BANGKOK

Where to start..... The first impression of Bangkok is of a neverending and chaotic city, in which you have to be always careful. When you get used to it is much better and there are no problems at all but you have to know how it works here first. Just an example: the taxi from the airport to the apartment where I stayed, bye meter costed me 320 Baht (he was asking for 400 in the beginning but you have always to go by meter) and the return only 170! When they see that you have just arrived they do their best to take as much money as they can from you as it is the best moment since you're still confused and overwhelmed by everything that is happening around you. I couchsurfed a girl and stayed in an apartment in Latprao (thank you Nt Wong - it was really nice meeting you!) and the first day I tried public transpostation, as she advised. I spent almost 90 minutes in a bus to reach the Grand Palace. To be honest, I lost the first one as I didn't expect that I have to jump in. But then I learned and have jumped in an out busses and boats since then :-). The traffic is completely crazy here wherever you go and it takes you ages with whotever to go wherever. I tried all kinds of transportation systems here.
Going around in a tuk tuk...

One day, to go home I took the taxi to the skytrain, the skytrain until the last station, the bus for about 45 minutes and then the motorcycle (you pay 12Baht and they take everywhere in the neighbouhood). All together about 2 hours. The next day I took the boat and then a taxi and it was definitely much better but still about 90 minutes to go where I had to.

I had to go to try my pure silk tailored dress that I have had done in what National geographic considers the best tailor's shop in the World, James Fashion, and I have to say that I can only confirm. They have done an incredble dress and I had the best consultant in the World to advise me and go through all the steps of the making to have the perfect result. Now someone has to invite me out (in warm weather) so I can wear it :-)

Tailand is famous for silk and has the best tailors in the World. You can find tailor's shops in every corner and they can do whatever you want in incredible short time (even in the same day). A lot of people use the occasion to have suits done. And they are famous for precious stones and food (Thai food is considered to be one of the best cusines in the World!) - until now I had nothing spicey and everything was really good. I recommend the Pat Thai, in the street was even better then in some resaturants (they make it fresh in front of you) and the Banana pankace (thay use bananas a lot and you can buy them cooked everywhere). I didn't try the insects but if you fancy some.... Anyway, you find food everywhere here and it is impossible to starve. Sometimes it is too much as with the heat the smell can be not really nice. On every corner you can have a massage for 100-200Baht = 2,5-5€ (they killed me with only 30 minutes of Thai massage - I thanked God I didn't take the full hour!) or have your hair done for the same price. You can find anything you want in Bangkok, except for trash bins ;-)

Bangkok is full of electricity cables everywhere and that was one of the first things that I noticed with the chaotic traffic.

The most beautiful thing in Bangkok are the many many temples. The best thing to do is to take a walk around the Rattanakosin and go to see them one by one. It takes some time and it is very nice and relaxing.

Or you can have a private boat tour

But this immense beauty is only one part of Bangkok. The ordinary is very different....

SINGAPORE PART 2

I'm at the airport, leaving from Bagkok to Phuket. I'm exausthed. I had not even the time to write a couple of comments on my blog.... More about Bangkok later. I have some more pics about Singapore and a couple of things to say. I'll write now when I have the time and upload it later.

Singapore is such a ordered, disciplined and controlled city. Definitely not a democratic country. It has the same government for more then 45 years and they control everything, from the media to the ideas. My friend Csilla told me the story of a friend of hers that works at university here and promoted in some conferences the idea of creating roof gardens in the condominiums. The idea was very good but he almost got arrested for that, as he was considered to be communist (all the owners were supposed to own one small piece of the roof garden). The released him only after he signed that he'll never be politically active.
From some locals I heard that the government is taking good care of ther people (for example apartments in nice condominiums are provided by the government to all locals in the age of 30-40 for a very reasonable price) and that it is the only way to make the 3 main cultures of the city go along peacefully.
The part of the city I liked the most is Chinatown.

It is amazing to see that nicely restored, colorful colonial buildings surronded by the chaos typical of the Chinatowns around the world. It is a very lively and pictoresque area where you can get all kinds of food, massage, souvenirs and whatever you want.
Mixed with the Chinese, you find also Indian buildings and decorations even outside Little IndiaIt is interesting to see the many things of the colonial past that are still visible in this booming city, full of modern architecture. This is the parlament:

Singapore has great food and you can eat for a couple of S$ in food courts. It is very safe and generally clean. I can recommend youthe local specialty: the fish head ;-)

After a very nice swim in the olympic pool that my friends have in their condominium I went to one of the many parks of Singapore that goes all to Harbour view so I had a very pleasant walk. What was really amazing was the noise of the rain forest (you can see monkeys there) that was almost completely covering the noise of that very noisy city.

Night life is concentrated mostly around Clarkey quay and Robertson quay, two very nice areas on the river and very short distance one from each other.

Drinks are very expensive but it is still wortg going to the Swiss hotel in the bar on the 70th floor and have Singapore sling while looking at the view.

SINGAPORE

After a 7 hours flight I arrived in Singapore in the early morning. The first thing that you notice, after the heat and humidity that you feel immediately, is the green: Singapore is a super-green city, full of parks, gardens and plants everywhere, even among the high buildings of the CBD and on the side of most of the roads.

Then you notice how easy and cheap is to move around with the public transportation. Everything is very well connected as they try to destimulate the use of cars with a very good public transportation, reasonably cheap taxi service and very high taxes for buying a car (200% import tax + about 30-45.000€ tax just to get the licence place - so calculate how much would you pay your car there!!). But there are still so many nice and expensive cars.

