Bangkok

All good things must come to an end, but why?? Heheh my assignment in shanghai was over and I was slated to return back home. It was not a desperate get back home situation for me. I loved and lived every moment that I was there in Shanghai. I will surely miss all the people, food, beer and girls. It was a wonderful time. I decided to take a stop over at Bangkok on my way back. My flight was via Bangkok. I did not bother about the visa as on arrival visa was issued without any problems. They charge 1000THB and you photograph must be handy. Getting visa was no hassle. After that I straight was heading to my hotel Holiday Inn in Silom road. It is a long ride about 50Km. It was about 1:30PM local time when I checked into my hotel. It is a nice place. Very big and comfortable. The next thing on my mind was food. I was hungry. So I set off on foot in search of some hotel for food. Before that I asked the concierge people some advice about the local sight seeing that I could do on this day. They said Wat Tri Mit is a nice option to go to. I saw that on the map and seemed do able on foot. The concierge warned me about the traffic and pollution. I was like who the hell gives damn. So I started walking towards Wat Tri Mit. Here is the statue of Golden Buddha. Thai is big time Buddha. I kept on walking and there was no sign of restaurant, I was wondering what the hell is happening here. Suddenly there were some street vendors serving food. I saw a white guy eating so I thought it is ok to eat. I went and treated myself with a Hainan Chicken Rice. Yummy it was the best food that I had. Great soup and the tangy sauce. I was walking after lunch and I could feel the pollution in the air. The weather makes it even worst. It is hot and very humid. I was feeling very weird also. Now about the place. It is some where between India and Shanghai, geographically and development wise. It has far good infrastructure, but what I felt is it is not as clean as Shanghai. People don’t care about it. Traffic is a mess just as in India. The Tuk-Tuk and the bikes are the main pains in the ass. There are a lot of cars too; Toyota and Isuzu have a good market share I believe. I wonder how the situation is outside Bangkok.
As I was walking towards my destination, I bumped into a Thai local. We started talking and I did not say that I am from India but from Shanghai. The reception is different when you are from India and not from India. He told where all I can go today and how to go. He got me a Tuk-Tuk and told me how much to pay also. The deal was for 40THB he will take me to 3 places and all the places he is going to wait for me. I was cool. So there we were in a Tuk-Tuk. Let me tell you about the Tuk-Tuk, it is a three wheel taxi like the auto rickshaws back home. They are longer, have a lot of room for anything and everything. They are big time maniacs on the road and the sound is very typical. It almost sounds like a Moto GP race bike. So my driver Alex was more than happy to take me around. He kept on talking about everything. My ride was long and exciting. I was moving all over the seat and up and down. Our first stop was Wat Intaravihan. Here there is a tall standing Buddha in golden colour. Height I am not sure. Maybe around 21ft. It was majestic to see such a tall Buddha. Not much to see apart from the statue of the Buddha and one small temple adjacent to it. This temple had a seated Buddha. The entire temple was made of wood. From there we went to our next destination Wat Sam Phraya, lucky Buddha as they say. It has a sleeping Buddha and a standing Buddha. Here I met a security guard who talked about the temple and informed me that there are 40000 Buddha temples in Thailand and 450 of them are in Bangkok. The sitting Buddha was made of concrete and coated with gold. He started telling me to go away from Bangkok as in Bangkok there is not much to see and the other thing that you can do is shopping. He said that their country is poised for a change in the government and there are chances of some violence also. He then told me about the suit sale that is happening and I must go there. He instructed Alex to take me to one such place. Alex also yes sir, I will. I was not interested at all. I told Alex forget it; take me to the Golden Mountain. But that man, phew he straight away took me to that place, Voglee. It is owned by an Indian for sure. Here I met another person, he was from Burma and when I said I am from India, he became senti and told me that India and China have always helped his country. US are a fool imposing