Bangkok - Pattaya - Kuala Lumpur (Feb 18-21, 2009)

My first ever trip to Thailand transpired in a way that I never would have expected it to. Given all the planning I’ve done with so many friends in the last few years about visiting the most talked about holiday destination on the planet, the last thing I would have imagined would have been making this trip on my own! I actually do quite a few things on my own; checking out new restaurants, watching movies and plays – and although I may not enjoy the solitude so much, I tend to reason with it because I’ve never really met another person who has as much an appetite for these things as I do. So I go right ahead and do things on my own. But a holiday? On my own? This was a thought I’ve never fathomed. How does one do a holiday on your own? Isn’t going on a vacation all about sharing experiences and having stories to talk and laugh about years after the trip is over? This is what I always thought too, until the Thailand trip..

Well, to start things off, going on a Bangkok – Pattaya – Kuala Lumpur trip was obviously never on the cards, but after a visa issue with my friend Joban who was supposed to come with me, I had no option but to go on the trip on my own, lest I also lose the 8G’s I spent on all the ticket bookings that had been made! It only made practical sense for me to carry on with the trip, although I did not like the idea one bit. I almost went back through immigration actually, especially with the officer there breathing down my neck standing in between Joban and me saying, ‘Choose which way you want to go, and go right now’.

So once I made my decision, I tried to recollect my thoughts and start mentally preparing to do this on my own. There were a bunch of things I had to ensure before getting on the flight – exchanging currency, charging my phone, reading the Lonely Planet! Thank God I had Joban’s copy of the Bangkok Lonely Planet in my bag! At least I could go to Bangkok a bit prepared now. But thing was, I had already done plenty of research about Bangkok. My initial international trip was actually set to be in Bangkok instead of Singapore, so I had read up quite a bit about the place that time itself. And now I had the Lonely Planet also – a very good book I must say! It’s the first time I’ve ever read one of those! It took up most of my time during the Tiger Airways flight from Singapore to Bangkok, and thankfully so, because the flight was supremely boring with the most boring air hostesses, wearing the most boring uniforms and serving the most boring of menus! To top it all, the plane actually made a U-turn after reaching the runway coz the captain came across a technical glitch. That took about an hour to fix and I finally landed in Bangkok at 9:30p.m. Thanks to the time difference, it was only 8:30p.m in Bangkok and I had a bit of time to scout around for a place to spend the night.

I got my visa on arrival – the procedure pleasantly a bit more scrutinizing than the one in Indonesia, and made my way to the airport bus that was en route to Khaosan road. This was a place I had read about being the Bagpackers haven of Bangkok. Apparently one could find cheap lodging, cheap food and tons of cheap shopping here. When I reached the place, I was suddenly reminded of Goa’a Anjana Beach on New Years. This too was an entire stretch of a road filled with fancily named pubs (Gullivers Travelers Pub and then Gullivers Travelers 2!!), hundreds of hawkers selling everything from strange food to clothes, to music cd’s, to even condoms! There was a swarm of tourists moving all over the place, and local businessmen either themselves or with the assistance of pretty Thai women luring the tourists into their shops. It was an awesome sight. I had to cut through the crowd briskly as my first priority was the find a place. Once I had that covered, my second priority was to get me a beer!

The place that I took up was just off Khaosan road, and cost me 250 Baht for a room with a double bed, a fan and a single light bulb. The loo was outside and common to everyone on the floor. It was a nice clean place though, especially the loo, so I just took the place and didn’t want to waste too much time scouting for a place to stay as I was pretty sure all the other places would also look something like this and Lonely Planet had quoted something in the range of 200-250 being the lowest one can go to at Khaosan. So after I got rid of my bag, I went out armed with only my camera and wallet, trotted into a 7/11 to get beer at the best price it can be offered and then went out checking out the entire street. I walked around with my can of beer and noticed that I wasn’t getting as much importance as the firings from the local businessmen. Two reasons – one, I was alone, two, I was Indian. I should normally take offense to the latter argument, but it was only after spending a few days here that I realized why we don’t get much importance. Its not because we are cheap, (although we might be that also, but frankly, some of the firings I came across are far cheaper), but because there is not much difference between the Thai culture and the Indian one. These guys have tuk-tuk’s similar to our autos, have a currency very similar in value to ours (even the pronunciation of Baht is somewhat like Bucks!) and even listen to Hindi songs (I heard Rehman’s music blaring from so many music stores and bars). Moreover there are so many Tamilians in Malaysia. I’ve seen many more here than Sinapore. So it was all these reasons put together that they don’t treat an Indian in Bangkok like a tourist. We are pretty much like them itself!