The food is amazing here and you can eat really well spending a couple of S$ in the food courts. The specialties are sea fruits, crab, fish heads (!!)...What I really enojy here is having fruit juices, squeezed at the moment in front of you and for just 1-2 S$. The first one I had was the dragon fruit as I was really curious to see what does it taste like and I can say now that it is really good.

The fuits looks:

and it has small black seeds in. Great colour :-).

But the most important fruit here is the durian, the smelly simbol of the city (they have even built a music auditorium in its shape).

The smell is so bed that it is forbidden to take it in the public transportation or in some shops and bars.

And here they are very serious with fines and there is no fine for less then 1.000S$ (more then 500€). Everything is controlled by the state. You pay a lot for alcohol, cigarettes, cars, casinos... Everything the state doesn't want you to do, but don't want to prohibit, is extremely expensive. And other things like drugs is punished very severly. They still hang people on Fridays! But the result is a very disciplined city, completely safe and well organized. Probably the only way to put together without troubles the main three cultures that live in the city state: Malesyan, Chinese and Indian (about 30% each) + about 10% of foreigners. More from me another day......

DUBAI DAY 2/3

Dubai offers all kind of enterteinment and among this the desert safari, that we went. It was a lot of fun even if not easy to book as all the agencies were fully booked because of the Eid 3 days festivity. The picked us up in front of the Marina mall (Dubai is full of malls of every size and type) and took us to another emirate (they have sand of different type and colour), to take a tour with the jeep in the desert, driving up and down the dunes.

After that we stopped at the camp where we could ride the camel  but we decided not to (poor guy), we had some sand-boarding and a nice arabic dinner with a belly dancing show. Very touristic but still nice.

Tanja and me decided to dress up for dinner and the result was:

But once back in town we decided to go back to normal to go out.....

And we went to 360, a very exclusive bar made on a round shaped boat, just below the Burj Al Arab and with an amazing view on Dubai. Very cool place.

Another great day and night.

DAY 3
Last day in Dubai. I'm leaving in the evening for Singapore, my 2nd destination.
We had a marvellous turkish lunch in JBR, a residential area made just by the beach. The incredible thing about Dubai is the speed in which it is growing. An example is this area. Just 2 years ago there was almost nothing here. Only the Hilton hotel and some facilities and now it is completely filled with high rise buildings.

After lunch we went to the petrol station (1l petrol = 35eurocent!! and it is the most expensive fuel in all middke east, btw they have no taxes on cars and they are cheeper to buy and maintain then in Europe so you can see a lot of amazing cars here - Porsches, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Mustangs, looots of suvs and big jeeps...) and we had the coffee delivered in the car, that was another thing that I liked :-)

We went to then to the old city and the heritage area to get some insights about the past of Dubai. There is a very nice museum (the house of Sheikh Saeed Al-Maktoum) with pictures and maps of Dubai, place and people. It is really interesting to see how they were living here before the boom. Only half a century ago they were fishing for pearls in the Creek.

Dubai day 1

Madinat Jumeirah
First we went to the complex of hotels, mall, restaurants... Madinat Jumeirah, all made in traditional arabic style like old souks (markets) used to look like.

The towers have a special old style air conditioning system made with spears that create a forces air circulation and cool the air. You can see a lot of this in the old city. From here you have a nice view of Burj Al Arab, the famous hotel.

After that we went to the beach and had a nice swim in the super warm water (on Nov 16th!! - btw it is raining like hell in Rijeka right now, sorry)

It seems that Indian and Pakistani liked us a lot as they took maaany pictures of the two of us. If you have an Indian friend on FB you'll probably see us :-). So, we took a picture of some of them as well.

It was beautiful and I really enjoyed. The beach was very crowded as it is the Eid festivity and everybody have some days off. Indian and Pakistani represent more the 50% of the population of Dubai (locals are only 18%!!) and they are historically here from the old days since they were trading with India before they found oil.
After the beach we went to see the old city and the suks but it was so crowded that we decided to head back home and had a nice coffee at the Marina Dubai, just a few minutes from the apartment. This is the view from Tanja's balcony.

Even if it is warm the day last short as at home in this period and they don't have daylight saving time here.
Since we were not tired enough we went clubbing and I have to say it is a very Sex and the city experience (just without sex). We went to Habtoor grant hotel where they were giving free champagne to ladies and then to the extra fancy Armani privee in the Burj Khalifa. You have drivers parking your car, ladies opening for you the door of the toilet.... very very fancy. This is Dubai, too.

1st destination: DUBAI

I finally arrived in Dubai, flying from London Heathrow (not a long flight - around 7 hours - just the time to have dinner and take a nice sleep).

Tanja (the amazing Tanja Veljkovic, from Rijeka that accepted to host me and take me around even if she has never met me before - thank you Tanja!!)

We had a fantastic breakfast (I have a picture that I'll post asap) in the Souk Al Bahar (the biggest mall in the World for surface), in front of the fountains and the Burj Khalifa (the highest building on Earth! all fully booked for the whole week to go up and take a look - the only possibility was to pay 400 Dirhan+80euro but we decided that it was not really worth). After a nice tour by car though different neighborhoods, we're at home at Dubai Marina, Diamond apartment. Just by the beach and we're ready to go and take a swim before going to the old Dubai. Yes, I forgot to write that it is nice and sunny here. There was a sand storm (it is the season) and it lasted only about 5 minutes. It is not good if you have your clothes hanged out drying :-). More from me later and hope that I'll be able to post the pictures as well very soon.

Getting ready to go....

I'm finally resting a bit after two hectic weeks at work and to finalize the details of my tour and I'm getting ready to go :-). My first flight is tomorrow and in a while I'll leave Europe for almost 3 months.

LET'S THE ADVENTURE START!!

Thank you Jarvis for making all this possible!

http://www.roundtheworldflights.com/