sanctions, I just wanted to get out of there and soon I was out. Finally. SO next I went to the golden mountain. It is a small hillock and the top of the mountain is a small pagoda kind off thing made of gold. The climb was tiring although it was tall. At the top there was a cool breeze and that felt really good. From there I saw on my map that the Democracy monument was nearby and said ok let me walk. As I went walking and was pretty close to it I again fell into the hands of a security guy, who said take a Tuk-Tuk to the river side and some Thai factory to see the Thai handicraft. I did want to, damn I was cursing myself. But I was made to go to two shops coz the driver would get a petrol coupon if I buy anything. I kept telling him don’t go there I wont be buying anything. Finally I reached the river Chaophraya and was waiting for sometime for the sun to go down a little. I took a boat that keeps ferrying up and down the river for 18 THB to Sathon that is nearest pier to my hotel. The ride was really good. You can see the grand palace also on the way. When I reached Sathon I was fully drained out. No energy no enthu. It took me about 10min to reach my hotel by foot. There is a sky train station at this pier. When I reached my hotel I did not want to eat in the hotel. I was still looking for some local restaurant and I found one right opposite to my hotel. I went there and ordered a stirred vegetable minced with shrimps soup and steamed rice with Singha beer. When I started eating boy o boy it was damn hot. Hot hot since ages. Phew I was gasping for air. All I knew at that moment was fire in the hole. Finally after finishing my meal I crashed back in my room and I as glad to be in bed. In the meantime there are a lot on Indians in Bangkok and guess what they do, jewelers and clothes. That is my observation. There are a lot of shops for suiting and the names of the shop so Punjabi. You can make out if you are an Indian. There is a wide range of bikes also. You can see Vespa scooters, RX-100, RXZ, Honda Wave, Harleys, Phantoms and what not. A good market.
I had a good sleep but my legs had still not recovered fully. Today I wanted to go to the Grand Palace. I went there by a taxi and as soon as I entered there was a march of royal guards into the palace. Here they have a strict dress code. You cannot wear shorts in to the palace. Even if you are wearing one you get pants for hire. The entrance fee is 250 THB. As soon as you enter you will be spell bound by the three magnificent structures. The palace huge and cover an area of 218000 sq-meters. It was built in the year 1782 during King Rama I rule. There are some interesting sights to see and a lot of history matches with the Ramayana. You can easily kill 2hrs here. But the sun and humidity would be in turn killing you. After the grand palace my next destination was the Wat Phro. Here there is a sleeping Buddha which is about 41ft long. It is simply majestic to watch it. You can spend close to one hr here. From there I took a ferry to cross the river to Wat Arun. It was used as a temple by the king and is about 67meters tall. You can climb up and when you are near the steps it is not encouraging because it is so straight up you will think twice before embarking on it. But when you reach the top it is a panoramic view, you can see the river and the grand palace and a good view of the city. I got back to the pier where I boarded the ferry to go to Wat Arun and had my lunch. I had rice with chicken in garlic sauce and pepper. It was good sitting beside the river and having food. The river does not appear to be very clean. There is a lot of pollution also. There are a lot of fishes also in the river. Then I came back to my hotel to rest before I left for the night market and life ;-). I rested properly for about 2hrs watching movie. At around 8 I went to Phat Phong. This place has a night market till 01:00 AM and good amount of bars and pubs. There are a lot of girls and they are waiting for you. The market sells everything. Same as what I had experienced in Shanghai. It mite be cheaper but never bothered to enquire. The scene is a lot different than in shanghai. After having enough beers I headed back and crashed. The next day I just laid there in my bed for a long time. I just did not want to do anything. Just relax madi!! At noon I checked out of my room and came to the airport. After 3 days I am using my laptop so much h ah ahaha. It is sometimes good to be away from work ;-) but I know on Monday when I am back there will be a lot of things to do .

