Japan : Through the eyes of a maverick - Part two

Tokyo for sure is a great city. But I am not out of Thailand yet, and just like the previous part, this story too begins at the Bangkok International airport. The traces of the parallel reality that I was talking about can be found in larger quantities in Bangkok. You begin smelling the Japanese culture from Thailand itself, as you get to see Japanese people in far larger numbers when compared with India.


A room in the Hotel Amari Apartments

I was supposed to stay at the Hotel Amari Apartments in Bangkok, which is directly connected with the airport through a covered overbridge above the road. It’s like the Bangkok Airport’s official hotel. I was not aware of this fact though and ran around the entire airport to enquire about the distance of the hotel and the taxi fare. When I finally managed to reach the check-in counter, one of my fellow journalists (who was supposed to share the room with me) realized that he had lost the hotel vouchers.


These are the regular facilities. If you want to watch movies on the TV, you have to pay extra. A fellow journo committed the mistake and ended up paying 600Baht the following morning

Now comes the interesting part. The hotel vouchers had JAL (Japan Airlines) written over it, and we had visited the airline’s office while still huffing and puffing around to work our way to the Hotel. At the counter was this deific fairy clad in an immaculate black suit to attend to us. She undoubtedly was one of the most beautiful women I had ever witnessed. No, actually she was THE most beautiful woman that I had witnessed. She was not gorgeous or hot or glamorous as one might assume. She was beautiful – in the most dignified, tranquil and innocent ways. I’ve managed to see more beautiful woman after that though, but it’s something that keeps happening to me.

She had this divine aura around her, a spotless fair complexion and skin that appeared to be the richest source of vitamin E on earth, with that alluring tinge of pink to it. Her black eyes twinkled through the golden locks that kissed her face in the most tender way possible. And as she said ‘may I help you’ in that soft, polite, heavenly voice I couldn’t help but stumble for a moment. While Mr Fellow Journalist inquired about the whereabouts of the hotel, I focused my vision onto what I won’t mind calling the human incarnation of the Maserati Quattroporte. Beautiful, subtle, proper, potent, desirable, almost flawless – but not draped in lust and libido.

While she told us the way to the hotel I kept watching her like an owl – mesmerized. We headed for the hotel, and now that I evaluate the proceeding of that day in retrospect, I realise why some people forget or lose things only at certain particular places. The height of selfishness is breached when they don’t even ask for assistance from their friends before heading out to help themselves. I kept hitting the walls of the gallery with my fists till the time I saw the wicked (obviously not) man coming back - grabbing the vouchers in his hand, bearing an ear-to-ear smile.


Other optional facilities include, uh..water!!

In the hotel room, lay a 1-liter bottle of water on the table between the two beds. Thirsty as I was, I grabbed it, and just as I was about to tear the seal off savagely to gulp down the entire contents in one go; I noticed this tag with a scary note over it. ‘Poison’? No. Nobody can force you to drink that bottle of course, so you won’t really mind a bottle of poison in your hotel room as long as it’s free. It said -‘You can buy this item for only 120 Baht (approx Rs150)’. Won’t say any more – every beautiful (or ugly) thing in Thailand is meant to make the tourist shell out some extra bucks of his pocket. Period. And these beautiful things are quite readily available. Read between the lines.

I also noticed a very interesting fact about the Thai women. Their voice is somewhat harsh on the ears, similar to that of Donald Duck, if I had to cite an example. The poor things end up sounding rude to foreigners even if they try their best to sound polite. Some credit goes to their language as well, in which the last syllable is more pronounced and prolonged, making it sound strange to the people who are not accustomed to it. So, while the announcer on the airport tried her best to say ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Afternoon’ or ‘Hi’ or ‘Bye’ in Thai in the politest way, we (yea, I forgave the fellow journo) couldn’t help laughing our pants off. I tried the best I could to stop myself, but I couldn’t. Finally I left Bangkok. (say Phew! All of you!)


The first glimpses of Japland




Narita International Airport - Airline counters

As I came out of the Boeing 747 onto the Narita International Airport, Tokyo, Japan, I realized why they talk about this city and this country so much. The airport has been constructed seamlessly. I won’t blabber about it much though, and let the pictures speak for themselves. What, however, I would like to talk about here is the human face behind that techno-gadgetry and the opulent lifestyle.