Anyway, after drinking a few cans of beer and having an original Phad Thai dish from a road side vendor, I decided to call it a day. Planned on waking up early next morning and visiting the temples around. The Phad Thai dish that I had may not have been as good as the one in India in Value for Money terms, but it had a taste to seriously die for. My mouth is almost watering imagining the taste of that dish even now! But one big problem with buying street food, and this must be taken note of, is that these people tell you one cost when you ask them, and then charge you a higher price once they give you the dish. They’ll point to some sauces on the cart saying that all that caused the excess price. This was one extremely irritating thing I found in Bangkok. It happened while buying this Phad Thai dish that was supposed to cost 40 Baht, but the lady took 60 when I finally paid for it. She did the usual pointing to the sauce bottles when I asked about it, and anyway I was too happy with the ambience and the beer to argue and left it at that. But I noticed it every time I bought something and even noticed the same thing happen to other tourists also. This is really a very irritating thing. They might as well tell you the actually price or at least tell you that the sauce will cost extra (if that really is the case that is) rather than fool around this way! So this is one thing that needs to be handled very cautiously when in Bangkok. Give the money upfront itself and say you will not pay any more!

I woke up at 6:00 a.m the next day and noticed there was no plug point in my room to charge my camera and phone. So I had to go downstairs and worked on the net till these things got charged and left out Temple-visiting.

I first went to a small temple called Wat Sam-something after a Tuk-Tuk guy took me there saying the Wat Phra Keow, the actual temple I wanted to visit and the biggest in Bangkok, was closed. It was after we reached there that I got to know his hidden agenda. This place had a ferry terminal and the boat guy (connected to the Tuk-Tuk guy) wanted to take me on a boat tour for 1600 Baht! I almost broke out laughing when he said that. So I simply paid the Tuk-Tuk guy for bringing me till there and just moved on. Went to the Wat Sam place and then walked to Wat Phra Keow. This was one real big temple, and shared borders with the Grand Palace of Bangkok. Together, they were pretty much the Taj Mahal of Thailand. With hundreds of visitors thronging the place on a Thursday morning! Of course, the place is not even a fraction as beautiful as the Taj Mahal, but still a very good sight and so much better than Singapore which seems to be a place that doesn’t have any culture at all. They just came up with the whole Merlion thing to have something at least in the entire city-country that tourists can visit and have some connection to the history of the place. Apart from the Merlion, Singapore has nothing more than well designed buildings! Quite sad really, and Bangkok was so much more impressive that way. So after the sight seeing, I walked to the next temple – Wat Pho, where the largest lying Buddha statue was located. En route here, I went past a number of road-side stalls and the stuff available there was at throw-away prices. I was really stunned to see things like slippers for 40 Baht and nice souvenirs for 20. So I picked up quite a few things here – the best buy coming from a Café that I only went in to charge my camera. It was called Navy Wives Association Café and I picked up some Jeep apparel and a radical looking pouch to sling around my neck and hold things like my camera and stuff. Was so glad I went in there!

Wat Pho was also pretty impressive, and after that, I walked to the ferry terminus and took a ferry to Wat Arun, the third temple I wanted to visit. This one was across the river and you had to take the ferry. By the time I visited this temple also, I was pretty tired of temples. It was anyway the last one on my list, and after that, I carried on in the ferry till an interchange to the Skytrain, which I took all the way till Ekemai station, which was now on the other end of Bangkok – the eastern end (Khaosan making up the western end bordering the river). The trip from the west to east of Bangkok was a trip in changing times as well. While the western region was all old Bangkok with ferries for transport and temples to visit, the eastern region had fancy Skytrains and tall skyscrapers!

