Been 3 months ...

since the last time I posted my log, lots of things happen in Asia, particularly the tsunami disaster, and also travelled to Bangkok and Hong Kong during that period.

The disaster has really caught us, the few affected countries by surprise. For Indonesia, it's no surprise since they are in the earthquake prone area, but for Malaysia, well, we have never experienced such disaster as long as my memory tells me. But the sad thing is, the casualty could have been reduced as the earthquake was triggered in the morning at the big wave only hitted us in midday. That few hours could have made lots of difference but then, our seismologist would have never thought that an earthquake could be followed by tsunami, moreover, it was Sunday. MMS north branch did not read the earthquake report faxed to them by their HQ . Someone must have been sleeping during when they should onguard. As usual, we always take things easily (and blame the God).

My trip to Bangkok wasn't really a holiday trip. It was a company's training programme for new manager (but I'm just an AM) that was also participated by colleagues from Guam, Hong Kong, China and Singapore. Even then, we were allowed to sneak out for some fun at nite and managed to find a day for our leisure. The city was not comparable to KL. They do have LRT like us but the city was a bit dirty. Taxi was cheap, moreover, it's a Toyota compared to the 20 years design Iswara that KL is still using today (thanks to our homegrown car industry). The road surface was nice compared to KL but cables were a bit cluttered while in KL, we buried everything underground (at the expense of digging the roads and uneven surface). Beers and food were also quite cheap there. I would say that the cost of living in Bangkok was more or less similar to KL except maybe the car prices (but then we may also need to compared their income level and ours). Given a lower passenger car price environment, I would still rather stay in KL, somehow. The people look somewhat like the Malays in Malaysia. I have always suspected that the Malays were from the north and not the actual people origin here. But then, historically, they established their kingdoms here and claim that it was their land.