Conveyor belts across the entire airport - great aid for the handicapped



Inter-terminal tram to commute between the two terminals


Inside...


Fab body - one of the best I have seen in flesh

I had to wait for an age to pass before I boarded the domestic flight for Obihiro town from the Haneda (Domestic) Airport. Now the Narita Airport is no less than a mega mall, so I opted to have a look around. I don’t exactly know why, but irrespective of where I am in the world, beer bars are built in such a manner that they fall in my way. The Japs too, just like my fellow countrymen conspired against me and I ended up having the taste of a large mug of sparkling golden Japanese beer. Then I had one more of it, and since it was amazingly refreshing and totally different from what we have here in India, I opted for yet another.






A mall that they prefer calling airport


The food that you'll order inside a restaurant is exhibited outside, along with price. The replicas are so unbelievably close to reality that you feel like touching and and making sure that it's dummy and not real food. The food is served in EXACTLY the same manner as exhibited

It was when I thought I’d had enough to keep my sensibilities in place, that I realized that the menus for food, beers & wines and other hard liquor were different. Now I am a curious person, as my parents told me when I was a kid that curiosity is the source of all knowledge. I swear I opened the menu for hard liquor only to have a look, at that time at least. But the thinking man in me told me that it wouldn’t be right if I missed this opportunity to know how these Japanese whiskies tasted. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to increase my knowledge. Who knows –the aircraft I was about to board might have crashed, or the entire airport might have come crashing down in some time. Knowing that earthquakes are no big deal in Japan, I finally decided that this historical opportunity shouldn’t be missed.


The Japanese conspiracy

I had two large pegs of a Japanese whiskey, the name of which I don’t remember – so I just know the taste and not the name. Which in effect means that while the knowledge in my head still remained as poor as it was before I drank it, I grew rich in terms of dumbness for some time. Under the influence of the patriotic Japanese whiskey, every Jap woman looked like Drew Barrymoore to me, while every Jap guy looked like the Cupid – dressed in diapers and ready to get me smitten with all the babes around with that little bow and those tiny arrows in his hands. I was honestly out of my wits.


Waiting for the beer


Beer....


Jap whiskey....


And then sudenly everything starts appearing creamy and gorgeous :D

The time had ticked by in the meantime and only a few hours were left in my flight from the Haneda Airport, which is about 60-odd km away from the Narita Airport. I went to the foreign exchange counter to get some more Dollars converted into Yen, as the Limousine service that takes you from Narita to Haneda charges 3000 Yen. I got the money exchanged, only to realise in some time that I had forgotten a folder which contained the Hotel vouchers for Bangkok (return journey), some documents and around 200 Dollars in it on the counter. I swore not to drink again, just like I do everytime, and rushed towards the counter –panicking.

Now most Japs (read 99 per cent) don’t know English and they don’t even want to. So I tried to tell the old man on the foreign exchange counter, in sign-language about the folder that I had forgotten (lost) some fifteen minutes ago. He replied by banging the ‘Closed’ plate on the counter window. Obviously, taking care of the idiocies committed by fools like me was not his business. He had more important matters to worry about. Moreover, he was handling such a big exchange counter on an International Airport like Narita all by himself. I rightfully deserved what he did.

But wait – the next thing I see is the same old man coming out of the office and escorting me to the JAL counter. The old man had noticed that I had forgotten the folder; he checked my details on the documents and submitted it to the JAL office, which happened to be the airline for my next flight. The JAL personnel in turn had proactively prepared to send the folder to the JAL personnel at Haneda, from where I had to catch the flight.

I was astonished. Luckily the folder was not dispatched yet and I got it within my grasp at the Narita Airport itself. The most interesting part of the story being, the old man was around me all the time, doing all the talking with the Japs, and acting like the folder was his, not mine. Just think about it – two hundred dollars, ten Grand worth of money in Indian currency. The first thing anyone will do here in India is put the moolah in his pocket and then make sure that the rest of the documents are burnt to ashes or flushed down the drain. Amazing people! And this doesn’t have a thing to do with their development. It is all about their ethics, their culture and their upbringing. And these, according to me are the things that actually make a nation great or respectable in the truest sense.

