Uncharacteristically Bangkok

And I was wondering how I found myself conned into carrying on with a trip to a country in the middle one of its worst floods in a decade. Yes, I was on my way to Thailand and the cab driver cheerfully informed me that Bangkok had had an ‘emergency’ alert on the floods just that afternoon… I have heard many stories of the one dreadful rain in Mumbai, which saw people stranded in offices, buildings, buses for hours together; I can only imagine the upheaval to life and yes, also worry I may get caught in it. I expect a wet, gloomy and damp Bangkok, and but instead a warm and slightly sultry evening greets me, not a whiff of rain in the air. It was a quick trip, and it was almost surreal to imagine just kilometers from where I was traveling to the Chao Phraya was swelling with abundance and threatening to destroy.

Some random thoughts from an uncharacteristic Bangkok trip.

Suvarnabhumi ... meaning golden land. There is a nice thrust to the syllables (we call it spashtam or pronouncing with emphasis) as the name rolls of my tongue. As I say it, images of civilization in the heights of glory, rich kings and queens, an abundant land flash by and leave behind the sense of hope and vision behind the simple name. The name has its origin from Sanskrit.

Can't remember when I last saw this many pink taxis.

A one day trip is too short. I remember scenes from the movie Hangover 2 and see nothing like it.

This skyline has nothing characteristically Bangkok... I am glad for the smaller number of glass walled tall skyscrapers. With these multiplying, pretty soon, I worry one Asian city may look like any other.

A view of the city

A lot of the signs, name boards are in Thai and it is hard to spot the English text amidst it all... makes me think how so used to the prevalence of the English language I've become.

Thrilled to find the traditional namaste (put your palms together and bow so ast to welcome) is still in use. Immediately, I feel a sense of regret; we (in India) have lost so many of our smaller, yet characteristic elements to blend with the West. This is not what makes or breaks us as a nation. Still.

The Marie Claire in the coffee shop is on Thai. So are the international titles – Gossip Girls and Peter Mayle’s books.

All books in Thai

Don't get to have my favorite pineapple rice. Lunch is in a government company cafeteria. For a dollar.

Doesn't matter how cheap the food is, I still don't find as cheap books as in India.

The sky train is hardly crowded... My colleague says people have headed home early to avoid the floods... the Chao Phraya is harder to reign in.

And before I know it, I am back at the start. Warm and safe. Suvarnabhumi.

The mythological story - Churning of the Milk Sea - from one of Vishnu's several avatars portrayed in the airport

On volunteering...

Just when I was thinking of a volunteering vacation in Vietnam or some place else...

The protagonist, a Filipino, living in the US, : "...we were there in Costa Rica, helping build wells"

L: "Why not the Philippines? Isn't Costa Rica relatively well off?"

The protagonist: "Um, we didn't know that till we got there!"

-The Ilustrado, Miguel Syjuco

... found this funny. Charity begins at home?

Hopefully, no more extracts from the Ilustrado. Yet to fully grasp the ending, but loved the book, the style of narration. The protagonist embodies one we sometimes find in ourself, the part that is always trying to straddle the new with the old, the idealist with the realist, and probably for some who have left their roots, the west with the east. Mixed reviews on whether he presented Philippines truly or a skewed overseas citizen's version, but loved it anyways!

Postcards from Manila...Malate

Transitioning from Makati to Malate wasn’t easy. For 2 days you are a part of the chaos the city is, but yet sheltered from it spending days in air conditioned conference rooms and within the walls of a 5-star the hotel.
Malate, a friend told me was the ‘party area’. The first sight of Malate was of narrow streets, ablaze with neon lights, buildings and shanties mixing into one another, and of course a general sense of chaos with both traffic and throngs of people. Each neon light advertises a place to eat or drink or both and every second place is a karaoke bar (the Filipinos love their karaoke)– although, some places leave you wondering what else is on offer. Boys with punk hairstyles and piercing, calling me in with a click of their tongue was not at all reassuring. Arriving at night threw me off balance I confess, and (in a very lame way) the Starbucks outside my pension was reassuring. The scene wasn’t very different from others I have see.. it, could have been Pali market of Mumbai famous for Hawaian shack or Toto’s, or even Goa close to Baga beach, and I wondered if this unsure was how outsiders felt with their first visit to India.. Next night I was more prepared and found myself having a nice evening in Café Havana. And also, the boys were simply ‘marketing’ the food places and didn’t really mean harm.

Malate used to be a red light area in the past and now is yes, one of the party hangouts in Manila. It also offers cheap accommodation for backpackers – all listed in lonely planet.

At Malate

Streets of Malate

Cafe Havana

Simple evenings

can be such a pleasure, with just a brilliant breeze, beautiful lights lighting up the night landscape. Kite flying festival at the Marina Bay boardwalk... families come to try their hand at kite flying, couples taking a lazy stroll, friends hanging out... hardly too many kites, but the mood was light, conversation good...

At the board walk

Kites in the air

Battling the breeze

Postcards from Manila...Pearl of the Orient

There are some cities that make you feel warm and fuzzy when you return back to them after a long gap – and until I landed and was whizzing past familiar roads and buildings I didn’t realize Manila was one of those cities for me. I was just here on works, but loved the familiarity with both the people I was to be meeting and also the city.

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From above, the city is beautiful. We pass over brown water off the coast, fish pens laid out in geometrical patterns like a Mondrian viewed by someone colour blind. Over the bay, the sunset is starting, the famous sunset, like none anywhere else. Skeptics attribute its color to pollution. Over there’s the land, the great gray sprawl of eleven million people living on top of each other on barely more than 240 square miles – fourteen cities and three municipalities, sky scrapers and shanties, tumbling beyond kilometer zero, and the heart of every Filipino, the city that gave the metro its name: Manila.

Modern Manila. She who was once the Pear of the Orient is now a dowager…She, the trusting daughter of the East and the West, lay down and was destroyed, her beauty carper-bombed by her liberators, cautious of their own casualties, her ravishment making her kindred to Hiroshima, Stalingrad and Warsaw. And yet, from air, you think her peaceful and unflustered. On the ground is a place tangled with good intentions and a tyrannical will to live…. Five hundred years ago, Spanish conquistadors sailed their wooden ship into the world’s most perfect harbor to begin their mission…. Manila has changed much since. It’s changed so little. If you know where to look, this is the most exciting city in the world.

-An extract from the Illustrado, by Miguel Syjuco

PS: Didn't know what the square grids on the water when seen from above was, now I do!
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A rainy September day in Manila

The EDSA, one of the highways criss crossing the city

The famous jeepneys in the city

Makati - the business district at night