Bangkok, Phuket - Thailand

Thailand, one of the great touristic locations in South East Asia. Never expected that this country would be so awesome for tourists. If you are beach lover and sea food eater, then definitely Thailand should be in your list. First landed in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand. Indians receive on arrival visa and Germans need no visa for Thailand. The time difference between the connecting flights from Bangkok to Phuket was only two and half hours for us. I misjudged that one can get the on arrival visa in Phuket. But one has to get the on arrival visa after arriving in Bangkok.

There was a huge queue for this on arrival visa. I literally thought that we are gonna miss the flight. We finally made it as a last passenger just before five minutes before the take off from Bangkok to Phuket. Never had such an experience before with all the stress and hassle before boarding a flight. Phuket is definitely an island which one shouldn’t miss in Thailand. The city runs completely with tourist. One can hire a motor bike and explore the whole of Phuket. The Big Buddha statue situated on the top of Phuket is a must see location in Phuket. The drive to the top in motor bike is something one shouldn’t miss out. One gets a panoramic view of the city of Phuket and Andaman Sea from the top. Wherever you go in Phuket, you end up in one beach or other. Patong being the best one with many activities like surfing, jet skiing, speed boats, night life etc.

Another island which is near to Phuket is Phi Phi Island which is worth exploring. There are various ways of reaching this beautiful and scenic Island (speed boat, motor boat, ships). One gets a chance to do snorkelling with goggles to see the coral beds underneath the sea. What’s unique about Phi Phi are the mountain ranges present in the middle of the sea. The water is so clear that one can see the coral bed from the top. The ship ride from Phuket to Phi Phi takes about two hours in Andaman Sea which was breathtaking. The street side restaurants in Phuket are the more delicious ones which offer wide varieties of sea food. Honestly, I was surprised with Thai cuisines with vast varieties of sea food.

After exploring Phuket, we landed once again in Bangkok. As any other Asian city, Bangkok was highly crowded, congested and polluted. But the metro trains in Bangkok makes it easier to go to important locations. The most important place to visit in Bangkok was the Grand Palace. It takes nearly half a day to cover this grand palace. The emerald Buddha in the grand palace was simply awesome, the Buddhist monasteries was pleasing to the eyes. I was just wondering, Buddhism was found in India but never flourished in India but spread to Thailand, Sri Lanka, Myanmar etc.

Out of many Buddhist temples in Bangkok, the masterpiece was Emerald Buddha, Sleeping Buddha, Wat Phao situated across the shores of the river. One can explore important touristic places by travelling in boat. The giant wheel situated across the banks gives panoramic view of the city. The shopping malls in Bangkok are worth mentioning with gigantic skyscrapers, artistic decorations and pleasing entrances. The Swarnabhoomi airport in Bangkok was a masterpiece probably one of the biggest and largest in Asia. One can see the statue of Vishnu Bagawan in the middle with Devas and Asuras  churning the ocean shows the strong influence of Indian roots in Thailand.

What I was really surprised was the love and affection which the Thais have for their king. Everywhere one can see his cut outs and portraits; it seems he has done a great job in uplifting the nation to a higher level. I presume the country’s major economy is tourism besides exportation of rice to various nations. What I really liked in Thailand was the openness of the locals to accept western culture -people from western countries to roam around easily with Bikinis, kissing around, alcohol and night life which is not normal in Asian countries to accept it. When northern hemisphere is freezing with cold, definitely an ideal place for holidays on the beaches of Thailand.

Cheers,

Sathish Kumar S

Sri Lanka, truly Asia :)

 Sri Lanka country known for its bloodshed, civil war, thirty years of bitter experience between Sinhalese and Tamils , the LTTEs but honestly the country is simply stupendous which many of us wont even imagine in our dreams.  Had a great opportunity to travel to this Island Nation with my travel guru – my beloved dad. It was really hard for me to convince him to come for this trip. Apparently, it happened to be his first foreign visit outside India. Well I was pushing him to visit me in Germany but unfortunately it never happened. It was definitely an experience which every son would cherish in his life to travel alone with his dad at the age of thirty :)

The visa regulations are quite easy because country strives on tourism. Just online application has to be filled up and meager amount has to be transferred to them. We had an hour’s flight from Chennai to Colombo by Air India. Colombo is highly crowded, congested as any sub-continent cities. Some of the notable places to cover in Colombo are Parliament house, War memorial, Galle face, Lotus temple, Gangarama Buddhist temple, Premadasa stadium if you are Cricket fanatic.