I had read the story of Swamy Ramteerth’s Japan visit in textbooks when I was a kid, and here was proof that what I was taught was absolutely right. The Japs are the most patriotic people around. More evidence was to come very soon to substantiate the fact further for me.

The old man rushed back to his office the very moment he made sure that I had my belongings with me in right shape. I saw him run away to take care of his duties as I stood there and watched –zonked! The two words ‘thank you’ couldn’t even have half-reach his ears. He didn’t want them either apparently.

The limousine (that’s what they call a bus!) took around 45 minutes to take the entire pack of the Indian journos to the Haneda Airport. The rest of the bunch had joined us at Narita. They had their flight from Delhi via Singapore, so they were a little late. I’ll let the pictures do the talking about the streets of Tokyo, as there wasn’t anything too captivating that I observed. It’s a happening city mind you, just that we were taken through the highway, so we couldn’t witness the clogged streets and the cleavages which are known to be the pride of Tokyo evenings and nights.


There are many such giant wheels in Tokyo. And they are big.....really big!








Tokyo on the streets


The HanedaDomestic Airport from the outside....




And from the inside

The flight took almost an hour before we landed at the outskirts of Obihiro, a small and beautiful town. Obihiro is a cold place but summers were on at this time of the year, and you could manage to roam around in a tee, even at nights. We were driven for 60-odd kilometers again before we hit the downtown Obihiro. I was expecting far more concrete structures on the way than I did, since Japan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, but all I could see was never ending greens with only some farm-establishments in the name of artificial structures.


This is all the construction you'll ever see, once you hit the highway


The Obihiro railway station - see the flowers in the pots?


The Indian gang



Entering the hotel

Obihiro is like a dreamland –at least for a commoner like me. It’s a small town with wide streets and no traffic at all. It has all the facilities and amenities that a modern town needs to have, there is no pollution and there is no crime. The boulevards are decorated with small flower pots (like the ones you have at home). These flowers also work as dividers on the road, and it’s hard to believe they don’t get trampled even though they are level with the road surface!!! The town is littered with quality restaurants and shopping joints, but I never saw any crowd. I remember the first time I came out of the hotel –the slightly chilly breeze made me reset the definition of the word ‘fresh air’ in my head. The best air-conditioner in the world wouldn’t have matched up.
You have a look at the streets in the night, and there’s hardly anyone – you get into one of the food or entertainment joints and there’s a party going on everywhere. It’s such a nice, beautiful and well equipped place that you at times tend to rub your eyes in disbelief. Life seems to be so worth –living at such places.



That's rush hour in Obihiro - bliss!


A bridge on the way to the town

You visit Obihiro once and you’ll know that while it’s impossible to eradicate the hardships in life, it’s really easy to bring them down drastically if everything is planned properly. And that life can be really exciting in small towns as well, minus the crowd and the rush. I was in my hotel room, when I thought about this, and then suddenly I started thinking about the Mumbai streets –littered with people, pigs and paanwaalas. This country is no less densely populated than mine, and still it’s so much better to live here than back there. Why? I thought, as the tired eyes gave way to sleep.


Thats how the metro-bridge looked like during the day...


And thats how it looked like when darkness fell....from the hotel window

The next part will be about a freak night in Obihiro. About boozing, driving, singing, dancing and making some friends ;)

Japan : Through the eyes of a maverick - Part one

I was told that I had to go to Japan, a month back. Glad I obviously was, but I wasn’t particularly keen on visiting a land which no one told me was interesting or exciting. The perception of the country that I had in my mind was that of a tiny and developed island with automatic (electric and electronic) everything. I visualised button eyed miniscule white geeks whose noses were on the brink of extinction. I was told that all they do is tinker with the keyboard for the whole day, with soldering nano-electronics under a microscope as their favourite pastime. The people who enlightened me about Japan as a country also revealed that producing those super fast machines needed a degree of clinical commitment, and while riding/driving them might be an interesting affair, the people responsible for producing them are extremely dull and boring.

