Monday, August 31, 2009

Experience at Siem Reap Airport

Its been more than 2 weeks that we returned from Cambodia and I didnt really get time to update about the trip. This post is about our experiences at the Siem Reap airport.

We landed in Siem Reap airport at around 7.45AM. We were given around 5 forms to fill before we go to the immigration. The people standing there were all from our single plane, yet the line was moving very slowly. Once we reached the counter we realised about the reason for delay. In all the airports where ever we went, there was one immigration officer who was taking care of everything related to particular passenger. It was a bit different here.

One guy took the passport and the forms and the money. Check the money and passed on the passport and the forms to the next guy.
Next guy checked the forms and passed the Passport and the Employment pass to the next guy.
This guy checked the EP and Passport and passed them to the next guy.
Now this guy would paste the hand written visa on the passport and pass it on to the next guy.
He is the final guy and calls our name and hands over the passport to us.

This whole process took around 1 hour. This is the longest time I have ever spent at the airport because of the delay in the immigration.

The other experience that I had here was while coming back to Singapore. Our flight was scheduled at around 7.40AM. But I misread the timing and told my friends that the flight is at 7AM. Keeping in mind the time taking immigration process while arrival, we thought we should be early at the airport.

We started off at around 4.30AM from the hostel. On the way I cross checked the timing and saw that it was at 7.40. Now we all knew that we had a long wait before we boarded the flight. We arrived at the airport entrance at 4.45AM. Tuk Tuk was stopped by the airport security and below was the conversation:

Security: Tuk Tuk cannot go inside the airport premises now.
Driver: Can the passesngers go?

Security: Yes
Driver: Why can't I come in?

Security: Airport is closed

What? Airport is closed! This came to all of us as a surprise. I have never heard at any airport being closed. We gave 5 dollars for tuk tuk and went into the airport. We wanted to check-in and then take some time to sleep. Once we reached the gate, security again stopped us.

Security: You cannot go inside.
I: Why?

Security: The airport staff has not yet come.

This time my friends gave me a scary look. I couldn't help it but have to deal with it. We had to sleep at the table outside the gate. Meanwhile Airport staff started pouring in and we saw the dress rehearsal that they do every morning. At around 6AM, we were allowed to go inside and at that time the check-in counters were not yet opened.

We each selected a bench and slept for sometime till the check-in counters open.

Gyan of the Day - April Fools Day

We have been fooling our friends and cousins all these years on April 1st. I was just wondering as why do we fool people on that specific day. Yet again nothing else came to my mind other than Google to check that. Below is an article which I found:



It is widely proclaimed that April Fool's day originated in France in 1562, or thereabouts, when Pope Gregory replaced the Julian calender with the Gregorian calender in the Julian calender month of April. The day of introduction of the Gregorian calender was made the first day of January. Some people hadn't heard about the change in the date, so they continued to celebrate the New Year's Day, but it being 1st April. So, others called them "April fools." The fact is that Pope Gregory XIII ordered Thursday 4 October 1582 to be the last day of the Julian calendar. The next day was Friday 15 October. April Fool's Day is an April Fool's tale.

The April Fool's Day tradition in France includes poisson d'avril ("April's fish"), attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim's back without being noticed.

NATAS Fair 2009

I heard a lot about NATAS Fair, but never got a chance to go for it. This time I made it a point to visit the Fair. It was in Expo Hall 4 and 5. To avoid weekend crowd, I left office on Friday afternoon and went to Expo. Even on the working day I saw quite a number of people going for the fair.

There is an entrance fee of 3 dollars to enter the halls. If you book it through master card then it was only 2 dollars.



There were offers from many travel agencies, insurance companies, travel goods etc etc. Once I entered the halls there were people, people everywhere but not as bad as IT Shows where you could hardly walk. While entering the hall AIG Insurance gave away free recycling bags so that you can keep all the brochures collected. I could see so many stalls like:

Air Asia
CTC
Dynasty Travel
Hong Thai Travel
and many more travel agencies.

The deals offered by different travel agencies varied so much that I actually got confused deciding which one was good. Also they were offering the deals for almost around the world. The only draw back I had was, all these offers were valid only till year end. Overall I would say that if you have plans for the year end then you can definitely go to this fair and get the best deal.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Gyan of the Day - Chocolate



I was getting bored at office and was going through some blogs and websites. Mean while I came across something which I didn't knew previously. So I thought I should share this with you all.

