Thailand Koh Phi Phi - Paradise lost (almost)

I feel like being on a kind of a revival tour of places I visited 10 and 15 years ago in Thailand. One of them is Koh Phi Phi - a small little island that became famous after the movie 'The Beach' casting Leonardo DiCaprio in 2000 was shot in Maya Bay.

The bottom line is that the island has changed. And not only because it was severely hit by the 2004 Tsunami but more by the influx of day trippers from Phuket. The island is still beautiful but once you make your way to Maya Bay you can literally not see the sand but only the legs of tourist. I am here in the low season but lucky the monsoon hasn't arrived yet. How does it look in high season? The little bamboo huts I used to stay in years ago have vanished and are replaced by large developments - guess the tsunami came convenient for the developers arguing their cases. A lot of the traditional longtail boats have been replaced by overpowered speed boats as day trippers are limited in time going around the island. The main beach is filled with party hungry 'flashpackers' - the backpackers who stroll in with their suitcases and ipads - who drink cheap Thai whiskey out of buckets while watching some fire shows and dancing to some loud beats and ecstasy (or whatever). The good message is that developments are naturally restricted - well they still might grow in height - due to the vertical cliff formations. The other good things are that there are still no motorbikes allowed on the island and that there is no influx of girly bars like in any other Thai tourist destination. Wait a second, wasn't there just the too familiar 'Welcoooooooooome Massaaaaaaaaage' screams in my ears offering me the happy ending?

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Today the only visible traces of the 2004 Tsunami are signs for the higher grounds

Koh Phi Phi Don - the little island on the left is Koh Phi Phi Leh - the tsunami swept straight through the village.

2002: my accommodation 10 years ago...

...swept away in the 2004 Tsunami (picture: internet)...

...and replaced by bigger (and better?) places today.

Still nice today though...

...and if you look away from the speedboats you find the much nicer longtail boats.

...and then there are tourists - lots of them!

Sorry, where is the beach here? China in Thailand.

Thailand - Tempted for Changes

Guess you can see from the newspaper add that I changed from India to Thailand, where else in the world is a complete sex change only $500 more than a boob job? And local = foreigner price, only possible in Thailand. Are you tempted? I am not...

Jaipur - walking ATM and ancient Forts

My last stop in India and to be honest, I am ready to go now. I entered India in February the first time and came back after my stints in Bangladesh and Nepal. The second time I felt like a walking ATM and everyone wants to withdraw money. I am well used to it all but over time is wearing off on me. I shouldn't complain as I travelled around tourist central - Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra - but still everything seems to be a hassle. Once you convinced the rickshaw driver that you won't enter any shops or factories you enter the historic sites and suddenly every cleaning women wants to pose for pictures (and money), every guard wants to give you guided tours (for cash) and so on. I feel like a broken record and I can understand why they are doing it, but even though you take it with a smile, it is getting on your nerves. I was asked a couple of times if I am alone in India, my standard answer is "...you are never alone in India". Somebody wants something (mostly money) every time and privacy is a luxury of the Western world.

On the bright side Jaipur has some fantastic sites, the Amber Fort, the Pink City, the Jal Mahal and the Jaigarh Fort are the one I picked and I wasn't disappointed. The Amber Fort is the best maintained site I have experienced in India and it is just beautiful. Sitting in the midst of the desert on a hill top - only overlooked by the Jaigarh Fort - a full intact fort surrounded by high walls with all its gates, buildings, courtyards, gardens, harems... just imagine it hundreds of years ago.

Finally I am on my last Indian rickshaw to the airport and guess what, the driver tries to drop me at the terminal 2 rather than terminal 1 and plays dumm - just for some extra cash he would bring me to terminal 1. It couldn't be a better finale for India. Keep smiling and good bye India - I had a great time but I won't miss the rickshaw drivers - for sure.

Good bye my little rickshaws!

Palace in the lake - Jal Mahal

Entry to Amber Fort

Fully intact - the Amber Fort

One way to get there (for the tourists)

Only a dead pigeon is a good pigeon... full meal for the cats

...apparently not poisonous?

