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| A Map of our Tour Itenary in the Far East |
“A
very enjoyable and fantastic, little Oriental jaunt” said the Vihang Tourism
brochure. Though, initially, I was a little skeptic about it, our package tour
of the Far East --- Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore --- turned out to be just
what had been promised! It was even more fun than our Europe trip!! Soon as we
assured ourselves of a place in the tour, our otherwise listless, retired life
suddenly transformed into one full of excitement and hectic activity, what with
spouse’s meticulous preparations, chaotic packing of suitcases and a
twice-revised departure date! Finally, one fine Saturday evening in February 2004,
we managed to wend our way through a traffic jam in Andheri to reach Sahar just
in time to catch our flight.
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| A Beach in Pattaya |
Early
next morning, we were greeted at Bangkok’s sprawling and beautiful Don Muong
airport by a pleasant and jolly, plump little Thai lady, one Mrs. Pam, who was
to be our friend, philosopher and guide for the next four days. Almost
immediately, we boarded a luxury coach heading southwards to Pattaya. Thailand
was indeed a pleasant surprise. Somehow, I had come to expect a very backward
country with people in Sarongs rowing boats in floating markets. But, here we
were wending our way through a modern city of serpentine flyovers, whizzing
sky-trains and tall skyscrapers!
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| Para-sailing in Pattaya |
The bus
ride to Pattaya along the four-lane highway was smooth and comfy throughout
without any nostalgic potholes. Pattaya is a small, sleepy, coastal resort town
in the Gulf of Thailand. It has a long and narrow sea beach, which is always
full of scantily clad, white, tourist ladies and gents lazing about in small
deck chairs beneath huge, colored canopies. Out in the sea there stood rows of
colorful motorized launches and sailboats waiting to take us out to a near-by
coral island. On the way, the adventurous ones in our group, including some
enthusiastic senior citizens too, tried their hand at para sailing. It is a
sea-sport in which you are tied down to a parachute that is tugged along by a
long rope tied to a speedboat. As the boat picks up speed the parachute opens
up and lifts you high up in the sky! I enjoyed a vicarious thrill by taking
photographs of others performing the stunt. At the coral island, we were
transferred into a smaller conventional boat with a glass bottom and taken out
into the middle of the sea. There, the lights beneath the boat were switched on
to illuminate the sea bottom and lo, suddenly, we had an eyeful of many
splendoured colors of fossils, fish and corals!
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Alcazar Show in Pattaya
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In the
evening, we went to watch the spectacular Alcazar show, Thailand’s answer to
the French Lido show (with Can-Can girls sadly missing). This was the first, if
not the best of several entertaining shows that we were destined to see during
the entire tour. A remarkable, common feature of all these shows was that they
all started precisely on the dot and went on for hours without a single break,
not a minute being wasted between items or for a change of scene. The gigantic
sets were changed in almost a jiffy as the lights dimmed for just a minute or
so. One particularly memorable item in the show was a duet song. As the two
lovers sang, the spotlight kept shifting from one to the other. At the end,
when the lights came on, we realized that all along it was just a single actor
in clever make-up doing the act with frequent change of voice and place. In
another similar item, we saw an old Chinese man dancing with his nagging wife
on the back, but one was not sure if they were really two different persons!
Art lies in concealing art.
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| Nong Nooch Village Gardens |
Next
day, we visited the nearby Nong Nooch Village to see the Thai Cultural Show.
The Thai form of dancing reminds you of our own Kathak style. There was also an
item of acrobatic stilt dancing, very similar to our folk dances of Nagaland.
Children enjoyed Thai kick-boxing very much with the referee getting beaten up
more often than the opponent did. In the next, very enjoyable Elephant show,
baby elephants swayed and danced to the tune of a lilting western number and
performed some unbelievable feats like walking on rope, driving a bicycle and
even playing a band! Next, we were taken around a beautifully laid-out garden
of colorful orchids. Then, the ladies had a bout of shopping in a huge, modern
super-market, named Lotus while I helped myself to a much-awaited and rare cup
of tea!
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| A Typical Thai Dance |
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| Gems Gallery, Pattaya |
On way
back to Bangkok, we dropped in at the Gems Gallery, described as the world’s
biggest Jewelry Store. Here, we were made to climb into a small toy train that
took us down a dark tunnel for an audio-visual presentation. We were shown, in
detail, how gems are actually mined, cut, shaped and ground into their final
glittering form. We were then ushered into a vast, spectacular showroom and
suddenly, as if by magic, the hitherto bored ladies sprang to life! There were
rows and rows of tables with glass tops displaying a wide variety of gems,
opals and sapphires set in exotic jewelry.
There was also a bevy of beautiful, sleepy-eyed Thai salesgirls hanging
around to cajole you into buying them. As if our ladies needed any
cajoling! They had a field day of one
everlasting buying frenzy.
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| Dolphin Show at Marine Park |
Our next
stop in Bangkok was the Safari World, a wild life sanctuary within the city. We
took an 8-km long bus drive through the natural habitats of lions, tigers,
rhinos and zebras. I had an uncanny feeling that the animals bore a disgusted
look on their face and chose to completely ignore us. As if to compensate for this crass indifference, we were then treated to a sumptuous fare of several spectacular, entertaining shows in the Marine Park like the Birds Show, Orang
Uttan Show, Sea Lion Show and the Dolphin Show. It’s very difficult to say
which one was the best, but each show was just superb and surpassed all our
expectations. It’s really amazing how well the trainers have trained their
animals and birds to perform some of the most difficult feats. When the
dolphins jumped up to catch in mid-air the bits of food thrown at them by their
trainers, a smart aleck in our group remarked that our “fielders” should be
sent there for training! Also, after each successful completion of a feat, I
observed, the animal or bird craved for immediate appreciation from the trainer
in the form of an affectionate pat or food --- a law of nature, which we humans
often seem to forget.
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Wat Trai Mit, Temple of Golden Buddha
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| Wat Pho, Temple of Reclining Buddha |
We then
took a bus ride through Bangkok City seeing on the way the world’s tallest
hotel, Sky Baiyoke Hotel (with 83 floors) and visited three of some 1348
Buddhist temples that exist in Thailand. The first temple, Wat Trai Mit is known for its famous Golden Buddha. The beautiful
image in solid gold is three meters high and weighs five tons and a half. No
one really knows who had originally cast the image, but it was discovered in
the early eighteenth century in Northern Thailand, with a protective coating of
lime and earth. It was later shifted to its present site in Bangkok.
The second
one, the oldest temple Wat Pho is the
site of world-famous Reclining Buddha, a 46m long and 15m high statue of Buddha
reclining on a 3m high pedestal. The statue is gold-plated and in-laid with
mother-of-pearl on the soles of the feet. There was absolutely no way I could
accommodate this Buddha in my camera in a single frame of the film! So, I had
to take three snaps from different angles to give an idea of its size. The
third temple had an icon of Buddha, about 2m high, meditating coolly on top of
a seven-headed, coiled serpent, which is to be admired for courage and power of
concentration.
Early
next morning, we bid “La Korn”
(Goodbye) to Thailand!
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| Statue of Reclining Buddha |
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A row of seated Buddha Statues
at Wat Pho Temple |
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