Perceptions, however, are much different from the truths of this world, and I was soon to discover a parallel reality. All the apprehensions were to be melted into nothingness and I was soon to witness the most wonderful and the most remarkable human beings alive on planet earth. I realized that the idea of having a completely mechanised world with a human face is not a farce. I discovered that machines don’t essentially kill sentiments and electronics don’t have anything to do with the dignity of labour. It was an incredible universe out there, surreal, unrealistic and just too rosy to be true. It did exist though, and I found that a world which we Indians would so love to be a part of, maybe after some centuries, does exist in today’s date.

Here then, I have for you a phased description and visualization of whatever I got to see, live and experience. I’ll keep posting about the extraordinary things that I came across, and how it helped me grow astonishingly - both as an individual and as a professional in a mere span of six days. Hope you like and enjoy it…

A COUNTRY INTRODUCING ITSELF – THE PARADOX

Bangkok International Airport, Air-India’s flight lands onto the strip, the five over-enthusuastic Punjabi youngsters stand up and start taking down their luggage from the overhead luggage compartments, even as Captain Ranvir keeps requesting the passengers to not to do so. They are somewhat tired. It’s been an exhausting journey for them. They have drained themselves out of the last Joule of energy left in their bodies in making sure that every single person in the plane has pathetic stories to tell to his people about Indians once he reaches his own land. Lessons in indecency have been imparted to everyone aboard. Snide remarks in the loudest voice possible have been passed onto everyone who apparently didn’t understand Hindi and Punjabi. While the tiny Jap who sat beside them had to bear it all in his face, the two German girls who were sitting behind were lucky, as it was not so easy for the hunks to stand up, turn behind and bring some more shame to their country. They made sure that their journey was as adventurous as it ever could be, by doing (or at least trying to do) everything that was prohibited in the safety manual. They reclined their seats at take-off, used digital cameras and mobile phones at critical junctures, shouted aloud and argued with the air hostesses at the drop of a hat. Everyone else, however, maintained a dignified silence, while our Punjabi Mundas kept rocking the floor, stamping the seal of their machogiri over everyone else in the flight. An illiterate, derisive laugh for one of the lady officials at the Bangkok airport, and their job was done. They had clicked and distributed the dirtiest picture of their country across the world. They made sure that we Indians have even more problems in attaining Visas for any country and they are treated with even more disrespect the world over henceforth.

Bangkok International Airport : It's Thailand slightly disguised

The air-hostesses too, on their part were not to be left behind. From throwing the food (plates) onto the retractable table rather than serving it, to sneering upon the innocuous Indian guy who unknowingly stuck his leg out of his seat while being asleep. They even called him an idiot! These women acted like how the wife of a minister in the Central Cabinet would if told to serve passengers in an airline. Apparently, what they were doing was too demeaning for their high stature. Wonder why they chose this profession if they had such swollen egos. There was a clear hint of pretentiousness in that doctored smile. It appeared as if it was a veneer to shroud the contempt within, there wasn’t the slightest hint of friendliness or intent to assist. The passenger, on his end, doesn’t feel happy or content for being served, he instead feels guilty for corrupting the dignity of the noble ladies.

The facilities at the Bangkok International Airport are pretty much in line with the best in the world. Made me feel bad though, as we are a bigger economy and the government could definitely do better

I was so ashamed by the time I got off the plane that I can shamelessly admit now that I was. You could see the disappointment and anger in the eyes of the fellow passengers, especially foreigners, and you just have to admit that they’re properly justified in looking down upon us, since what has just happened is plain pitiful, simply pathetic.

From Bangkok, I had to change flight. JAL (Japan Airlines) flight 710 (I guess) was supposed to be the next plane for the rest of the journey. The transition in treatment and the level of professionalism was apparent from the very moment I presented my boarding pass to the personnel at the boarding gate. Genial smiles, thoroughly genuine, on the faces of people who actually, authentically want to assist you, make you feel comfortable from the very first moment.