From Ekemai, I was to go to Pattaya by bus. Gobbled a satay before entering the bus – my only meal of the day (a milk shake was the only other thing I had at the café earlier) and slept peacefully during the 1.5 hour bus journey. Pattaya was a place I had read nothing about, so was pretty lost when I got off the bus. But thankfully there was a tourist assistant right outside guiding people to the tourist information centre nearby, from where I got a map a enough information about Pattaya to start off. Took a minivan to a place called Walking Street – supposed to be the Khaosan of Pattaya, and once again took up the first guesthouse I came across. Of course, I wasn’t as hasty as I was as compared to the previous day and decided on doing a bit of market survey, but none of the other places where available – at least not for a single day. I was wondering how many days people end up spending Pattaya!

This place was a treat compared to where I had stayed the previous night. This one was an a/c double bed room, with TV, a complete wash room with towels and even a fridge with complementary bottles of water. I was set! Of course, it cost 650 Baht, but still fairly reasonable..

I changed, charged the camera (once again!), put it in my brand new radical pouch and headed out to check out Pattaya. The beach of Pattaya was pretty shocking actually. I mean, the beach had the usual water sports – parasailing and water-scooters, but it was off the beach that was pretty shocking – prostitutes all over the place!

I did the usual of buying a Singha beer and sitting along the beach watching the sunset, but the whores all over the place was pretty depressing. And I really mean that, coz they look terrible! Anyway, I walked back to Walking Street and decided on hitting some pubs. Now this was my second cultural shock for the day. These places were like any other pubs, even with happy hours and stuff and reasonably priced alcohol. But including all of this, were dancing girls on poles! It was my first ever trip to a strip club and I was beginning to get a feeling like I’ve finally grown up now! Of course, I do feel a little too old to be enjoying this completely. Maybe more so because of the lack of company, but I still pub-hopped and checked out quite a few places until one particular point when I was walking down a road and the bright street lights began falling behind me and I suddenly realized I was actually lost, and was pretty tipsy too to be dealing with this now. So I took out my room keys to see if there was a name of a place on it, so that I can ask around. But there was nothing on it. So I just asked some people to point me back to Walking Street and tried to figure my out from there. After walking around quite a bit, I was finally on recognizable turf. It was nearing midnight by this time and I once again realized I hadn’t had any food. So grabbed a burger and went straight to bed.

Next day I checked out early again and decided to see if I can do some shopping in Pattaya. Picked up quite a few thing that I intended on gifting people, then had breakfast at KFC. Ya, I was same old KFC, but then I had a Pattaya special Shrimp Burger! Then took a motosai to the bus stand and was on a bus back to Bankok.

Once I got to Bangkok, I took the skytrain from Ekemai and reached a place called Asoke. From here I walked to the Times Square of Bangkok. It was a mall, and a very expensive one at that. So didn’t really do much, apart from grabbing lunch from a Korean restaurant close to that. Then I continued on the Skytrain to Siam central and went to a mall there called Siam Paragan. Now this was supposed to be one of the best malls of Bankok, and it was by far one of the best malls I’ve seen. Each of the restaurants in this mall had a special theme of its own. While one had glass separations between tables with bamboo shoots in them, another was floating on a man-made canal inside the mall itself. The whole thing was really fabulous. There was even an Ocean World at the basement a la Sentosa aquarium and the whole place seemed to have been specially made for the upper crust of Bangkok or the tourists visiting, coz things here were pretty expensive! I anyway purchased a couple of really nice things I came across, and by this time, my bag was beginning to get really heavy. I also had no place to stay for the night, and was started to feel something of a vagabond – just pacing about the place, not having a plan for the night.. anyway, I was getting a bit tired and realized I have covered all the places in Bangkok that I wanted to – Khaosan, Siam central, Times Square, Siam Paragaon, and of course all those temples and malls and little eateries. So, with a lack of a better plan, and an aching need to rest my shoulders from the bags heavy weight, I decided to chill out in the a/c hall of a theatre! And caught up with my favourite pastime of movie watching! I watched Valkyrie at the Cineplex of Siam Paragon and totally loved the movie – as always!

