Koh Samui: Making the Connection

I've travelled a fair amount over the years, but that evidently hasn't stopped me from planning dumb itineraries. After Jabeen and I decided to vacation in Koh Samui, I booked the tickets on Bangkok Airways, which now flies daily to the Thai capital from Bombay, and has the most flights to Samui (I read somewhere that the airline owns Samui airport). The cheapest available flight from Bangkok to Samui was scheduled just an hour after the arrival time of our Bombay-Bangkok flight. I thought to myself, "It's a squeeze, but Samui airport offers visas on arrival, so we just need to transfer directly to our connecting flight without any intervening visa hassles".

An elementary mistake, as I was informed at the check-in counter in Bombay. Since the Bangkok-Samui leg was a domestic flight, we'd need to get visas before boarding it. Recalling how long the visa process had taken on my last visit to Thailand, I recognised there was little hope of making our connecting flight.

But Bangkok Airways and Thai immigration outdid themselves in helping us out. Our plane landed just ahead of time and, as we entered the terminal, I spotted a Bangkok Airways staffer holding up a placard with our names on it. This was 6 am, IST. He rushed us to the counter where visa forms were handed out. By 6.10, we had filled the forms and changed money to pay for the visas. He then led us to a fast track counter, where our visas were stamped in under five minutes (the other counter was thronged with applicants, mostly Indian). In another five minutes we went through passport control. At 6.25 we passed security. At exactly 6.30, we were at the gate from which the Samui flight was to take off. It began boarding seven minutes later, and we touched down on the island by 8 am, Indian time.

I said to myself, "Here's a country that takes tourism seriously".

Despite all their efforts on our behalf, we almost managed to mess things up in another way. We'd completely forgotten that our photographs would have to be attached to the the visa form, whether we filled it in Bangkok or Samui. Luckily both of us happened to be carrying mugshots of ourselves in our cabin baggage. Jabeen said, "There's always so much stuff in my handbag that I don't need but leave inside 'just in case'. Well, now all the junk I've carried all these years has proven its worth".

The shack season in Goa

Goa's tourist season is still some way off, but a squabble's begun over a share of the spoils. It concerns shacks that come up along the state's beaches in winter. Back in the day, one or two could be found on each stretch of sand, but now they colonise every available square foot, and the number of prospective owners increases each year. The government handles the lucrative task of doling out permits.
The Shack Owners Welfare Society (SOWS, what could be more Goan?) is lobbying for old timers to be favoured, while the Goan Traditional Shack Owners Association, which appears to be traditional in the way the German Democratic Republic was democratic, wants a lottery to determine who will get space and where.
On the face of it, the demand for a lottery seems fair. The truth is, though, that most of TGTSOA's members have no interest in the restaurant business. All they want is to sublet the space to a non-Goan, making a tidy amount for doing nothing.
I spent a lot of time in Goa in my teens because my father was posted in Vasco, and that's when I discovered the state's beach shacks. The fish on offer was invariably fresh and cheap, and never smothered in heavy sauce. The quality of fare varied considerably, it has to be said. I recall one place in Anjuna that kept me waiting an entire hour before serving pomfret that was close to raw. But even that barely edible dish, and the lackadaisical attitude behind it, captured something of the spirit of the place that was screened out in fancy restaurants.
The last time I visited Goa, in 2007, Jabeen and I found the scene changed utterly, even from our own previous visits. Not only were there dozens of shacks to choose from, but they had much more elaborate decor and extensive menus. All minimalism had disappeared from the cooking, replaced by heavy, restaurant-style slop. Few of the waiters were locals: they came from UP, Bihar, even Nepal. The laid-back Goan pace had been replaced by frantic hard-sell. Perhaps worst of all, prices were now higher than in sit-down places on the main street.
It was still charming enough: I mean, how unpleasant can it be to sit sipping wine at a candle-lit table near the waterline with a breeze blowing landward? I knew, though, that the mood I'd experienced as a teen had died. If it was to be recaptured again, it would be on a beach in some other country which had yet to adjust fully to the demands and rewards of mass tourism.