Kandy is geographically situated in the middle of Sri Lanka. If one stays in Kandy, one can cover most places in the island. Temple of tooth (Lord Buddha) is definitely one of the picturesque and artistic temple. The main place which one shouldn’t miss out in Kandy is the Botanical Gardens, one of the largest in Asia. Was really amazed with the diversified flora which they have got. It was green green everywhere. The white budda at the top of the hill is a must see in Kandy. One gets a panoramic view of the city of Kandy from the top. The striking animal in Sri Lanka is the elephants. In any corner of the country you would see an elephant. The elephant sanctuary named Pinnawala is definitely worth going. One gets a chance to see around fifty elephants at a single stretch. It was too good to see the newly born small elephants. 

Unfortunately, we went at the wrong time. It was raining all along the day with strong thunder showers. The local mentioned the best time to visit the island nation is on April. Out of many Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka, the golden temple at Dambulla is certainly the masterpiece. One can climb up the mountain to see the lord Buddha carved out of the single stone. One gets a panoramic view of the small city of Dambulla. Near to Dambulla is the must see place called Sigriya.  Because of bad weather conditions, we couldn’t climb up to the top of this rocky mountain. 

Anuradhapura, the previous capital of Sri Lanka was a great place to hang out for a day. The city is full of various Buddhist temples with very old history and tradition. If you love Buddhism, don’t miss Anuradhapura. The gigantic Buddhist stupas in Anuradhapura were breathtaking. Could you believe, I stayed in Sinhalese house as a paying guest in Kandy? Interesting isn’t it that a tamilian stayed in Sinhalese house. 

One shouldn’t miss Nuwera Eliya if you are nature lover. The picturesque mountain peaks, the tea estate, the water falls piercing through the mountains, driving in the midst of those are certainly which will reside in my memory forever. It’s about two to three hours of journey by car from Kandy to Nuwera Eliya. The major attractions in Nuwera Eliya are the Horton Plains but due to adverse weather conditions, we were not in a position to explore those places. We had a chance to look at the tea factory, their manufacturing process. Also had a chance to go to diary farm which gave us the opportunity to see New Zealand cows.

After Nuwera Eliya, we went to another coastal city, Galle in the extreme south. The train journey from Colombo to Galle is something which will linger in my mind for long time. Since my father worked in Indian Railways, had a chance to travel in many trains, but this journey from Colombo to Galle is a pick of the lot. The tracks were laid just few meters from the beach. Never seen any railway line which was so close to the coastal line. Just wondering what would have happened to those people traveling in train when Tsunami came in. The Galle international stadium was in the heart of the city and one could easily see a cricket match from the Galle fort which is about 50 meters away from the stadium. I still remember the double hundred scored by Shewag against Murali and Mendis in this ground and squared the series in 2008.

The strange experience in this Island nation was the entry fees for the foreigners. In major touristic attractions, the entry fee for the local would be 50 rupees but for foreigners it will be Rs.3000 which is something ridiculous. I had the same experience in India in major tourist attractions, where foreigners paid 10 times more than the locals but to taste the same pill in another foreign land was not easy to accept. In some places bought some local tickets since me and my father looked like Sri Lankans but they asked to speak Sinhala but I spoke in Tamil stating I was from Batticola.  The moment they asked my ID, I had to buy the foreigner’s ticket: P I can agree to the fact that the country thrives on tourism, but if Sri Lanka are to attract tourists from India, they need to relax the price for SAARC countries. 

It was always my dream to explore this island nation right from my childhood and ever since I watched Cricket matches played by Jayasuriya, Muralidharan, Arvinda De Silva, Ranatunga etc. It all happened that I explored this wonderful nation with my beloved dad. Thanks to my good friend Kaja who helped me in all aspects to explore this scenic country and made my stay so wonderful and pleasant. Thanks to my new Sinhalese friend Supan and his mother who showed the beauty of Nuwera Eliya and gave us a chance to stay in their guest house in Kandy. 

What was more fascinating about this island nation was, one stretch you have hill stations, mountain peaks and within 200 kms one hits the coastal line and within 200 kms one sees the cultural heritage with Buddhist monasteries. I could see all three languages Sinhala, Tamil and English written in all information and sign boards. I wish Sri Lanka as a country to strive in all aspects in south east asia in the coming years after all the bitter experiences of what has happened in that country. 

