On the Banks of the Chao Phraya

Here I am...once more gazing out of my hotel window at the wide expanse of the Chao Phraya river flowing throgh the middle of Bangkok. I am here this time for a meeting with a client. The hotel is the Anantara Riverside Resort and Spa, a wonderful and huge property right on the banks of the river.

The entire place is alike a museum with carvings, sculptures and bas relief adorning the walls and corners. The elephant motif is pronounced.

Bangkok is the same old traffic loaded, ancient yet modern city. Every time I drive through Bangkok, I feel India could have achieved this long long ago. Till 1995 we were looking with awe towards Singapore, Kualalampur,and Bangkok as developed ultra modern cities. They were foren. We were Indian. Today any metrocity in India looks as modern as or better than cities like, for example, Bangkok. A drive through Bangkok today is no different fromn a drive through an urban sprawl like Gurgaon or OMR in Chennai. Bur in Indiua this modernization is still in pockets while here it is evenly spread. This is not to say that there are no poor underprivileged people. But here they seem to be contented with their lot and sincerely attempting  to do something.

We had dinner at a nice Indian restaurent called the Indian Cor
ner opposite to Maa Hotel. There are lot of north Indians here who are traders and businessmen. But there is no service oriented community as in Dubhai or Muscat.