Beijing Bites

It was along pending trip to be made and finally I could make this trip. I was all excited about it. I was going to see one of the seven wonders of the world. I was slated to travel by train on Friday night at 7. I left office early and went to the station. I had taken the sub way and half of the journey was smooth, the next half of the journey was something funny. There were so many people in the sub-way that I had literally push all the people to make my way out. Reminded me of Mumbai metro trains. Now coming to the train that took me to Beijing. Boy that was another luxury. It was more than a first class AC train. There were cabins and only four berths per cabins. It was so comfortable to travel in it. They also provided you with tooth brush and paste. And the cost was just 500RMB. I had taken a package tour, so all the arrangements of hotel booking, train tickets and local sight seeing was handled by the travel agent. I wanted to do it alone without anybody’s help but now I am glad that I did not. There were no untoward incidents but covering the places on your own would have been a pain. Morning oh god the mornings are too early here, at 5 in the morning the sun shines right into your eyes. I reached Beijing station at sharp 7, the slated time to arrive. I was suppose to wait in a nearby hotel before I joined a city tour group. The hotel was right opposite the railway station I had to just cross the road. At 7:45 my guide for the day Tony arrived and picked me up. There were other tourists in the bus and we had to pick more. For the day there were people from Finland, Taiwan and Iran. Totally we were 10.
Our first stop for the Day was Forbidden City. It is not a city it is a palace, so huge that is more or less like a city. There is a lot of history associated with the place. The guide was telling it very well. One thing I realized was that the emperor was damn afraid of people waiting to kill him. The walls are thick n tall, the ground beneath you had 8 layers of brick and there are no trees. Glad that there were no B2 bombers at that time. The palace is spread over an area of 72 hectares. There are huge court yards. Majestic carvings and buildings. Most of the buildings top is yellow in colour and from a sight it looks beautiful. There was also a clock museum inside the palace. The clocks were gifted to the emperor by foreign national. Clocks of all shapes and sizes were available. Most of them came or were made in England. There was one interesting clock which could show time based on flow of water known as water clock. I am still wondering how it does so. We entered from the south gate and came out of the north gate. It took is whole 2 hours there. Surprisingly there was a Star bucks coffee shop inside the palace and Tony said “Disgusting isn’t it” I totally agreed him. It was like having Pizza hut in Tirupati Temple. The next stop of the day was a silk museum. Here they show the life cycle of silk and how they make it. It was interesting and then shopping which I loathed the most. Coz I did not buy anything. Next was food. I was waiting for it hoping to eat duck. But we were served some imperial cuisine which mostly had pork and I could not eat well. The place where we had lunch was very near to the Temple of Heaven our next destination. By now the sun was blazing hot and the temperature was above 35 degC.
The temple of heaven is the place where the emperor came to worship the heaven god. He use to consider himself as a placement of the Heaven God on earth. He also worshiped here for a good harvesting season. There is an echo building here which happened accidentally during construction. Two interesting things. At once place if you stand and clap you can hear up to 3 echoes and in a different place 2 and in a different place 1 echo. Also if you stand the wall of the circular fence and speak anything the person standing at some other place can be heard. The temple occupies an area of 272 hectares. There is a lot of greenery here. By the time we were done looking at the temple I was drained out. All my piss evaporated in to air. Phew after a ling time such a thing had happened. The next destination was the Summer Palace and that being a little far got some time to relax and recharge. There are many places which were undergoing renovation and maintenance for Beijing Olympics 2008. So some places we could not see. The summer palace is like any other summer palace in the world. There was a huge lake, with three islands and a long corridor to walk along and a palace. The palace was located on a small hill and I must say from a distance it didn’t look easy to climb it. When we went near the entrance of the palace I had to look straight up to see the steps. Man it was no way possible considering the state in which we were. We just walked around the lake and came out of the palace compound. Now the sun was cooler. Next we went to a tea ceremony. To see how tea is made and served and different kinds of tea. IT was a good experience. Here there was a bird, I think a mocking bird which would respond to Nihao (Hi in Chinese). Some time pass there also. So that was the end of the first day trip for us. I was dropped back to my hotel. I freshened up and got ready to go to Tian an Men Square. I took a taxi to the place. The square is a huge open place and is at entrance of Forbidden City. Damn big place. You can have a rock concert here. Surrounding the square is a museum and the parliament. I was just walking here and seeing people and taking snaps when two girls approached me.
