Bangkok best city

So there’s a fair few expats who read this blog. Most are quite driven, intelligent, talented, and naturally slightly competitive individuals.

To keep the competitive juices flowing, I’d just like to announce that Bangkok has been awarded the coveted title of Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best City for 2008.

Yep, that’s right, Bangkok. Where I live.

Cities were evaluated according to the quality of their sights, culture/arts, restaurants/food, people (Clare, me), shopping and overall value.

The top ten were as follows:

1. Bangkok
2. Buenos Aires (Kylie, we rock)
3. Capetown
4. Sydney
5. Florence
6. Cuzco, Peru
7. Rome
8. New York
9. Istanbul
10. San Francisco

Controversially, Alice Springs didn’t rate on the list. Nor did London. Or Limerick. Disgrace?

The awards also covered Hotels (value, service and destination separately), Islands, Airlines, Cruises, Car Rental, Tours, Spas and Business-specific hotels. Definitely worth a look.

I’d like to see a new category next year – world’s best hotel pools/lagoons.

Travel+Leisure's World’s Best everything:

• Hotel - Singita Sabi Sand & Kruger National Park, South Africa
• Island - Galápagos Islands
• Large cruise-liner - Crystal Cruises
• Small cruise-liner - Silversea Cruises
• International Airline - Singapore Airlines
• Domestic Airline - Virgin America
• Tour operator - Micato Safaris
• Car rental agency - Hertz
• Hotel for $250 or less - Domaine des Hauts de Loire, France

Agree? Disagree? Comments?

Happy birthday Hoff!

It's David Hasselhoff's birthday today - he's 56.

Cambodia (Phnom Penh)

I've wrestled for a few weeks now as to what to write about my trip to Cambodia a month ago. I'll give it a run over the next few posts...

I had 5 days all up, planning to stay two days in both Phnom Penh and Siam Reap. After arriving, I decided that spending a whole day all up on a bus was a bit of a waste, so I stayed in Phnom Penh for the full five days and checked out the city and its surrounds.

As a whole, Cambodia is like no other place I have visited. The place has bloody struggled over the past half-century with unrest and subsequent extreme poverty. However, it's an interesting time to go as you can witness first-hand the developmental growing pains it's currently experiencing.

Partying hard

I reckon Cambodia (at the moment) is like an 18 year-old in his/her first year out of school. The teen is now free from the rules and routine of high school and home. They've never experienced such freedom, bright lights, sexual adventure and alcohol-fueled nights out on the town. They party hard. Maybe a bit too hard. They get themselves a little off track.

Cambodia is saying to itself at the moment "Holy shit, this freedom is amazing. I've got more money! Where do I start??".

Cambodia has essentially been given the opportunity for rebirth and in my view, will still take some time to shrug off its seedy undertones...natural in any semi-developed country. Corruption is rife, drugs are easy to attain and sex is seen as a commodity with unspeakable plunderous depths.

An honest conversation

In between a course at a terrifically fun local cooking school, I asked my 22 year-old cooking course instructor a few questions about Cambodian cuisine, regional varieties, what he liked to cook, eat etc. Briefly forgetting Cambodia's recent past, one question I stupidly asked was what he grew up cooking and eating.

His manner changed immediately.

With a visible sense of shame and lament, he told me he grew up in a poor rural family who were lucky to eat dog and rat to get by. And not just its meaty bits, but every conceivable part of their anatomy.

This bloke is only 22. When I was eating chicken nuggets at Belconnen McDonalds in '91, his family were still scraping for basic food and rice as his country struggled back into economic subsistence.

He was quick to tell me that those days are gone, and that his family is now able to afford pork and foul to supplement their rice staple.

The future

On the outside, there are indeed signs of solid development, with the presence of companies like PriceWaterhouse Coopers and a number of travel companies setting up more frequent tours...always a good sign. However, underlying corruption is still spoiling much opportunity for meaningful core development - Cambodia ranked last year 162nd out of 180 countries in Transparency International's yearly corruption survey.

I'll look with interest as to how Cambodia develops in the coming years.

Final thought

Some of my mates absolutely loved the country. I can't say I loved it - I just didn't feel safe. Walking along the Mekong in a busy street, I was offered weed, coke, heroin and a small bag of unclassified pills. It's just bloody dodgy. Definitely a place to be enjoyed by experienced travelers, not holiday makers.

However, I may well be wrong.

But I still believe that a nation's capital city is its flagship, and should boast the very best the nation has to offer. Case in point - Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin...what a marvel of modern aquatic engineering!

I WILL go back and I WILL check out more of the rural areas of the country, including Siam Reap. I feel I need to see more of the country before I fully write it off.


For those that have been, what did you think of the place????

Singapore Zoo & Botanic Gardens

I was thrilled when Clare agreed to join me in Singapore for the weekend. We decided to focus on visiting places very unlike Bangkok...the Singapore Zoo and the Botanic Garden's were full of greenery and placid, quiet places to relax. A nice antidote to the sensory overload we experience each day.

Here's a few snaps:

At the start of the Singapore Zoo circuit. The zoo itself was extremely well laid out and provided easy, close access to many of the animals.

