Bangkok - The welcome

The arrival at Bangkok was an unpleasant experience. We had to wait for few of our colleagues to get the on-arrival visa and the counter looked chaotic. It took close to 2 hours waiting to get the visas. And the immigration clearance counters were not operational even though almost all the counters had a queue of more than 50 people in each. The officer arrived to the counter early, however, the clearing out began only when he could make himself comfortable for may be half hour. Also, he seemed least bothered to listen to this grief and was directing us to the feedback counter to provide feedback. The scene was such as if he knew there can be no improvement imposed. This might have been the situation only for the early morning landings. I didnt hear about this from our colleagues who were there the previous evening.

Since few of us waited for the on-arrival visa, we missed the warm welcome that was arranged for us. Rest of them who made it out of the airport in time, were welcomed with garlands.

The traffic did not let us miss Bangalore even for a day. In fact, Bangalore traffic seemed better than that of Bangkok. Besides, the taxi drivers drive very rashly. We had to hang on to the cars whenever we took a taxi to go out of the hotel. The signals within the city roads can last upto 15 minutes each!

All the taxis are Corollas and they remind you of the gems chocolate colours - pink, blue, green, orange, red, yelllow, etc. Tuk Tuk drivers demand heavy money for transportation, almost 2 times higher than the taxis.

The city looks crowded always. Explaining destinations to taxi drivers is an adventure. They hardly understand English and the pronunciations matter a lot. Every word has to be broken down to sounds :) A miscommunication caused my lady colleagues to end up in a brothel!