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The not as interesting as Beijing 2008 TR!
, but the seat I did have turned out to be nearly as good. 20K is downstairs at the very back of the J cabin, which means it was rear facing (my preference for sleeping) and I didn't have anyone's legs to climb over when getting in and out of the seat. VT01 told me that BA allow you to pre-allocate your seat once it has been ticketed via their web site - I didn't know this. I did what I normally do with QF and called the BA call centre, the agent assured me that they would put my preference down for 63AK, but I don't think they did a thing to be frank! For some reason, QF international checking couldn't issue the BA BP in MEL, so I had to check in on getting to the SYD International terminal - the check-in agent told me there were no notes against my booking and there were no window seats available upstairs in any case... lesson learned - pre allocate my BA seats online!
) - a light prawn salad - very nice.
Reply With QuoteThe Hotel
Most of us from our company booked the Dusit Thani hotel - for two reasons.
It was originally built in the 70s and was the first 'tall' building in Bangkok - being 25 stories high. The hotel itself as very nice and had an incredible number of restaurants - this turned out to be something of a godsend as the Thai government imposed a state of Emergency on the second night we were there and my company's security department imposed additional security restrictions which included staying in the hotel in the evenings... As a result, we trialled a number(not all) of the in hotel restaurants and all were very good - very high standard of food and service, although (as expected) more expensive than external restaurants)
- it is one of the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) hotels, so there were free buses running to and from ITU Asia 08 (the reason for our travel to BKK) for us to use.
- it is on my companies list of approved hotels with negotiated rates.
We ate at the hotel's Vietnamese, Italian, Thai and French restaurants and I would recommend them all if you are prepared to pay a little more. If we were in Sydney, the hotel restaurants would have been considered cheap eats, but were expensive by Bangkok standards. The French restaurant on the top floor had great views of Bangkok and was the most expensive with a seven course set menu coming in at 2900 Baht - approximately AU$75, but the other restaurants had main courses for 300-800 Baht (AU$7.70 to AU$20.50). Wine was very expensive (being all imported), so I stuck with the local Singha beer most of the time apart from our final night slash at the French restaurants where we polished off a few bottles of Aussie wine with our French food.
The rooms were quite modern and had a refurbishment relatively recently (not sure when) which made the whole experience quite pleasant. The photos below are my room when I first arrived so it was still neat and tidy (but night time).
The Excitement
I arrived on Sunday night. Setup day at ITU was Monday. Most of us couldn't get into the event until the Thai princess (who was also an event sponsor) had completed her tour of the event (including our stand where she asked what we were doing in Green computing) at 12:30 pm. The delays in getting into the IMPACT conference centre meant we would be late getting back to the hotel. While we knew about the civil unrest in the south of Thailand which forced the closure of three airports including Phuket (HKT) which stranded quite a few JQ pax in BKK and HKT, none of us knew what else was going on at Parliament house elsewhere int the city.
As an aside: Recent interview with those stranded at Phuket have siad they weren't too upset - they got to extend their holiday by a few days and didnt need to pay any extra for it...
Anyway, Monday night in a dispute between the peaceful PAD movement who occupied the Prime Minister's office and pro-Govenment rivals, one person was shot dead and about 40 hospitalised. This prompted the goventment to declare a state of emergency which (among other things) give them the right to move the army in to try and 'settle' the dispute. In an interesting change from past behaviour, the military deciced to move in without weopons to separate the two (pro and anti govenment) groups. The commander in cheif of the armed forces copped a bit of flack form some Government ministers for not using more force, but I think it is a welcome change and shows that the military are prepared for this political turmoil to remain that and not turn it into a military coup.
We learned of the state of emergency on BBC World news on Tuesday morning and during our pre-show briefing, were given some more details. Later Tuesday morning, the security department form our company issued some additional guidelines for operating in Thailand. To quote the email
This made it a little difficult for us, since the Dusit Thani is litterally around the corner from Patpong. The Thai condition that prohibits gatherings of more than five people also made it difficult for us to do much with dinner outside the hotel, so that's why we spent most of our evening meals in hotel restaurants."...business travel to Bangkok should be postponed until the situation stabilizes. As the political environment remains uncertain, extra precautions are advised. Travellers in the country now should avoid all crowded public places, such as markets, public transport, night entertainment areas like Patpong, Nana Plaza, Soi Cowboy as well as the backpacker district of Khao San Road. Large gatherings, demonstrations, political rallies, and concentrations of military and police checkpoints should also be avoided. Travelers in Bangkok should monitor the situation and be contactable at all times."
The Event
ITU Asia really is a trade conference targeted at the Telco industry. I was at ITU World in HKG almost two years ago and it was huge. Everyone that would would expect was there and everyone I spoke to was related in some what to the Telco industry. At this event however, things were different. Ok, it's an Asia only event, so I expected it to be smaller. What I didn't expect was to have all and sundry industries coming to the event. In the first three days, I spoke to more people from other industries than telcos. I was fortunate in that the offering I had on my demo stand could be easily adapted for any industry, so I actually took some leads - but they were from the Military, Travel , Power Generation, Education and Building industries... so much for Telco specific event. When I asked why these people were here at a Telecom trade conference, they said they did not know it was a Telco event.... What a waste of time, effort and money. I don't think we will be doing an ITU event ever again.
As an aside: The next ITU World event (they are every 4 years with ITU Asia, Africa and Americas events in the intervening years) is set for Geneva in 2010. We wont be going to that one either and it has nothing to do with the Bangkok event. The Swiss government has permitted all of the hotels to put a minimum stay limit of 10 nights for ITU for an event that only runs 5 days. The hotels have also increased their rates by 300% for the period. These restrictions and prices would seem like me to be a good way to kill the event off...
The NEC stand at ITU had some interesting methods to draw crowds. Picture this... two Thai girls (Blue and white) 'dancing' to some dance music while a Japanese girl (the one in the Gold top on the photo) reads in her best Jinglish a boring script about what they are doing for next generation networks. Hmmm, I wonder what was getting all the attention... (Sorry for the quality - the phone camera is all I had with me)
In calling them girls, I am not meaning to imply they were under-age, just that they are quite a bit younger than I am ;-).
General Observations
Not a lot of words here, most of what I saw of Bangkok was from the bus to and from the ITU event... We did go out to dinner on the first night to a great Thai restaurant in the Patpong area called 'Mango Tree' really good food, good services and much cheaper than the hotel restaurants. We came across a couple of Elephants in the streets on the way back to the hotel (Sorry for the quality, but I only had my phone's camera with me). Their handlers were selling bags of peanuts to feed to the Elephants.
I bought some stuff for the mini-dots at the night markets on the way home including these incredible 'splat toys' - click on the photo to see it in action.
Next instalment: Arrival into Hanoi and the weekend
Originally Posted by dot 