Many believed, the former Ceylon would be an example of thriving economy after Britishers left the sub continent. But unfortunately, became the totally mismanaged country of the world with all bloodshed, civil war and petty politics. But I could realize that every individual in the island nation are glad that the war is over and hoping for a new beginning. Sri Lanka, must see island in south east asia and perfect location for holidays during winter in Europe.

Cheers, 

Sathish Kumar S

Cycling in East Coast Road, Chennai

I traveled humpty number of times on East Coast Road in Chennai but I never imagined one day that I would do cycling on Sunday morning with sun rise across the coastline. Thanks to Suresh who gave me the wonderful opportunity to do cycling on East Coast Road by bringing his own sports cycle and motivating all along the ride. Our target was to finish less than an hour covering 25 kms. Finally we ended up at 57 minutes. It was a beautiful sunshine with mild breeze blowing across the coastline. I never imagined that there are quite a number of avid passionate cyclists in Chennai. Hats off to Tamil Nadu Cycling Club which conducts all these events in a more professional and organized manner. Certainly a day to remember for a Chennai boy J

Cheers,

Sathish Kumar S

Business trip to India....

My long dream got satiated of making a business trip to India. Thanks to Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Hyderabad and Werum Software & Systems for making this to happen. The main motivation why I left India for higher studies to Germany is to increase the chance of doing trade relations between India and Europe. In fact the idea behind the studies by German Universities is to increase the trade relations between the countries.

Honestly, it was a special feeling to represent a German software firm for Indian giant Pharmaceutical manufacturer. It was the first time that I traveled with my German passport and my OCI card. It was just a formality in the immigration checks. After the business trip, my colleague Florian wants to see my city Chennai. We had a nice time together exploring Mahabalipuram, east coast beaches and typical South Indian dinner. Certainly an experience which will reside in my memory for long time!

Cheers,

Sathish Kumar S

Isle of Skye, Scotland

Scotland, Wales, England together form Great Britain, Great Britain along with Northern Ireland form United Kingdom. Had a great chance to visit Scotland especially Isle of Skye during our trip to London. We rented a car in London and drove first to Glasgow. It was about 450 miles (650 kms) from London and took six to eight hours with frequent breaks. It was bit challenging for the first half an hour because they drive on the opposite side of the road unlike Europeans and sign boards shows Miles instead of Kilometers.

The drive from Glasgow to Broadford (Isle of Skye) was breathtaking with wonderful landscapes. The mountain range along with beautiful lakes on a sunny day was simply awesome. Probably one of the best road trips in Europe next to Bergen to Oslo in Norway. Norway and Scotland are different landscapes where the mountains in Norway are bit high and fjords add extra beauty to it. Scotland has got some lovely medium high mountains and many lakes. Benn avis the highest mountain range in Scotland gives panoramic view of the lovely landscape. 

The movie Harry Potter was taken in Scotland and one gets a chance to see those shooting spots while driving to Isle of Skye. Eilean Donan castle is worth visiting on the way to Isle of Skye. The bridge connecting the mainland and Isle of Skye is breathtaking. Portree is the biggest city in the Island followed by Broadford where one could stay overnight. The round trip along the coastline was a great experience and Dun vegan castle is a must in Scotland. What one shouldn’t miss in Scotland are the boat trips and seals tour. 

 The boat trip takes you to the middle of the sea and gives a great chance to see the seals. It was indeed an experience which will reside in my memory for long time. There were quite number of sheeps in the middle of the road and driving amidst them was a different experience altogether. Thank god we had three drivers who could frequently switch so that nobody is tired. The return trip from Isle of Skye was to Edinburgh where we could connect our flight back to Germany. We were lucky that it never rained during our stay in Scotland. Definitely for nature lovers and road trip adventurers, Scotland especially Isle of Skye can offer lot of attractions. 

I must honestly admit that it was bit difficult in the beginning to understand Scottish but with time, you realize it’s yet another dialect of English. I heard from my cousin there were quite of lot of Scottish settlers in New Zealand. I could presume both the countries have similar landscape one in the northern hemisphere and the other in southern hemisphere. Scotland wasn’t that expensive when compared to London. All in all we all had a great time in the Island, drove around 1000 miles (1600 kms) and thanks to weather god; she was so kind enough for us for the whole trip. 

Cheers,

Sathih Kumar S

London bridge is falling down.... :)

 When I was conversing to a friend in US, I said travelling in Europe is lot of fun and I enjoyed travelling around twenty countries in Europe, his next question was did you see London. I explained United Kingdom doesn’t belong to Europe ;) They don’t use Euros, they ride their cars on the other side of the road, they don’t use Kilometers instead miles, sometimes yards and sometimes when they are bored meters.  It was always my childhood dream to visit England since I was brought up during post-colonial era reading about British in history books and learning English as the first scientific language in school.

