Surprise visit from Sif

I'm thinking to my self I must be at the hub of this part of the world or something cause I get to meet up with more and more people here in Bangkok.

Already I've had visits from...Shish (Shasheen), Madhuranga and Thushan, Sif and many other AIESECers who I've gotten to know for the first time on their visit to Bangkok.

Sif was the latest visitor here and it was more or less a surprise to get a SMS that he's already here as I wasnt really expecting him :) cause his email to me was lost in the 30k plus unread emails in my gmail account.

This is the second time I'm meeting Sif in a third country ( first in Poland) and I'm thinking this is gonna happen more if I also can keep up with his globe trotting :) If you notice that he's beard is longer, your right ...he got an extension here :)

So who's next?

Guess what, I had been on a Pakistani Newspaper

After a long time I was catching up on blog of a friend...Emad from Pakistan when I noticed a picture of a news paper cutout he had put up in one of his postings. The pictured looked fimiliar, the people looked fimiliar and then only I started to recognize the AP family including the two Sri Lankans Sahan and yours truelly :)

The picture was from AIESEC's International President's Meeting 2007 in Egypt and the article is about how AIESEC in Pakistan is helping to build international relations through the AIESEC network.

Isn't it wierd to have your picture on a newspaper in a country you've never even been to :) but it also makes you proud of being part of this amazing organisation creating impact around the world and sometimes not realizing the impact that we make.

Thank you AIESEC !

p.s. Congrats Emad and AIESEC in Pakistan for the nice PR work !

Movie of the week: 200 pound Beauty

Wanted to have a relaxing Friday evening and decided a nice movie was the best option :) so after surfing the net from Siam Square ( they have free wireless) till clock ticked over to the start time, I went to catch 200 Pound Beauty...

Enjoyed it loads !!! A light hearted South Korean movie with an emotional touch ( may be a chick-flick as some would call it) I always like it when the underdog ends up at top and loved the emotional aspect built into to the story line. I'm not always for serious movies and this one was exactly the right pick-me-up at the end of the week.

The song 'Ave Maria' was just awesome ! Now trying to download it from some place. This is not the first South Korean movie I've watched and enjoyed. Guess I'm becoming a fan of South Korean movies :)

May be I need to consider starting a business importing South Korean movies to Sri Lanka, when I go back...think of it also Japanese comics ( cause even this movie is based on a Japanese comic) cause we dont have either in Sri Lanka. ( dont you steal my idea!!! hehehhe)

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The world is a small place

I arranged to meet up with an ex-AIESECer from Sri Lanka who was a member in my Local Committe when I was President. Madhuranga is here in Bangkok for the World University Games that just came to an end, after searching for his contacts in BKK for few days I finally got his number, called him up and arranged to meet up with him at the JJ market ( huge weekend market) where he was going shopping with others from the Sri Lankan team.

It's always good to meet your friends after sometime and I've not met Madhurange proper for couple of years now. We meet up at the clock tower and went around the market catching up with each other along with two other Sri Lankans and 2 thai girls who are guides for the team.

Once he was ready to head back I walked with him to the place where they would meet the rest of the Sri Lankan team...then came the big surprise cause I saw Thushan there !!!

Thushan was a class mate from school days and knew that he was at Med. Fac. Colombo still... it was total surprise as I wasn't expecting to meet a friend of mine there :) we were just regretting not knowing that each other was in BKK even when we saw each other online ( didnt chat) on MSN couple of days before...life can surprise you !

Instead of me showing him around BKK during his stay, we had to stick to hanging out for the next couple of hours as he was flying back to Sri Lanaka the next day and I am travelling on a3 day trip later today. He and few friends wanted to go to Pantip Plaza so I agreed to take them while the rest of the team went back to the games village.

While they were getting ready to go I was introducing myself to few of the others from Sri Lanka and found out that one girl from Kelaniya Uni was the friend that Chamindra had been telling me was in BKK. Its amazing that within that few mins I connected with 3 people who in one way or the other are connected to my life. :)

Isn't the world a small place?

Trip to Ranong (Thailand) and Kawthoung (Myanmar)

Few days ago I was travelling to Ranong, a city in the southern part of Thailand from where I crossed the border to Kawthoung,Myanmar.

It was what is known here as a "visa run" i.e. when you cross the border to a neighbouring country and rentern to renew your duration of stay when you have multiple visa or to get tourist visa again. My duration was running up and after a week of research on options available I decided to go for this one.

It was awesome experience to go there on a 10hr bus trip and then to go through the visa process while crossing the river by boat to enter Myanmar. In Myanmar I went to the temple in the picture, the Buddha statues you see are of different styles from different countries and of course there was one Sri Lankan style that made me happy to see. I'm even surprised myself how much I'm looking out for connections to Sri Lanka and how much it makes me happy when I fine some. :)

People in the pier side community are bit agressive I felt, likely because of trying to get what every they can out of the tourists that only stay on for couple of hours. So they dont have much time to loose. Another thing I didnt expect is for Burmese to be wearing sarongs and with some of them having a darker complexion some looked liked any other Sri Lankan... hehehe. The sarong is part of the school uniform here which I found by the nice school kind who showed me up to the statue of the king there.

The burmese powder as they call it is used by men, women and kids to apply on their skin (mainly face) to protect from the sun and to improve the complexion. So when you walk in the street people with some creame/paste/powder on their faces ( I saw also on the Thai side) as if they forgot to clean their face. First when I noticed it I was puzzled that they would wear it in the open and not at night or when doing a facial like in the "western world".

Back in the Thai side it was raining so the rest of the day I spent at the awesome guest house I stayed in !!! really nice people ! next day I walked couple of Km to the nearest Hot Sprint where I regreted not having brought a change of cloaths there to have a bath. Next I went to the Ngao water fall which is part of a nature reserve to find that I had the place to my self :) tranquility and nature at its best!!! It was so free that I even skinny dipped and had a nice bath for a while.

Now back in BKK I'm happy that I chose Ranong for my visa run :) already looking forward to exploring some other places soon...may be I will make one big trip each month to dscover amazing Thailand.

Pictures from the trip are up online at ...
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/560386581uYvCaF