Bangkok Jams

Photos by : Oxymanus




My second trip to Bangkok was amazingly interesting. It was a business trip with my client and i took advantage to get as much information as i can to prepare for the final event that is taking place early next month.

The impressive new airport greeted my anxious soul to the Land of the Smiles,this time only more cautiously albeit breathtakingly. Bangkok has changed through leaps and bounds, its people modern and affluent and its infrastructure more developed than before. This is evident at the point of arriving at its airport doorstep right until you have boarded your limousine that brings you to the hotel ultimately.It is not that i have not seen the shifting scenes of Bangkok's modernity in the past but knowing and having noticed about the various hotels being opened in that City of Angels and all the television and internet reports about whats going on through the years, good or bad notwithstanding, have given me some sort of an idea of what to expect and see of this thriving ASEAN city. The smiles are still intact on their Thai faces except that they are not smiling while they are driving into the city. Reason ; ? the infamous and ubiquitous Bangkok Jam.

Wow the city has tremendously grown pretty well with its fine planning and good governance. Modern skyscrapers that painted the panorama from all broad directions clearly enthused Modern Thailand as an Asian economic tiger that was something to reckon and gawk at especially if you are driving towards the metroplis

I don't see people climbing over the roof of the buses anymore, i.e. people in their sarongs that clung hard in the hot basking sun to the railings on the vehicle either going to work or returning home smiled gleefully watching you as though happy too to see you on the other side of the vehicle.The foul dark diesel fumes that was emitted by its engines along the bumpy laterite roads have also disappeared. All that is a thing of the past.

The highways that lead to the city denote the tremendous years of development that has been going on for the past 25 years. The Thais should be commended for their hard work and determination to transform their country into what it is today, almost to one's great pride and personal admiration.

The old airport at Don Muang was quite near the city then but i was already being warned about getting to the airport early, even many years before. So you can say that the Bangkok Jam is very much a social character of the City of Angels way back when.

After my check-in at the Dusit Thani Hotel, long regarded as the Dame of Thai Traditonal Hospitality in the city i decided to explore the city almost immediately.
Why the Dusit ? my Thai friend asked me. I told him that i have always admired the Dusit as the finest hotel in the city long before the other hotel chains embraced the country in anticipation of its successful tourism campaigns in the years later on often with the "VISIT THAILAND YEAR " tagline.

The economic recession is over, the protests and demos are still going on near the Democratic monument, the military government is still running the country and the southern region is still unstable but Thailand as in Bangkok is far from anything that would give in to any of its woes. Bangkok is alive, growing and kicking almost daily. The throngs of tourists queuing at the airport is testimony of this.
There's an Israeli El Al carrier, ANA ( All Nippon Airways), Turkish Airlines, Qatar etc. Yes the Middle Easterners are invading Bangkok but this has been going on for many years already.

While Malaysia was quickly to learn from the success of its Thai neighbour's tourism strategy, the Middle East tourists are still coming to enjoy Bangkok , in more numbers than ever before but without their women and children. The visitors are more younger and adventurous. Rather noisy too i should say, maybe its what most Arab people are especially when in their own group of travelers mingling and overeacting about almost anything they encounter along the way, not much of a package tour kind i observe but due to their regular visits which made these visitors feeling very like their second home,i supposed.