We have been eating lot of chocolate since our childhood days in many forms of foods. Did we really think where this all started. Today some how I got that thought and tried checking out the history of Chocolate. The story of chocolate spans more than 2,000 years and now it has conquered the globe. The story began in the tropical rain forests of Central and South America where cacao (kah KOW) first grew. Chocolate is made from the seeds of the cacao tree. But the journey from seed to sweet is a long one, spanning many centuries and requiring many processes.

The first people known to have made chocolate were the ancient cultures of Mexico and Central America. These people, including the Maya and Aztec, mixed ground cacao seeds with various seasonings to make a spicy, frothy drink. Later, the Spanish conquistadors brought the seeds back home to Spain, where new recipes were created. Eventually, and the drink’s popularity spread throughout Europe.

Since then, new technologies and innovations have changed the texture and taste of chocolate, but it still remains one of the world’s favorite flavors.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Hmmm !!!!

Painful Start

Last week was great I hoped this week also to go well. Not everthing will go as we wish for. After 5 days I came to office. This time its not because I went on a holiday somewhere, but its because of the intense pain in the right shoulder and arm. The jumps (to take some pics) that we did on the cruise on Saturday has caused some swelling on the right shoulder. It was very painful and I don't really remember so much pain in recent past. I couldn't sit or sleep or walk. What ever I did it was very painful. It was a very uncomfortable situation. Thanks to Swetha's good care, becuase of which today I am back to office with less pain. If things go well today then I will be fine, otherwise I will have to visit a specialist to see what else has gone wrong.

Thanks to this pain, I and Swetha could spend 5 complete days at home without any outsider friends.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Fantastic Week

Last week has been really nice. It was joyful and eventful all through the week.

Saturday - Marie and Olivier came. We all went to Clarke Quay. Had a nice time there knowing each other. We slept around 3 in the night.

Sunday - Had bad headache and was at home doing nothing.

Monday - At work it was fine. Back home Olivier entertained us with his guitar.

Tuesday - I and Swetha called all my friends as we were giving a parting dinner to Marie and Olivier. We all had fun singing songs while Olivier playing the guitar.

Wednesday - Nagaraj gave party at Mirchi on the occasion of his 9th successful marriage anniversary. He was thrilled to see surprise from Shobha. We arranged 9 roses and a cake for him.

Thursday - We went to friends apartment for a couple of drinks with Martini.

Friday - As the next day we were going to Cruise to no where, we had to go home early and sleep.

Saturday - Had a nice time on the Cruise to no where.

Sunday - Went to temple. Had sumptuous lunch. Watched 2 movies. Had mirchi bajji, thanks to Srinivas.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Ganapati Bappa Moriya

Monday, August 17, 2009

Santosh Happy Birthday

It was Santosh's birthday on Thursday (13/8). We all roomies went to Mango Tree restaurant in ECP for the party. We had a great time having lots of food and drinks and trying to bring the bill to at least 500 dollars. Place was very good as there was a sea view along the beach side.

We had 6 beers each and had many rounds of snacks. We didn't really have much food. We did not really cut the cake the night before, so we bought a small cake in the coffee bean coffee shop and made Santosh cut the cake. This time we missed or I can say we forgot to give birthday bumps to Santosh. We walked for a while in the beach and then left home.

My first Couch Surfing Experience

In recent times I have been travelling many places and have met many new people and have discovered many new websites which are helpful to travellers. One among them is this couchsurfing.org. This is an online community where people host many travellers across the world by giving their couches. It not helps people get a free place to stay but also helps in connecting travelers with like-minded people.

In the same way I got registered in this website for quite sometime and have been reading experiences of the different travellers with their hosts. When I was in Cambodia, I was about to meet one of my couch surfer friend, but couldn't make it due to some unavoidable circumstances.

Recently I got a request for couch surf from a couple from Canada. They sounded genuine and they have been travelling in Southeast Asia for more than 3 months. I and Swetha discussed over this for sometime and then gave a positive reply to them. We were not sure who and how they were.