A 'front row' of rhinos. I couldn't decide whether the rhinos or polar bears were my favourites for the day. The polar bears were a real highlight as I'd never seen any before, but the rhinos, well, I feel for them. I understand what it's like to have short stumpy legs, cankles and a big ass. Note the small bird.

Zebras are like the rockstars of Africa. Flamboyant, fast and just very, very cool.

After working in health PR, this is a lesson of what NOT to do.
DO support programs like the zoo is doing. DON'T name a giraffe after your product, as Abbott have done. More pure CSR, less focus on ROI. When will companies finally get it??

A visibly majestic animal. Kind of smelt though.

Clare laments as the crime scene is sealed off.

Me a little earlier at the Botanic Gardens. The Heliconias were excellent - reminded us of Kuala Lumpur.

Steve 1, Crab 0

Chilli crab - Singaporeans reckon it's a cracking dish, one not to miss whilst visiting their fair city.

And as they say, when in Rome...

Clare and I stumbled upon a very-Chinese Chinese restaurant...the kind where the local mafia might enjoy a bowl of fried rice. They even had private rooms fitted with karaoke machines. Very cool. Nice cover.

After ordering, I went to the live seafood 'salad bar'...there you get to choose the species and size of animal fit for your fry. I chose a 1kg Canada White crab.

There's no dainty way to eat crab, you've just got to hook right in. For those singles out there, a terrific 1st date icebreaker...

So Clare and I cracked, sucked and slurped our way through every delicious claw and leg.

What an experience!

What a mess!!!

Ah, the joys of being further up the food chain.

Cultural seensitivities

Picture this scene:

Partner of my NZ-based public relations firm walks over into my office area and starts chewing the fat with myself and the bloke who sits next to me.

Parter: "...yeah so he's retired and has bought a farm in the South Island to take up sheep and deering"
Me: "Is this one of your mates, *John*"
Partner: "Yeah - an old friend who used to work for the company"
Me: "And he's into deering"
Partner: "It's a good environment for it down there - a bit cold, but great pasture"

I think to myself, "I've never heard of blokes running deer on their farms, especially in New Zealand"...

Me: "Is deering common in New Zealand?"
Partner, puzzled: "Well, yes, has been for over a hundred years"
Me: "Oh, well I never knew, you learn something every day I guess. Must be a good market then for deering - what do they use them for, snags or something?"
Partner, even more puzzled: "No, milk"

Now by this stage, I've got absolutely no idea what's going on. I have NEVER heard of deer milk being sold as an agricultural commodity...better cut my losses and not ask any more questions...

Me: "Oh, OK then, cool"


It wasn't until about an hour later that I figured out he was saying "Dairying", not "Deering".

Cows, not deer.

Ha!

You must be kidneying

Last year I took the piss in a post about how much my body would be worth with a humourous little online test called the 'cadaver calculator'.

This morning, I feel like a bit of a boob.

Page three of The Straits Times this morning features a couple of stories about a 26 year-old Indonesian bloke who will go to jail after selling one of his kidneys for 186 million rupiah ($AUD17,000).

In Indonesia, that amount of money equates to a staggering 16.5 years of hard labour - his previous occupation. After being layed off six months prior, he needed the money to support his parents and family.

The sentencing judge was reportedly quite lenient with his sentencing, taking into account his poor background, remarking "when he was identified by the syndicate as a potential donor, he was approached with an offer which for a person of his social and economic background would have been difficult to resist."

And it's not an isolated case. About a fortnight ago, The Taipei Times reported on a Vietnamese bloke who died after selling one of his kidneys in China. He went through with the ordeal because he didn't have enough money to ask his girlfriend's family for her hand in marriage, a customary cultural practice in Vietnam.

Something I'll keep in mind next time I think about whinging about the cost of beers in Singapore.

Hello Singapore!

I'm in Singapore - here for a bit of business and to sort out a few things with my work visa.

There are plenty of ways to get from the airport to the city - taxi, minibus, underground train or public bus. After arriving last night, I chose the bus. Not just because I'm Captain Tightass, but because I figured it would be a cheap (SGN$2) way to see a bit of the city at night, rather than going straight to my hotel in the back of a taxi.

What struck me most about Singapore was its cleanliness and order. It's been a while since I revelled in the thrills of a stable footpath, or felt excited at the sight of a motorcyclist patiently obeying a traffic light.

However, it comes at a cost. After going for a night swim in my hotel pool (Angus - 6.5/10), I wandered down to the Darling Harbour of Singapore for a cheeky beer and a feed. The food was reasonably priced, but the beer...sweet baby Jesus...SGN$12 for a pint of local brew (AUD$9).

It made me think - when you pay for a pint, you not only get a beer, but also the footpaths, clean streets and stable public transport (tax). An old Greek bloke I used to labour with during my uni days used to say, "You pay shiiit, you geta shiiit", and the same applies when comparing Bangkok to Singapore.

With it's agricultural labouring past (and present!), it's really interesting to see the Thai forces at work struggling to convince traditionalists that complex exports (like IT, finance and investment) are the way toward the term 'Developed country'.

Anyway, enough about economics and standards of living.

I think I'll go to little India tonight. Should be a cracker.