South South East

The vacation was brilliant. Just what the doc had ordered. Ten days and I must have spent around ten minutes thinking about work. To add to the bliss, neither the laptop nor the phone were working for the larger part.

Thailand - don't claim to know it all. Delved into Bangkok and grazed past Pataya. Bangkok, with its many many many mega malls. I am quite the mall-rat you know. Asian food is also my thing. After making it through six weeks in China, the stir-fried noodles, Nasi Gorengs, Phad Thais etc sound heavenly and taste even better. The roads are terribly and inadequately narrow though and traffic is nightmarish in Bangkok - the worst I have ever seen, I, whose veins are hardened by the clogged up arteries of Mumbai.

One of the most striking things about Thailand - even good hotels there have scrapbooks for tourists with pictures, maps and details of places in and around they want to visit, and the last few pages of these scrapbooks are devoted to sex shows, nude beaches, places where you can get action of any and every variety, complete with pictures and addresses. Mammaries of Thigh-land.

Malaysia - is the ultimate multi-cultural hot-pot. Malays, Indians and Chinese form almost all of its population. Most of the Indians are Tamilians. There are Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Christians and you can detect multi-racial notes in people - their features, their dressing. There are 'Happy Dipawali' signs everywhere and the newspapers talk about Beyonce's skimpily clad concert being a threat to culture and moral probity.

Kuala Lumpur is vast and sprawling. Roads, gardens, bridges, monorails, rapid transport system - all well planned out. The twin towers are grand. Could not go up as they were shut for maintenance work the day we were there.

We managed to catch a Tamil movie shooting in front of the national monument there. A dance sequence was being shot. The hero was tall and good looking, standing around watching the choreographers explain the steps to him. The choreographers had conjured up some crazy steps, same old ants-in-pants routine which looks ludicrous without the music but strangely normal with. The heroine was nowhere in sight. There was a smattering of Malays watching trying to imitate the steps. At first when the hero tried, he made mistakes and I thought to myself, just cause this idiot is better looking than the other people in the cast, he gets to be the hero. But then, they started the music and he switched on his expressions and the scene was transformed. Whereas earlier, it was pure technique I could have admired, now the entire scene came together as being paisa-vasool. He may not dance as well as the choreographers, or even the extras, may not act as well as some of the stalwart character artists, can not sing for nuts, has no talent for directing, writing, shooting, but he is the one people will pay to watch. The Hero.

Like Bangkok, there was only so much one could do in KL. We headed off to Langkawi, an island in the Andaman Sea for the next two days. And that was idyllic. The beaches were white, sandy and all of that, the waters were crystal and the people around few.

And then there was Genting. Enough cannot be said about Genting. We have all heard of white, sandy beaches and pristine waters, islands that inspire getaways and glossy catalogues. But have you heard of an entire town-ship that is indoors - complete with amusement parks, shopping boulevards, 'roadside' cafes, cinema theatres, casinos, restaurants and everything else that the average tourist can aspire for? Have you heard of hotels which have huge waiting areas, for the people who throng there every weekend and wait hours in line to get themselves checked-in? Waiting areas, with the same system of electronic numbering and counters being assigned to numbers, that is employed in banks and for railway bookings?

Genting was all that and we did some fun stuff there - like winning ten times over in Blackjack, or Pontoon like it is called there (although I did not put in any money, maybe next time I will), go-karting, boating, cable-car-riding and other normal touristy stuff. The thing I must mention here though is the free fall amusement park ride I took, where they elevate you first, let you hang in the air for some extremely anxious seconds and then let you dropppp! I must mention it because I took this ride against all instincts. I don't think am too fond of heights, as was clear from the rappelling experience earlier this year.

And then there was shopping. Ah. That the was the high-point. I got some good funda-clothes. Which means clothes which have a different funda to them. Also did some good clubbing, visited a couple of Hard Rock Cafes across. Managed to read alongside, watch a couple of seasons of Coupling and a few movies. And of course, there was the ubiquitous Starbucks. Starbucks is my happy place, it resonates with the ethos with which I want to live my life.

Nuff said. Now must get around to reading those 400 e-mails in my inbox.