This Saturday, the couple (Marie and Olivier) came home and there started a new friendship between that Canadian couple and all my friends gang. We all went out to have some drinks and I saw that everyone was behaving as if they all knew each other for quite sometime. We have shared so many stories from our side and at the same time heard their travel stories. Came to know about some interesting places and interesting activities which we can do.

I am excited about this couch surfing website and I am looking forward to host more and more new people and know new stories about them.

Trip to Angkor Wat


On Tuesday (4/8) we planned and on Sunday (9/8) we flew to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat. It was a long weekend and we had a relaxed trip. We expected a lot in the temple but got disappointed for some reasons. I shall post more details on the trip in my travel blog.

Recent Movies

- Up (5/5)
This is an awesome movie and yet another gem from Pixar. Any movie from the Pixar brand would definitely be a block buster as well as it is booking a place in the IMDB top 250.

- G.I.Joe (2/5)
Unrealistic. Gave those 2 ratings just for the gadgets and the technology used in the movie.

- Magadheera (2/5)
People said its technically brilliant and compared it with Arundhati. But in my opinion its no where near to Arundhati neither in story line nor technically. May the problem was with the screening but still I did not see that brilliance in most of the scenes. Most of the images were as it they were copied frmo jungle book.

- Kaminey (4.5/5)
This is a wonderful movie. That 0.5 is lost just because of the climax. The movie has always kept up in the edge of the seat thinking of what next.

Experience Counts

There are many instances where we hear this statement. In recent converstaions between my friends we again came across this. In all my friends Surya is the youngest and Nagaraj is the eldest. Below is how the conversation went:

I, Swetha, Santosh, Surya and Nagaraj went out for dinner. While having the dinner, Nagaraj got a call and went to take the call. Mean while Surya started the below conversation:

Surya: Guys, my brother's first marriage anniversary is coming and I have not given any gift till date. Everytime he gives me something and this time I will have to do something for it.

We all started thinking and tried giving some ideas. Fed up with all those ideas he told us

Surya: My brother already have a TV, Playstation, Car, etc .. so dont give me those ideas.

Santosh: Ok, I got a brilliant idea.

Everybody got curious, whats it?

Santosh: Why dont you go and give a surprise.

We all were so impressed with the idea and applauded Santosh for this wonderful idea. Surya even started searching online on his iphone for the visa time and the tickets etc. Now here comes the twist in the story. Nagaraj comes to the table and asks what was the discussion about. We all were so impressed with the idea and told him that we are proud of Santosh to give such a brilliant idea. Nagaraj smiled and said

Nagaraj: Are you guys nuts. That is their first ever marriage anniversary and you guys want to spoil their privacy by sending Surya there.

That statement made us realise how bad the idea was.

Hence Experience does count.

Its been 10 days

Its been quite a while I have posted anything in the blog. There were lot of things happening in life and hence couldnt really spend time on the blog. I have travelled to Siem Reap, Cambodia which I have not mentioned in the blog till now. Also I have met some new friends through couch surfing. At office its busy and tension filled weeks going on. Partied hard for friends birthday party. Saw new movies. In the coming few days I shall try to write in detail about all these.

Friday, August 07, 2009

123456789

Read this somewhere. Today there is a special moment. At 12:34:56 PM, it would look like 123456789 which would never ever come in our lifetime.
12:34:56 07-08-09 = 123456789

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Experience with Cebu Pacific Airlines

I am writing this post as this is the first time that I had so many weird experiences with the airlines.

At changi airport:
Boarding pass was delayed because the printer was not working.

In the flight from Singapore to Manila:
The seat was not going back. Infact it was the most uncomfortable seat I ever travelled in.

At Manila Airport while coming back:
The lady at the ticket counter took ages to give each boarding pass. Everybody in that line were so pissed off with her. Infact we mocked her in many ways and still she worked in her own way. We were waiting there in that stagnant line while the other lines were moving and moving and moving. Nagaraj went to her and even asked why it was taking so much time. At the end when we got our boarding passes after more than 30 minutes of wait in the line, we all clapped sarcastically at her. But she was laughing and was thinking that we were appreciating her.

In the flight from Manila to Singapore:
The AC had some problem. The whole journey I was very uncomfortable and at the end I got sick for 2 days with the throat infection.
I have decided not to go to Philippines again and especially in Cebu Pacific Airlines.