Then I decided to finally figure out my sleeping arrangements for the night, and had to do it at a place that was close to a bus stop, coz I had to take an early morning bus and reach the airport by 8:00 a.m for a flight to KL. I had initially planned on spending the night at a hotel or guesthouse in Siam itself, but the moment I came out of Siam Paragon, the noise in the city was almost scary to say the least. It was like landing in the middle of Hill road of Bombay on a Friday evening when half the population is out chilling (or whatever they might call it, coz it actually seems harder than sitting in office and working!). The people of Bangkok to were out on the Friday evening and Siam central and areas around Siam Paragon were the obvious hotspots. I really didn’t want to deal with the crowd and decided to just head back to Khaosan road where I stayed on the day I landed. I even knew the bus stop that was close to Khaosan from where I would get a bus straight to the airport. But now, the thing to figure was the way to get to Khaosan. I could have done the Skytrain+Ferry thing I did when I initially left Khaoson and went to Ekemai, but then I wasn’t sure if the ferry would be operating this late. So to be on the safer side, I took a Tuk-Tuk. Bargained it down to a decent price and was on my way. The Tuk-Tuk driver couldn’t speak much English, but was very friendly. We shared a cigarette and he even took me to the tourist information centre at Siam just to check if there was a room I could get in Siam itself rather than go all the way back to Khaosan. When I did enquire, I got to know that rooms would be available, but there is no bus stop close by to get me to the airport that early. So I just had to go to Khaosan. Bun, the driver then took me to Khaosan, but not before stopping at a shop and pleading me to go in and spend 10 minutes. He was even honest enough to say that he would get a coupon if I do that, and coupons give him fuel! So I decided to be nice and just hop into one store. This actually turned out to be a good experience, coz I met Raj, a Hindi speaking Nepali at the store here. Was pretty good fun talking Hindi with him. It certainly feels nice to talk to someone in a place where people hardly speak your language – and I’m including English as well here. People in Thailand hardly speak English. The only conversations I ever had in the entire trip was with the folks at the tourist information centers. With everyone else, it was sign language or the kind of broken English I managed with Bun!

Anyway, after this store, Bun tried talking me into entering another store so that he could get another coupon, but I refused this time. It was pretty late and I was getting a bit tense about finding a place in Khaosan. I did manage to find a place there the other day, but that was on a Wednesday. But this was a Friday now, and things could be different.

I reached Khaosan and went to the same guesthouse I stayed previously, but as feared, this place was full. Then there was this deaf-dumb lady there who said she would take me to another place. This was the first time I was using sign language with a person who really could understand only that! So she took me one place, then another, then another, and all of them were full. I was really beginning to get worked up now. Finally managed to find a place almost at the heart of Khaosan road, and that too for only 180 Baht! I was really thankful to the impaired lady who helped me and gave her 10 Baht. I wasn’t sure of the whole tipping thing, coz its actually not practices in south-east Asian countries, although Thailand, being a very tourist place and having enough experience with other cultures, were actually quite aware of the culture of tipping!

Anyway, I once again did the usual of dropping my luggage and going out and having some beer. This time, I went to a very fancy looking hotel called Ethos, which I came across in one of the by-lanes while scouting for a room. It was going to be my last meal in Thailand and I wanted to make the most of it. So I went there, and realized it was actually an all veg place! But anyway, since I had sat down, I ordered a Thai green curry – again something I’ve had and really liked in India. This was once again quite different from the Indian version, and the dish almost looked like it was trying to prove a point against its non-vegetarian counterparts. Coz the dish had more vegetables on one plate than I had ever seen before. It was as if to say that ‘look, there are enough plants on this planet that we can all eat – stop killing animals now!’ I did enjoy the meal, but I must admit, I would have probably enjoyed the meal more with some chicken or shrimp sticking out of it!

Well, after that nice meal, I hit the bed, took the 7:00 a.m bus to the airport and left to KL on an Air Asia flight. This flight was so much better than the Tiger Airways I had flown earlier. I also decided to order a good Thai dish on the flight coz I realized that although I experimented a lot in Bangkok and Pattaya, most of the dishes like the Phad Thai, the Satay, the Green Curry and even the burgers had not entirely satiated me. So I ordered something called the Nasi Lemuk, something I had tried out in Singapore also and actually enjoyed, and boy, this was the icing on the cake for me. It was by far the best meal I had during the Thailand visit, and to think I was having it on the plane while leaving Thailand! The meal was real killer though, I completely enjoyed it..

After landing in KL, I booked a bus to main KL and picked up a map to study on the way. I didn’t have a clue about KL expect for the KL tower and the Petronas. I hadn’t done any research at all on this place, so this map was all I had. I studied the entire pamphlet end to end during the journey, and by the time I got off, I once again had a clear cut plan as to how to go about the day, the same way I did when I got off at Bangkok. And once again, I completely stuck to the plan – both time and money well managed to the last critical unit. I was beginning to be quite the efficient lone traveler!

