This time my story is about hassle and dazzle in the end of May 2008. It started in Singapore for a short meeting with a sister company’s member over there. This time the objective was about Business Intelligence implementation among our organization and how it helps us enhance our business value over there. It went very smooth in Singapore and apparently BI is very useful for supporting our business value. Not to mention the benefit for accurate sales data, speedy reporting and many great analysis.
However, what a business trip means without having a trip for our self, right? So I took a liberty to have a small wander around the city mall and have a sight seeing over there. Apparently, FI night race campaign is so famous among Singaporean so I insist to take a picture in front of a delicate red Ferrari F1 race car over there. It was so techno and very elegant.
And the story goes to Thailand, the objective is also the same, however the city is very much different, this is my favorite city. As I had a few experiences with Bangkok before, it’s really helped me to go where ever I like around Bangkok city easily.
Let me summarize my experience this time a little bit.
BTS (Monorail)
Bangkok this days is pretty much recognize for their intention of international go public and invite a lot of foreigner over there, so to catch up with that they’ve had a monorail around Bangkok and several other districts near Bangkok to support the commuter to travel hustle from one business place to another. This was to be my first destination in Bangkok that night.
Above is at the stairway of BTS station near my organization office, it’s at Ayuthaya Road.
Above is at the BTS railway, I asked a warm lady to take a picture of me near the rail.
As usual, people said don’t let the night tame you in Bangkok, so you have to wander around the city like crazy, hahaha. So went to Siam city center, there’re many entertainment you could get over there and many great sight seeing as well. There you go.
The Office
Let me skip a few story at that night (adults only), so the story continued in the morning where I had to attend a morning session with local staff over there and had a few chit chat of their success story regarding to their BI implementation. Apparently the team was all women, and they asked me to take a picture with them (or vice versa, hahaha).
In the evening after long and exciting meeting, we went to the famous King Power complex in Bangkok, Ayuthaya Road to have a dinner with the local staff and manager as well.
The fountain in front of the building is so beautiful at evening especially when the light pouring the water, it’s so nice. While the girls kept asking me to take picture with them, hehehe.
The Bangkok Traveler
Yup, this time I traveled Bangkok city all by myself without company. The very first destination is the Victory Point, this is like a traditional market in the middle of Bangkok city, there’s a huge sidewalks circling the historic monument so people could easily travel from one side to another with just walking without worried about the traffic down below.
Afterwards, I took a traditional bus headed to the king castle; this is my first experience in Bangkok using traditional bus. I used to use taxi to travel in Bangkok, but this time I’d like to travel with more unpredictable results (insane!!).
So, eventually I arrived at the King Castle. I must admit, that’s the most insane things I’ve ever done in Bangkok, since if you notice, almost all over public transport put Thai language as the main information, hahaha.
Around this complex there’s also a “Golden Mountain”, where they keep a massive statue of Buddha. At the top of the temple, whereabouts 150 m from the ground there’s a place where people come and pray for many purposes, so I also placed a pray over there and take a picture as well. We could saw almost all views of Bangkok city from this place, very oldies.
Below this temple I took a very sling shot photograph with a cobra, check it out, hahaha.
Near Golden Mountain temple there’s a huge river across Bangkok, I stopped and took a drink near the river bank in a small affordable restaurant next to the river.
As the day was so terrific, I almost forgot to back to my Hotel, since I had a dinner invitation from my Manager (his wife is Thai woman) at 19:00. So eventually I went back to the Europa Hotel to take a nice shower and change my clothes for the dinner invitation.
We went to a nice place for dinner, called “Shelter” and continued to a place called “Asyhio”, it’s a “dugem” thing. What a wonderful night!
Eventually we end up the journey at Hard Rock Café Bangkok, where I met with IT Director Asia Regional for my organization (we’ve met twice, once in Tokyo, and that day is second one, and on Monday 26 May, we also met in Indonesia, hehehe, I took a liberty to ask him to transfer me to Japan or Thailand or wherever in Asia somehow, hahahahaha, I hope it works that way).
Going Home
I went home to Jakarta in Sunday morning, with a headache and full of new experience. I went back with my manager using SQ (Singapore Airlines) from Suvarnabhumi Airport Thailand with a transit in Changi Airport Singapore before headed to Jakarta.
Well I had a very unfortunate incident while I was in Changi Airport, my brand new “Body Shop” perfume which I bought in Thailand duty free shop for my sister in Medan, was taken by the airport custom. This bloody custom was so annoyed, I hate them.
That’s all for today session, hope I could come back again to Thailand and other Asia cities.
