Sid-O-Scope

Part 2 of 3 of Landing in Thailand. Read the Part 1, Getting Stamped about preparing for the journey from India. There is one thing you should do when you travel to Pattaya (Thailand) if you are a hardcore vegetarian (who cannot bear the smell of meat and prefer separate utensils for food), don't travel to Pattaya. Although I do not know why vegetarians leave their own house if they have so much food problems, if you still do wish to travel to Pattaya this article gives few tips on how to survive. I should tell you at times like these, the fact that you are an Indian acts like a thing of pride. Doesn't matter that the passport you had visa stamped few minutes ago was made by paying something extra to an agent or the fact that your driving license is responsible for the most corruption in your homeland, the fact that these documents are there in your pocket gives you a warm comforting feeling of your belonging. Last time when I left I had stepped outside the Bangkok a...

India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters. The vague memory I have from my school days is singing the national pledge without giving a thought about its words or what it actually meant. When the boys hit puberty, a most common running joke was about all Indians becoming sisters (not sure if the same joke ran on the girls side). The school got over and we moved on to college, people forgot the national anthem, let alone the pledge. Life hit hard and fast, it was survival of the fittest in the wild. The rosy picture got over and we realized by the time we will complete our education, there are absolutely no jobs available for those anything less than an engineer or a doctor. It was dog vs dog world out there and survival was imperative. Entering corporate world was not a big relief since 3000 of other people were fighting for the same thing. So all in all, surviving in India was a big fight and if all Indians are my brothers and sisters, it was Cain and Abel all ove...