Tendulkar, Goody and Madame Tussauds

Madame Tussauds is a scam. Celebrities are co-opted into this scam because being selected for a Tussauds waxwork has successfully been marketed as a huge honour. So, people like Sachin Tendulkar consent to spending hours getting measured for a wax figure, and, once the model is ready, posing next to the likeness in a publicity shoot covered in most national dailies. Indians planning a holiday in London see the article and put Madame Tussauds in their places-to-visit list.
The scam takes advantage of the fact that, while cameras do not function like eyes, people believe they do. In photographs, the wax Sachin Tendulkar bears a fair resemblance to the live man, though the Tussauds marketing team must have wished the great batsman had shaved before the photo-op. When people actually visit the collection and see the work in three dimensions, they will find an uninteresting dummy placed alongside other equally uninteresting dummies, which happen to be crafted in the dimensions of the persons they represent.

Jade Goody's husband has been lobbying to have a figure of his wife installed in the museum, claiming it was one of her final wishes. Tussauds is unlikely to consent, for featuring the reality TV star would lower the profile of its dummy list. A death mask of Goody might be more appropriate than a full figure. The original Madame Tussaud, after all, came to public attention in the era of the French revolution by casting the faces of executed prisoners. Many of those casts still exist, and are displayed in a back room of the tourist attraction, categorised under 'History'. When I visited the place, having been directed there by a solicitous aunt during my first stay in London, I found the history section a huge relief from the tedium of the main exhibit.

Update April 15: Today's Mumbai Mirror carries an excerpt from this post in its column Blogger's Park. While the publicity is welcome, I'm amazed that the Mirror has actually set one of its sub-editors on my piece. Is it ethical to change the content of a blog in this fashion?
Aside from being irked, I'm surprised that the Mirror's subs have time spare to correct entries that need no correcting. The shoddy grammar evident in pieces filed by their reporters gives the impression of an organisation deeply understaffed in the proof-reading department.

Jilt of Seasons

In March and April each year, Indian travel companies blanket newspapers with advertisements for European holidays. In winter, their focus shifts to warm lands like Egypt and Thailand. This year, though, a few firms have decided to plug Europe in December. Two ads pitching France caught my attention this morning. Both play up the romantic reputation of the country. Cox and Kings does it using a historical example.




The Eiffel Tower was built as part of the World's Fair of 1889 which marked the centenary of the French revolution, but calling it a symbol of the country's bloody revolution is a stretch, isn't it? Kuoni's full-pager pretends France is in the middle of easeful summer.



It uses a stock photo provided by the French government tourist agency, of a pretty couple relaxing on the heather, the man wearing a T-shirt, the woman a singlet. The copy speaks of "vineyards with plump, purple grapes ripening under the benevolent sun." A quick check tells me the sun isn't being particularly benevolent to Paris at the moment. The next ten days will see temperatures rise to a maximum of 5 degrees centigrade in the afternoon and sink to a minimum of minus 3 degrees at night. I called Kuoni to ask about the validity period of the Family Fun travel deal, and was told I could travel any time before March 31, excluding the Christmas-New Year period. Which means the choice for punters runs all the way from uncomfortably cold to bloody freezing.
Indians who haven't travelled abroad extensively have a misconception about seasons in the rest of the northern hemisphere. They don't realise that summer begins in earnest only in mid-June and lasts till the end of August. That's because those are the wet months in much of the subcontinent. For us, the warm season kicks off in late March, April is the start of high summer, and by May it's time to head for the hills. Or Europe, if you can afford it.
During my first year in England as a student, I expected to start feeling the weight of the sun's rays on my arms by mid-April. Instead, all I felt was the weight of a thick jacket on my shoulders.