The tale of 3 Holis and 3 New Years

Yes its a real tiger. And yes thats me. But lets get back to it later.

It has been about a month since I reached Bangkok, and I have already had 5 days of holidays, apart from the weekends. Thailand celebrates lots of festivals just like India, and whats even better is that they have a concept of compensation holiday. If a festival/holiday happends to fall on a Saturday or a Sunday, the subsequent Monday is a holiday. How wonderful! In short, I have had a lot of free time, and there is no dearth of options. Thailand is an exotic tourist destination and is wildly popular among world's travelers. And for good reason too, as I continue to find out.

I celebrated New year with the rest of the world on 1st of Jan ( New Year # 1) this year, nothing special about it. Then came the Holi at IIM A(Holi #1). Holi in any college is always fun, and this place was no different. Dripping colours, over-head sprinklers, tanks full of coloured water, keechad, gujiya, torn clothes hanging on tree tops, music and rain dance - how can it not be fun when 200 people come together for a celebration. I went home after completion of my first year, since I had 3 days gap before I had to reach Bangkok. Now 6th April is a Thai national holiday (some Chakri Day), so I was duly informed that 7th will be a holiday, and I got to spend one more day home. 7th April also happened to be Ugadi, the Telugu New Year (New Year #2), and so I got to enjoy yet another of mom's delicious festival special meals.

I reach Bangkok, 4 days in office and suddenly, we have 4 days of holidays. Thais celebrate "Songkran" during this time of the year, which is their biggest festival and it lasts for 4 days. The festival commemorates the ushering of a New Year (New Year #3), and the whole country brightens up during this time of the year. It also incorporates a Thai version of Holi, where people splash each other with water and apply chalk on each other. The only difference is they use only water, and chalk is only white. Kids, teenagers, adults all armed with latest water guns are found on the roads, ready to splash water on any by passer. And its all taken in the right spirit, as it is supposed to cool u down in the summer heat. One fine evening, we dumped all our mobiles and wallets in hotel room, took little money in a plastic bag and reached Silom area of Bangkok. What a sight! Close to 10000 people, mostly youngsters, gathered on one stretch of road splashing water and putting chalk on each other. Not an inch for the vehicles to move, with people crawling like ants in straight lines. It didnt take us 5 mins to get totally drenched (Holi #2), and we saw how a real community festival is celebrated. With two fire engines stationed on either end of the road with their hoses open to the full, it was an unforgettable day.

We went to Pattaya the following weekend, one of the most famous beach resorts of the world. On reaching there, we found out that there is a slight difference in the days when Songkran is celebrated in different provinces of Thailand. To our dismay, Pattaya was celebrating it that very weekend. Again, we ended up totally drenched (Holi #3). Thus, within the first 4 months of 2008, I have already celebrated 3 New Years and 3 Holis.

After having explored most of Bangkok, we started going to other places in the country. So last weekend, we decided to explore the Kanchanaburi Province. Their in lies the famous World War 2 site "The bridge over River Kwai", which also happens to be the backdrop for one of the best hollywood movies ever. This is how the bridge actually looks today.

While the story of the bridge itself is fascinating, the province makes for a wonderful tour. We later travelled on the Thailand-Burma railway line, considered the most dangerous railway line in the world (I know every place tends to exaggerate about itself), christened The Death Railway.

And that brings us to the story of sher khan above. The last stop of our trip was at the Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, better known as the Tiger Temple. The uniqueness of this place is that it is a temple cum tiger sanctuary, where tigers are allowed to roam free. These tigers have been raised by the temple monks since the time they were cubs, and thus they are tame and more free around humans. For a small fee, they allow visitors like me to get close to these magnificent beasts. I wont lie, I had my heart in my mouth all the time, such was the enormous size of this animal. But as Gabbar said, Jo dar gaya, Samjho mar gaya.

I am still alive, and have this photo as a proof of my daredevilry.

Sa-wat Dee Bangkok

The much spoken about, much feared and much hated fachchadom (first year) at IIM A is finally over. Oh yeah, its definitely a moment to celebrate. No more surprise-quizzes-at-1430 hrs, no WAC-runs-at-1625 hrs, no 0845-classes and no more hearing "Muggo-fachcho-muggo" shouts. Though there wasn't enough time for champagne n stuff, but a birthday at home after almost 6 years did compensate for it. Happy birthday to me :)

Next up on the agenda, the summer internship. Way back in November and months leading to that were spent in the yearly ritual called the summer placements. Sitting through company ppts, preparing resumes, praying for Day-zero slots, multiple rounds of interviews - I finally ended up with an internship offer at ING Asia Pacific. I got what I was looking for - Day-zero finance company with foreign location. Can't complain. Subsequently I came to know that I will be working with ING Life Thailand in Bangkok. Like father like son, insurance beckoned me. So I spent the better part of my birthday and Ugadi shopping and packing for my trip to Bangkok.

I landed in Bangkok 5 am in the morning, and there was the ING driver waiting holding a placard that read - "Vamsee Krishna - IIM Ahmedabad". I always used to wonder when someone would do that for me. They had a nice service apartment waiting for me. Saurabh had already arrived the day before, and he was put up in the adjacent apartment. I dumped my bag, changed and off I was for my first day in the corporate world outside India. Lots more on that later.

This being the first time I crossed any of the seven seas, I did expect to see a lot of different things. Had it been the US or UK, things would have been different since the sitcoms and Hollywood movies give one an idea of what to expect. But Bangkok was unchartered territory, we being the first interns ever from IIM A here. Its been almost one week, and some things I have observed about this place.

1. People here are shockingly polite. Am yet to see a heated conversation anywhere in the office or the road. One is always welcomed with smiles everywhere.

2. Traffic is excruciatingly devoid of horns. Drivers have a lot of patience, and I doubt if any of the Toyotas (they are the only cars one would see here) here even have a horn built in.

3. They consider themselves a traditional society, and it shows in the way they interact. People have immense respect for other. They greet each other with the traditional Wai, which is exactly like our Namaste, even in the corporate world. And everyone transaction has to end with a “thank you”. They are also very religious, with beautiful temples in front of almost each and every building.

4. Ironically though, the Thai dress very modern. Specially the female. “Aggressive” is the word one used to describe their dressing sense. They do it pretty smartly though. No wonder fashion brands and cosmetic industry are flourishing here.

5. Thai people eat out A LOT. You find food stalls absolutely everywhere…shopping malls have food sections (that’s plural) on every floor, plus a wholly dedicated floor only for food; the side-walks are full of food vendors selling all sorts of things imaginable. Believe me, within 5 min walking radius of my office, there are more than 150 places where you can eat. And I am not exaggerating.

6. Strikingly though, Thai people are very fit. The average weight of a Thai would be a good 15 kgs less than that of an Indian, if not more. I wonder how.

7. A surprising low number of people are well conversant with English. Communication can be a major struggle, sometimes even inside office. Poor Saurabh has already resorted to dumb charades. It took him a good bit of 20 min to explain the receptionist that the bathtub-plug in his room was missing.

8. Bangkok is a beautiful city, and extremely clean. Case in point, I polished my shoes the first day to office, and till date I haven’t even had to brush it again.

The next two months are going to be really interesting. Meanwhile, am just glad that won the third test match against South Africa. Dada rocks :D