They started talking in English and we built up a conversation. I got to know that one of them was a English teacher in a school in Beijing and the other was her friend who had come to visit her. They said they were going to Old China Street and if I wanted to join them. I said ok let me check out the place. It was 7 in the evening and it looked like 5. Yes the sun doesn’t set here till 8 in the evening. Such a long day, damn!! We came to the old street and were walking along. It was not as I had expected or I did not see the entire place. There were some shopping places and some nice bars and local food stores. Then we decided to have some beer and went to café. But it was a tea café and they did not serve beer. So we had a tea instead. While we were having tea a police guy came into our room and started asking for ID with these girls. He did not say or ask anything to me. HE took the ID of on of the girl and asked the teacher to come along with him. Now I got scared. But she did not return back soon. Now I got spooky and wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. We finished the tea soon and got out of the place. The other girl accompanied me till the taxi stand and we bid farewell to each other. I wonder what had happened there. Anyways I was glad to be safe. I got back to the hotel and had my dinner.
Next day the tour was suppose to start at 8 in the morning. I got to call to be ready at 7:30. When I finished my breakfast and coming out, there was a girl looking for me. Mama mia, she was gorgeous. Sigh !!!. she spoke a lot and also wanted thing in her control. Her name was Sally. She used to always say Sally’s friends come here , sally’s group this way. There were three Germans who made mast fun of her. But she had enough data to feed us with. Our first stop was the Ming’s Tomb. The place is located away from the city, about an hours drive. This place has the bodies of the 13 emperors buried in different locations. They are the emperors who ruled China in different times. Not very impressive place. I was not excited to be there. I was looking forward for the Wall, which was the next destination. As we were approaching the Badaling Section of the Great wall, we could see some part of the wall over the mountains. It was a feast to the eyes. When we reached the place we had to take a cable pulley to reach a point from where you have to walk. We had two hours time to spend on the wall. We had to walk to tallest point on the great wall. The climb is not easy. At places the wall just follows the contour of the land. Phew it is a very physical and challenging up there. When you reach there you can find a tablet of Chairman Mao, which says “He who hast climbed is not a hero”. There are many vendors who make certificates and medals saying that you are a hero or you climbed the great wall and things like that. At the top it is windy and a little cold. It is a good relief from the Beijing heat. The wall is such a strong structure that most of it is still intact. I wonder how many people got themselves killed to get through the wall. At the end is was a wonderful experience.

Hangzhou

There is a popular saying in China: "Above there is heaven, below there are Hangzhou and Suzhou." I had already been to Suzhou and now it was Hangzhou. I was supposed to go last week but I did not get tickets and I did not want to travel by bus. So this weekend I got my super fast train ticket for the round trip. My plan was to come back on the same day. Now a days I am reluctant to get up early in the morning. But then can’t have that luxury all the time. I got ready pretty fast and left to Shanghai South Railway station. Man this station is a miniature model of the Suwarnabhumi airport in Bangkok but a lot better. Round in shape and well maintained. You won’t feel like you are going to catch a train. I like the system here you need to check in at least 5 min before the train leaves. They don’t allow you to enter the platform until the train is ready. Once it is all ready to go, usually 15min before the departure time they open the gates, check the tickets and let you in. After you board the train there is no one bothering you to show your ticket. And once the train leaves there aren’t any relative waving at you. Cool an!! Well when I got inside the train man it was more than economy class. The leg space was so much that I could spread my legs to its length and sleep comfortably. The trains are so well maintained and the cost to travel is also lea 50RMB to my destination that is Hangzhou. He takes 1Hr 20Min to cover the distance between Shanghai and Hangzhou at an average speed of 100Km/hr.