Actually, during my stay in Pattaya, I was studying the people around, and I realized that the breed of people that I belonged to was actually not so rare. I could segment the entire population into ‘horny group of guys’, which clearly made the largest segment, ‘families’, ya, even I was wondering what families were really doing in a place like Pattaya, and then ‘loners’ like myself. ‘loners’ could further be divided into ‘photograph loners’ and ‘horny loners’. The ‘horny loners’ I found the next day to be hanging around with a hooker. The ‘photograph loners’ like myself, were either found taking more photographs, or shopping around, or sometimes, sipping on a can of beer!

So while actually looking at all these people, I realized that the ‘loners’ segment was actually fairly comprehendible in size. And in a group of ‘loners’, you cannot really be alone – right! Anyway, long story short, guess I was just justifying my solitary presence there, which had become ridiculously funny at one point in KL where this friendly tamilian passer-by who I started a conversation with, couldn’t understand why for crying out loud that I was touring Bangkok and KL on my own!

Anyway, KL was a pretty short trip. I had landed at 1:00 p.m and had a bus out of there at midnight. In the 11 hours I had to myself, I explored nearly the entire city – and most of it by foot actually! The only really irritating part was the moment I reached KL central. My first priority was to book a bus back to Singapore and almost no one was willing to help me out. Not only were people unable to talk English, but they were also being extremely unfriendly. It was such a change after having just visited probably the most friendly place I have ever been to in Bangkok. After quite a bit of asking around and tagging along my heavy bag, I finally found a Sion kind of place with umpteen travel agents selling tickets to Singapore. There was this one lady who got hold of me and was really hard-selling the ticket. I actually wanted to ask around and get an idea of the rates. But then, Karan, a friend of mine who had only recently visited KL said it would be around 40 Ringit and that was the rate I was getting from her anyway. And the bus she pointed out also seemed comfortable. So I just decided to take it as I already had a tough enough time finding this place with all the crass people I came across.

So I bought the ticket and then walked to the Time Square of KL. This was a really nice mall. I headed straight to the food court to satisfy my hunger before I began browsing along the stores, and had a delicious plat of pepper chicken claypot. After the meal, I started looking around, and there was this remote control helicopter I saw on sale that I so badly wanted to pick up. I remember every since I was a kid I wanted a remote control car and the only thing my parents could find for me was a car attached to a joystick by a wire! They tried convincing me that this was the ‘real’ remote control car, and I remember breaking the dam thing in a few days – just like I did with all my other toys. And maybe that’s why my parents never bought me nice toys. But anyway, I never had a remote control toy all my life and now there was this helicopter that could do all sorts of fancy things! But it was a little too expensive and I was on a very tight budget. So I fought the urge really hard and walked out of the place. Then took the monorail to the Petronas, and spent quite a bit of time staring all the architectural marvel. This place was really huge!! Took a couple of photos, walked to KLCC, took more photos, walked to Bintang walk, shopped a bit here and when I planned to head to KL tower, it began pouring cats and dogs. Even the concert that was happening on the road right on Bintang walk was called off. I didn’t have much of choice than to wait and had a beer from a nearby restaurant called u-café. This was one purchase that I really regret making the entire trip. I had one corona beer and it cost me nearly 500 bucks. That was half the cash I could have got the awesome remote control helicopter with!

Disgusted with myself, I left the place, took the monorail to KL tower and realized I was short of money to enter the observation tower (thanks to the corona beer). I also had only half an hour to check the place as they were closing. Thankfully, there was a money changer just outside the tower and changed my Sing-Dollars and entered the Observation tower. The sight from there was really awesome. I made the best use of my half hour there clicking a lot of snaps and staring into the horizon, feeling nice and happy with myself over this entire trip. The view from the top of the KL tower was really a nice way to end this one of a kind vacation of mine!

On my way back to the bus station, I realized I was both physically and psychologically weak. Physically because of the super heavy bag I have been tugging along all the way, which had only been becoming heavier with every day spent since I left Singapore. And psychologically because this was the longest I probably had to put up with my own company!

As much as I actually loved this trip, I couldn’t wait to get back to Singapore – rest my aching back and meet up with my friends again..