It's good to be back and the first thing I did upon reaching KL was to satisfy my cravings for a good bowl of wantan mee. Thai food was great but after a week of spicy food, my "prospereous" tummy need light Malaysian comfort food huhuhu.
I am so happy that I decided to go on with this Bangkok trip, within months after the trip to Jakarta and of course despite the political unrest in the city centre. Of course, I didn't know that I will join MOTOUR then ... however after the Jakarta trip, my gut feelings told me that I should go to Bangkok by hook or by crook. Eventhough I had to sacrifice Gawai holidays. Chieng Mai was like the icing on the cake. An eye opener, spiritual enlightenment and educational.
I felt very much at ease and more confident in carrying out my duties in Penang now after visiting these 3 cities. A lot of questions in my head had been answered. Like why are they such great tourist attractions, and how we can compete with them. Especially our heritage buildings over Thailand ancient cities. In fact I think that my trip to Bangkok and Chiengmai was like an "umrah" in ASEAN tourism. Concidently, Jett and Aey planned the trip in line with new MOTOUR tourism products like rail tourism, educational tourism and quite recently ... Parks and Gardens.
I am so so so grateful! You don't know how miserable I was not knowing where to start and who my competitors are! Furthermore, during my first week in Penang ... I received a comment from one former industry player ... "Why do they get a non-tourism person to head the office in Penang?" ... Itu tak termasuk the stress I get from Penang NGOs on tourism development projects in Penang Botanical Gardens and Penang Hill.
It's going to be a long entry if I cramped everything in one single entry. So I will take Norzah's advice to discuss it in few entries. One thing I can assure you is that my Thailand trip is quite different and perhaps some of places you might heard of but not widely promoted. So each entry deserve special attention.
Will update you later coz I am going to Solo on the 16th. Adios.