I must honestly say London definitely didn’t disappoint me for the expectation which I had for it. The most striking feature in this city is the multi cultural aspect and every one out of three there is a foreigner. Thanks to my school friends Ramesh and B Sathish who were working in London for their kind hospitality accommodated us in their apartments. When compared to other big European cities, I must admit the transportation network in London is the most complicated networks I have ever seen with undergrounds, metros and different names they give to it. 

Had a great chance to satiate my childhood dream of going to Lords Cricket stadium, the Mecca of Cricket. The guided tour showed the different facets of the stadium, the statistics, the dressing room of the players, the exclusive media centre, the famous Lords balcony where former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly removed his shirt and waved to Andrew Flintoff as a revenge to his act in Mumbai. Thanks to my wife who had the same interest to visit Lords and I am so glad she can watch Cricket matches with me even if not to remember the statistics of Cricket matches. 

Another notable place to visit in London was the Swaminarayanan Temple in Neasden. Was totally amazed with the architecture of the temple, just shows an example of the vast Indian Diasporas in Great Britain. Thanks to Anita who stayed in London for a span of six months during her spinster time with British Telecom made our travel more easy and pleasantry. The other common places which are worth visiting are Buckingham Palace (money looted from different parts of the world are stored there), Trafalgar Square, Houses of parliament, London Eye, Tower bridge, Cruise on the Thames river. I must admit London is one of the really expensive cities I came across. 

The happiest moment for me during my stay in London was it never rained. Could you believe it? It never rained in London Lol. I was really amused with the number of Indian restaurants, theatres showing Indian movies and I can assure as an Indian you can never get bored in London. Thanks to Torsten, Angela, Lara (Nötzold family) who accepted our invitation to visit London along with us. All in all it was a great time in London. Had a chance to catch up with my old friends who are working now in London. Special thanks to Anita, Ramesh, B Sathish who made our stay in London most memorable and enjoyable. 

London must see city in Europe!

Sathish Kumar S

Project Management Professional (PMP) certification

Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is the industry-recognized certification for project managers around the globe. Project Management Institute (PMI) brings various project managers from around the globe under one umbrella to follow standardized methodologies in various projects. I was never a big fan of certifications ever since I started my career but got motivated when I intially had some project mangement training in my office. Initially started to browse through the concepts of Project Management from Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) which is considered as a bible for this exam.

This certification requires 35 contact hours regarding Project Management concepts. Thats where most of the training institutions make a lot of business by conducting boot camps and offering intensive training to crack the exam. I was searching for such boot camps which were conducted in English in Germany. There were quite a lot of instituions which offered PMP boot camps in English in Germany. I settled for PMSTUDY mainly because of the number of PMPs they produced, boot camps were conducted through out Germany and most importantly their policy of Money Back Guarantee i.e 50% of the examination cost will be refunded when one failed in the first exam and it continues till third attempt. PMP is a costly affair where the examination fees costs up to 555$.

 The boot camp gave me a chance to interact with Project Managers from diversified field where I learnt that the management concepts to be applied to various fields are pretty much the same with respect to managing resources, time, cost etc to successfully carry out the project. PMP exam mainly focuses on nine knowledge areas with respect to integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communication, risk, procument management. The exam also focuses on ethical concepts of managing the projects with respect to various cultures. The inputs, the tools and techniques and the outputs of various project management processes have to be memorized to the core but the exam always ask application of those concepts in real-time scenarios. So just mere memorizing can help to answer few questions but to crack the exam definitely one needs to apply to the situations explained.

Around 20 to 25% of the questions doesn’t relate to any specific areas from PMBOK but tests the general approach to problem solving in the real time scenarios. The best way to get prepared for the exam is to have a general reading of PMBOK (4th edition), then take lot of practise tests as much as one can. The exam is for four hours so its better to take a sample test by sitting dedicatedly for four hours to get used to the long streching examination process. Rita Mulcahy (Preparing PMP exam 7th edition) gives detailed overview and explanation of the concepts which gives thorough understanding of the various tools and techniques which one uses in project management. Attending boot camp is a nice idea when companies sponsor for it. Most of the companies I came across sponsor for this boot camp.

