Bangkok: Sirocco and Oil Massage

This is probably one of the most beautiful restaurant I have ever experienced in my life. We were there to have drinks and it was not cheap I tell ya. My alcoholic drink cost me RM50 but the view was worth it. Standing at the edge and having the whole Bangkok energized around me was an experience that had clarity and a peace of mind to it. Of course the whole place was buzzing with foreigners, including us. This is one place you won't get to see the locals hanging out.

Coming to Bangkok without having a Thai massage is a no no. Through out my stay here, most of the IBMers were asking for the best place to have a Thai massage. It was obvious that we were all going to meet at the same joint sooner or later. The place we went to offered us options and I chose the oil massage. It was painful and relaxing at the same time. Just like their Thai food, sweet and sour flavours are infused. Same goes with the massage here. I was partly suffering and relaxed. Overall I felt much better the next day.

Bangkok: I am feeling it

Hi everyone, it has been a really long week. I am now sitting in a very nice hotel room. If you are wondering which hotel I am staying in, it is non other then the 4 Seasons Hotel Bangkok. Absolutely loving it here. Almost every corner has been designed to invoke suensual senses. Oh yeah I am here for training, work and meetings; and this kind of environment really helps me calm my nerves.

So what is so great about this place? First of all it has to be the customer service and boy did they blew my mind away. Here is an example, my birthday was on the 28th of May right and that was the day I arrived in Bangkok. I got the best birthday wish from my country's imigration officer so that was a great treat to start with. The next treat was when I was trying to arrange an early check in. The receptionist at 4 Seasons told me to wait as he tries to find me a room but what he was really doing was to get a birthday cake in there. When I saw it, I really felt at home. The cake has chocolate sticks poking out from it and a chocolate sign stating Happy Birthday. Supporting underneath it is a whole mango cake. How sweet is that? Thanks 4 Seasons.

The next best thing about this place has to be the people. Everyone here is so friendly and accomodating. Everywhere I go, they would come and greet me with a smile. A smile means a lot and I would encourage everyone to keep smiling. It is like the greatest feeling when someone smiles at you in a foreign country. I can still remember when I had to travel to Singapore for work and I could only get to the Swissotel Hotel late in the evening after numerous meetings. I was pretty exhausted then and almost napping in the taxt cab. Upon my arrival the door lady, very elegantly dressed, came to the passanger door to greet me with a smile. She said she will settle my room for me. Having that service coming out of the hotel doors really means a lot to me as a customer.

My whole 5 days here was about eating, in between my training and meetings of course, and the range of food could not have been any greater. They provided breakfast, branch, lunch, teas and dinner. I was stuffed to the neck and I kept on eating because I was constantly hungry. Everything tasted so great, expecially the Thai infused dishes. Green curry, chocolate deserts and quality meats. It wasn't easy for them because they had to cater for the BAO department which I am in. They came from all around the world. I have already met people from Maxico, Brazil, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Poland, India, Thailand, Indonesia and Philipines. These are all the Growth Market countries and Malaysia is tagged as one of those countries.

New Delhi: Lotus temple

We boarded the Metro and it was rather impressive by any standards. Just like Tokyo, it had to struggle with the large number of people that came in and out of New Delhi. We chose to enter the central station, a station so large that it has its own built in bridge. Entrances and exits came from all sides. There were multiple level of tracks. The carriages were quite spacious and clean. I was impressed!

We were heading to see the Lotus temple. The land it was build on was donated by a local business man. As you can see in the picture, the temple is built to represent the Lotus flower. The Brahman followers likes to use it as a symbol to represent our lives; that we are not born perfect and that we will some day blossom to be what we were intended to be. It is indeed a great symbol for the surrounding area that bears witness to traces of poverty. I can't even begin to imagine the lives of those who were born into poverty. Unfair it all seems and how helpless they so looked. Some of them having to call a cardboard box their home and the beauty of the Lotus temple not far behind just happened to blow my mind away.

The Brahman, who safe guards the Lotus temple, has a very beautiful religion to share. They believe that we all belong to one god. All religions that we know today came about to suit our culture and history. Therefore they acknowledge all religion as pointing to one source. They don't use symbols or specific rituals to adorn their beliefs. Take is as the Zan of religion. The note I was getting was to cut all the jazz and just let yourself be with God. It is simple and peaceful when enter. As a matter of fact, christians or muslims are welcomed to visit this very simple and peaceful temple to perform their own prayers as long as they don't make too much noise. 

New Delhi: Twisted alleyways

Twisted alleyways was what we had to deal with. Smog that was intense enough to cause immediate and permanent respiratory injuries, we were force to purchase medical masks from a little pharmacist that did not looked nothing like a pharmacist. I couldn't bare to acknowledge that those so called sanitary masks were not protect or wrapped by plastic, instead handed over to us with bare hands. Without caring any less, I put it on my face as though it was a gas mask made by the best German engineers in Germany. The smog got even worse and so did my throat.

Now that was that air pollution that would have probably burst though my own built in pollution index. The next was the unbearable noise pollution that we had to go through. The little motor bikes and uncountable cars, trucks and everything else that has wheels below it were contributing to the national honking noise phenomenon. Everyone honks here and it is actually encouraged to do so. Honking is a way of telling others did you are around and that you exist in this universe. It is a happy honk, if you are frustrated then it becomes a not so happy honk. Also the area we were in had a large mosque in the middle and it was broadcasting a large volume of noise that came from its massively installed speakers. We were already half deaf by then so everything sounded like Mozart.

Now you may wonder why did we take the trouble to go through all this. We had to sacrifice our peace of mind, not to mention health sake, to find the world's rated Indian restaurant in New Delhi. It was hidden in the wall cracks of a street and apparently the stars orders their take aways from here. My expectations of the food were sky high then, after what we went through, and I left this place without a memorable thought of it. I can say the journey there was memorable. Come to think of it, this restaurant will stick in my memory because of this experience.  

New Delhi: Poverty and Hope

Like I said before, India is a land filled with contradictions and emotional clashes that can only resonate within a traveller's soul. To describe how I feel about it all is really a challenge; I have to say that I dare not try. Just look at this scene that was captured in New Delhi, while having to cross a bridge to catch our nearest Metro. The air was filled with dust and yet you see the industrial revolution happening all over again in this part of the city. Train tracks carves out the land beneath us and you will see that many of the train carriages are already filled up with raw materials and ready to journey its destiny.

The surrounding area brings poverty and hope. Men bathing naked in the open, shattered brick walls and shacks needed to shelter from the sun and all those harsh environmental conditions. Contradictory to that are satellite dishes that dispels all of what I said, instead they are icons of hope and dreams. Bringing Bollywood dreams into their homes poses only as an escape. I believe that this worm hole, or teleportation device, is just as important as food. At the end of the day, hope and dreams are the very foundation of survival itself. All of us goes through it, in hopes of a better future for our family and love ones.

As I crossed the bridge, my heart tells me that this is only the beginning and India is probably the only place that can teach us a lot about life. To its inhabitants, they clearly know that life is of course the birth and death of everything. What happens in between is just the journey. Happiness is a state of mind and to some extent what is portrayed on the silver screen. Shah Rukh Khan was interviewed in the past by a news agency and was asked what Bollywood means to the people of India. He shared that it is after all an escape, to be hopeful that they might one day fill up the role of a hero. I guess he is right, everyone I see in the broken down shack are heroes of their own world. We create our own worlds after all and we will never be able to comprehend their environment or understand its genetic makeup. Therefore I should keep quite, just observe and count my blessings.