A Boeing 747

A trijet plane with one of the jets on the tail at the Bangkok Inetrnational Airport

It was a technological shock that I withstood the moment I stepped into the plane, no, even before that actually. It was a Boeing 747 – and I hadn’t seen a moving piece of machinery so gargantuan in my entire life. Other planes like the one that carried me from Mumbai to Thailand lay scattered in the field around it like toys. Inside, it was expansive, tastefully lit, and equipped with features in the economy class which are absent in the business class of India’s national air-carrier. You could choose to watch a movie on the LCD screen from a list of around 300 choices, listen to a wide variety of songs, watch how the world looks like from the plane through an on board camera located outside, track your journey with detailed mapping, play games, use the remote as a phone, call the hostess, buy jewellery and do scores of other things. The plane that took me to Thailand, in contrast, just headphones to listen to music, the only glitch being, there wasn’t any music to listen to. These headphones were some sidey make with the cheap quality of materials easily perceptible – the ones on JAL flight, however, were SONY. Bewildering enough for a newbie like me.

You feel snugly cossetted and properly served in most international airliners. The picture is that of the economy class of JAL. IA and AI flights simply dont match up.

The route tracker : Outside temperature, altitude, distance, time, maps....you just have to ask for some info, and you have it at hand.

There was a dignified silence in the plane; except for the occasional, careful whispers, I couldn’t hear a word. There weren’t any naively amplified laughs or inconsiderately high decibel conversations. The air-hostesses kept visiting every ten minutes, repeatedly asking for how they could assist me. Even when they know very little or no English, the communication barrage never translates into the slightest hint of frown on their face. They’ll refuse to buzz off till the time they’ve made sure that you are happy and content. They’re young, pretty and polite - unlike the middle-aged, emotion-proof and almost deaf hostesses on Indian planes who more often than not appear to be sleepwalking. With the Japs, you could see that there is an intention to serve, an inherent urge to prove that the money that’s being paid to them is worth every Yen of it, unlike the Rupee that gets mercilessly wasted. You have an assortment of wines, beers, soft drinks, crackers, snacks and meals to choose from and the crew will insist you have it, to drive away any inhibitions that you might have breeding in your head.

While I prayed for the plane to land down as early as possible for the time I was in the AI carrier, I wanted the journey to last forever while being aboard the JAL aircraft. Honestly, had I been from a neutral country, I would have loathed India like a scary nightmare and would have vowed never to try set foot again in the country. I am so sorry and ashamed to say that, but that’s exactly the way I felt.

Airports are the face of a country – to a foreign traveller who’s on the airport only for transit, airports represents the whole of the nation; and this fact becomes so very palpable when you travel abroad. All the impressions about a country that a transit foreigner takes home have their roots connected with the airport in some way or the other. From the way the officials and the people behave with you to the cleanliness and the facilities, every single thing paints a picture of how good or bad you are as a nation. Going by that yardstick, the state of the Indian Airports is pathetic. The official at the customs told me to not to declare any possessions since it meant more trouble and work for him. He even sneered at me when I took a little long in filling the form. The security officers almost snatched the bag from my hand to check what was inside while the immigration officials seemed utterly uninterested and uneducated by the way they talked.

The road under the bridge that connects the airport with Hotel Amari Apartment. Tourists are insulated from the harsher realities.

A railway station under the same bridge.

Bangkok as a country-on the streets that is, might be as backward or as pathetic as India, but tourism is a big industry, and these guys have made sure that their airports at least are in line with the best in the world. The facilities are A-class and all the officers talk with you in a thoroughly professional and polite manner. On the streets it might be as nightmarish as our own country, but then, transit passengers are bound to take home a very good impression. Till the time I got out of the airport (which happened on my way back), even I had an immaculate impression about Thailand. Obviously, the airport was Thailand for me.

And this, my friends is Thailand on streets - looks much like India eh?

Talking of two-wheelers, Thailand is primarily a scooter and step-through market. These things look puny, but are packed with technology. For valved engines (which are yet to be seen in India) coupled with ultra-slim tyres mean that these puny-looking things go like a stink in a straight line!!!

Tokyo is leagues apart - an exponent of foolproof systemization. A miracle realized by man. More on it, however, in the next post…