Jaigarh Fort above

Bollywood in Jaipur - singing and dancing with happy ending

Well I might not be in Bollywood's capital Mumbai but you can't go to India and not watching a Bollywood movie. It was crowded, very crowded and I had to get my ticket half a day earlier as 'Rowdy Rathore' is constantly booked out since it started 10 days ago. Just on the first weekend it made more than US$20 Million - considering that a ticket costs between $1 and $2 and that the entire production was less than $8 Millions it is a real blockbuster. I guess it is the sheer mass of people in this country. A guy started talking to me in the foyer and told me that India is giving birth to the entire population of Australia every year. Bollywood produces 900 movies a year to make them all happy. 

I was the only white face in the audience and some guys asked how I could understand the movie without speaking Hindi. Not a problem as they were hardly talking, but dancing and singing - or fighting with the bad boys. Every appearance of the heros received standing ovations. Besides that it was overly dramatic, long, loud, badly acted mixed with a simple (love) storyline. And of course the happy ending: Boy meets girl, boy meets bad boys, drama, drama, drama, tears, blood and the happy happy ending - in this case the girl adopts a child the boy finds and of course marries the boy. On the other hand the dance scenes were brilliant (if you like the music), the judges (if there would be any) would have said: "Great unison". Get 200 pretty ladies and teach them to wiggle their heads, to twist their arms and to shake their bums in their tight sarees in perfect unison like that - congratulations.

Most famous Movie Theatre in Jaipur: The Raj Mandir

Chandigarh - Crumbling Concrete, Grids and Free Forms

OK this one is for the architects between us...
Once you arrive you can see and feel the difference. Roads are wide, there is no traffic jam even at rush hour, the scale is made for cars rather than people, it is clean and there are a lot of trees. Ah forgot, there are - surprise surprise - no cows on the road. So, are we in Canberra? No, actually not, we are in Chandigarh - somewhere five hours by train North of Delhi. Unlike Canberra Chandigarh is not designed in circles around the parliament but in a massive grid with the capital sector to the North East. All of it happened in the 1950's when Le Corbusier (LC) got the job. Well he was lucky because the original architect wasn't. The original architect Maciej Nowicki died in a plane crash and his partner Albert Mayer didn't continue after his accident. So, LC came over to India with his cousin Piere Jeanneret and a team of architects. Besides the city master plan he built a couple of major buildings like the UT secretariat, the High Court, the Assembly, the Open Hand sculpture and some other civic buildings in the city and part of the Punjab University.

On the downside, it is a vast impersonal grid which seems to be out of scale once you are on foot. Distances are long and the urban spaces - there are plenty of them - are huge.  The spaces seems to be empty (have you ever seen empty spaces in India?) during the day and I only saw some activity during the evening hours.

Chandigarh seems to be aware of the architectural heritage and kept LC's office building to give the Le Corbusier Centre a home. Even to visit the working High Court and the Secretariat is possible once you went through the registration process and got some important stamps from various government offices. The visitors book showed a lot of entries from all over the world, are they all architects? Well, the friendly lady from the office said that most are. Who else would go there? Once arrived at the UT secretariat, I was taken by a heavily armed soldier onto the roof and was allowed to take some shots from up there - the haze and the pollution weren't helping. Interior shots were not permitted and is - considering the desolate and sad state - probably a good idea. The buildings in principle show their age, concrete is crumbling everywhere and Indian maintenance seems to take it rather easy. So it is time to visit as long it is still there, it is falling apart.

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source: internet

Concrete heaven

Old and New ?!?

The Assembly

Open Hand and High Court

Grids...

...and more grids.

Grid meets Free Form

Corbies famous roof garden - Indian style with tent for the canteen
cooks and their families who work in the top floor of the building

View from the Secretariat towards Assembly and High Court





High Court

City Centre Public spaces - vast and empty...

...but with activation of the ground plane via outdoor offices.

Crumbling concrete in the Architecture Museum

Panjub University Building - by Piere Jeanneret

source: internet

Once you had enough of crumbling concrete, grids, super grids and the occasional free form, there is the anti modernist rock garden by Nek Chand, also called the Junk Genius. It is one of the major tourist attractions in town and it was busy, very busy.
more pictures of Nek's garden

Another work of art - how are they doing them?