to you, the seats would move to make it seem as though you were the one falling down the slide. It was as though you were a part of the scene. More 3-D movie options were available. We then visited a nice laser light, water and sound show which was again spectacular. There were a few other places on the island we didnt see as it was already night by the time we finished seeing all the above. The few other places to enjoy on the Island are the beach, Volcano land, Dolphin lagoon, Butterfly and Insect kingdon and also a lot of outdoor sporting options.

All in all a enjoyable trip through three lovely countries. I think I still have a lot more to see in Thailand and Malaysia, who knows I still might go back for more! I hope you enjoyed reading about my travels. Well until next time, Tally-ho !

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