When I reached Hangzhou, it was raining and I was feeling bad about it. I wanted it to be bright and sunny day but I guess I was not granted that. I took the taxi to my first destination of the day Ling Yin Si (Ling Yin Temple). The taxis are like in Shanghai well organized. On my way I had my breakfast in the taxi. It took me a long drive to reach the place. First need to cross the city and suddenly you are in the middle of a green cover. Whoa forget Ooty this place rules. It was so beautiful and green all over. You need to but a ticket to get in to the temple rather two tickets. I was some what puzzled why twice. The temple is inside a compound and again inside you need to buy ticket to see the temple. I got lost in finding the entrance; the directions were kind of misguiding me. Finally I got to know where the entrance and temple is. When I went in there were lots of trees and rocks. The rocks had the carvings of Buddha and Buddhism. All over the place you can find that. There was a small stream also flowing inside the place adding to beauty. There were some caves also and I went inside them. There also there were some sculptures. Then finally I got to see the temple. Man that was by far the tallest and largest structure that I had seen so far, it was mind blowing. Inside there a huge a very huge splendid statue of Buddha in golden colour. You can spend half and hour here. After that I wanted to see The Peak flow from Afar (Beng Ji). Legend has it that this large piece of rock flew from India, crossed the Himalayas and landed here. I thought the rock is at the top of a hill and started climbing it. Phew it was a steep climb for about 20 min. When I reached the top, damn what there was nothing? So I came down to see that the rock was same as the one that I had initially seen. But then it was fun to climb the hill. After a long time doing trekking. A good exercise and my legs were cursing me, h ah ah ha ha.
My next destination was the Six Harmonies Pagoda. I took the taxi to reach the place. The pagoda is a tall tower. The architecture is kind of different. There is nothing much to see here apart from climbing the Pagoda. It is about 13 floors high and you can go up all the way by foot. Damn this climb was killing me. The stairs were not normal. They were spiral and steep too. When you reach the top the view from there is breathe taking. You can see the river and the hills and the forest. It was a cloudy day and could not see far from there. My next destination was the Song City. This place is a replica of the Song Dynasty. You can see the culture, people, buildings and everything that was there in that period. There is also a food street selling I suppose food that belongs to that era. I had one snack that was like a stuffed puri. The stuff inside had some meat and I don’t know which one but ate it. It was very tasty too. There was another dish that was like a roti but I did not want to have that as my plans for lunch was entirely different. While roaming around there were a couple of Chinese tourists who were taking some snaps and when they saw me they wanted to take a photo with me. One after the other, they were just excited about it. Then I went and sat for some time near an artificial lake. There a kid had dressed up in a song soldier costume. I took a snap of him. You get costumes that you can hire and sport them. While I was relaxing the drums started playing and there was a show at the main entrance. It was an acrobatic show. The artists were standing on a stick on both the legs and were performing a wide range of tricks. It was a nice show that they put up. This place is good for children as they can see their history and also have fun. I was done with this place and now was the last and most talked about destination Xi hu (West Lake).
All I knew about this place was that it was a huge lake and you can spend the entire day here. That was true; it was such a huge lake. I could only see water as far I could see. There are a lot of gardens on this lake and on its shore. There are three islands also on this lake. You can take a boat or ferry and go to them. I was not willing to do that, I was more interested in having a beer and some good food on the shore and kill time. But the place I got down was on the other end of the city/lake and there was not such luxury as I had anticipated. So I was walking and looking for the restaurant and then I finally figured out that I have to get to the other end of the lake. So I hopped on a ferry who would take me to two islands and then to the city. I t was a good deal. So there I was in a ferry on the lake cruising along and enjoying the beauty. The islands that I went on did not have much to see. Some gardens and some smaller lakes on it. When I kept my foot on the city the time was not permitting to look for a hotel on the shore. I had to catch the train back to shanghai at 5:20PM and now it was already 4:00PM. I was also concerned about the time to travel to the station as in the morning it had taken me almost half an hour. So fast food was my only option and landed up eating a Fish Fillet in Mac Donald’s. Actually the city side is very posch. Somewhat like shanghai. Then I took a taxi back to the railway station which was just 10 min away and I was back in Shanghai in 2 hours.
http://www.chinahighlights.com/hangzhou/attraction/