With the rapid depreciation of our local currency, very few destinations can now be regarded as affordable. Mercifully, Thailand remains, even today, a country that offers delightful vacation opportunities at relatively reasonable rates. Visiting Bangkok after more than a decade, I was pleasantly surprised to find that while the city had undergone massive transformations, it had not become formidably expensive, and the changes were all for the better, save, perhaps, for the city’s traffic congestion.
Beginning with our experience on board the national carrier of Thailand, we discovered to our great relief that Thai Airways serves ‘halal’ chicken and beef and has a separate kitchen altogether for its Pakistani sector. The trademark token of welcome – a brooch of purple orchids — presented by their staff as we began our descent into Suvarnabhumi Airport, and a warm “Sawasdee” (All the best) wished while clasping both palms together, set the tone of hospitality that our party of journalists became accustomed to during our three-day sojourn. The city is a lot cleaner than I had remembered it to be, and the four-lane flyovers facilitate the heavy traffic to keep flowing.

We reached our hotel located in Sukhumvit. After receiving a warm welcome by the hotel management, we quickly freshened up; had breakfast; and left for our tour. Our first stop was Siam Ocean World. The largest aquarium in S.E. Asia, it has a delightful ambience and lots of unusual displays, including a car full of fish, and sounds of the sea accompanying you as you walk along.
Among the many activities one can look forward to at the Ocean World are a 4-D show on Apollo 11, a penguin show, shark-feeding show and a glass-bottom boat ride with tiger sharks swimming below. In fact, a walk through an acrylic under-ocean tunnel reveals the sharks above you swimming right along the base of the boat.
Once back at the hotel, I quickly freshened up and joined the rest of our party to leave for dinner and a cultural show that had been booked by TAT for us. The Thai dinner was at a restaurant, located at the site of the ‘Siam Niramit – Journey to the Enchanted Kingdom of Siam’ show – a tourist’s paradise.
But, by far, the highlight of the day, if not of our entire trip was the cultural show that we saw immediately after. A regular theatre visitor abroad, I had not been much impressed by the description that this was a ‘World class spectacular show’, but when we actually saw the breathtaking performance, we were, without exception, spellbound.

The following day, we had breakfast and set off for Safari World. While by no means as exotic or sprawling as the ones in Kenya, this one manages to hold its own, and boasts a variety of wild animals including giraffes, zebras, rhinos, lions, tigers, deer, ostriches, storks and pelicans. Divided into separate habitat areas, each cordoned off from the other by electric powered iron gates, the park allows visitors to conveniently drive through the simulated natural surroundings.
A shopper’s delight if you are looking for bargains of all sorts – clothes, shoes, handicrafts, etc – you must have plenty of time on your hands to thoroughly explore the night market, not to mention great bargaining skills, if you don’t want to land up over-paying for your shopping. Not quite finding what we were looking for though, we then went off to Robinsons, a reputed departmental store where we shopped till they were nearly ready to close down.
We then left for Pataya, to spend one night at the beach resort and get a taste of its attractions. A two-hour drive from Bangkok, it was dark by the time we reached the impressive A One Hotel, which was hosting us. After freshening up we had a delightful seafood dinner outdoors and then went off for a long walk up to the Walking Street – no, not a food lover’s paradise, but one catering to carnal pleasures.
And so our short but highly informative and enjoyable trip came to an end and we returned convinced that we would go back – this time with our families.