At the end of the day, Project Management is all about soft skills and managing and extracting the work from others. But but but Project Manager with technical expertise are really the ones who are more successful in the longer run. It was definitely a good learning curve preparing for this exam. I would definitely suggest to take this exam who wants to be a Project Manager or the ones who wants to learn various effective ways to manage the project. Please get back to me if you have any questions or doubts of how to crack this exam, I will try my level best to guide you to this process since its also utmost duty of PMIs to spread the knowledge acquired J I am so glad that I wanted to finish this certification before my 30th birthday and it happened. Thanks to my family who constantly supported me in various stages of this certification.

Cheers,

Sathish Kumar PMP J

Related Links:

www.pmstudy.com

www.pmi.org

http://www.oliverlehmann.com/

http://www.oliverlehmann.com/pmp-self-test/75-free-questions.htm#providers 

3rd Vattenfall Cyclassics with Sports Cycle

I never imagined when I took part in the first Cyclassics for 55 kms, and then it would continue for the third time. This time it’s so special because I had a chance to drive with sports cycle and the legs clipped to the pedals. My target was to finish less than 2 hours but ended up finally at 2 hours and 2 minutes at a rate of 27.6 km/h.  Thanks to Stefan, Rene and Suresh who provided all the motivation to try with sports cycle. The weather stayed absolutely fine with nice sun shine and good breeze. Probably next year will try to target 100 kms. 

Cheers,
Sathish Kumar S

Jule, Yvo's Wedding - Another Sachsen's experience.. :)

Recently I had a chance to attend yet another German wedding in Chemnitz, East Germany. This time it was the marriage of Yvo (son of my project manager Torsten) and Jule. This marriage was quite different from the marriage which I witnessed in Northern Germany. I could smell the fragrance of Sachsen’s culture in the wedding. As usual, the event was very well organized to the core with interesting games, talks, presentations etc. Yvo and Jule are relatively young at the age of 22 to go for a marriage in Germany society but if they have found their love, why not.

 Its worth mentioning about one interesting game which happened in the wedding. The bride was asked to sit in the chair and aunts of the bridegroom tore the wedding shirt of the bridegroom in to several pieces. Jule was totally shocked to see that because no body wants to have this punishment on a wedding day. But the real drama is, it’s not actually the wedding shirt which was torn in to pieces, it was simply other cheap dress which looked like the wedding dress was torn in to pieces. I could see a big sense of relief on the face of Jule after this drama.

The wedding took place in a nice cosy hotel with excellent dishes and deserts which was followed by a big party and dancing for the whole night. Thanks to Yvo and Jule who invited us for this wonderful occasion and of course the friendship of Torsten and Angela which I will always cherish to the core at any time.

Cheers,

Sathish Kumar S

"Ein herz für Kinder" - Run around the alster lake for 7.5 kms

When one has lived considerable amount of time in Hamburg, one can never forget the beautiful picturesque view of Alster Lake in their life. Recently had a great chance to run along the Aussenalster (Outer Alster) for a distance of 7.4 kms in 51 minutes along with my MBA classmates and my good friend Ratheesh. This event was sponsored by Allianz, the German insurance giant for a good cause “Ein Herz für Kinder” – Love for Children.

Thanks to Northern Institute of Technology Management who initiated us to take part in this event. There is another program running called “One of us”. It’s an initiative taken by all the alumni’s of NIT to sponsor one student from under developed or developing nation enabling him to study at NIT. Part of the contributions of this run goes to this cause as well.

It’s a great experience to run along the banks of Alster with perfect sunshine. The event was organized to perfection with lovely T-shirts, start kits, massages after the run and of course beverages. Hats off to Raghav, three year old kid who ran 200m race along with his counterparts. It was a great day of picnic near the Alster Lake. Thanks to my good friend Prbau who motivated me to practise after the work. It’s a good feeling to run for a good cause and simultaneously keeping an eye on the tummy ;)

Cheers,
Sathish Kumar S

Converting Indian driving license to German driving license

 

There were many questions from my friends of how to convert Indian driving license to German driving license. Hope this article answers some of the common questions which everybody has. When one has Indian driving license, one can use it for the first six months in Germany. But after six months of stay in Germany, one necessarily has to take German driving license. How absurd isn’t it? Does one forget driving after driving for six months? ;)

Mandatorily, one has to take theory exams by memorizing around 1500 odd questions. This exam can be taken in English. Please go to ADAC and make the translation of Indian driving license in German. Submit this translation certificate from ADAC to local transport office issuing driving license (Strasseverkehrsamt). When one has driving license in India, one need not take mandatory driving lessons. One can totally skip those lessons.

Just take maximum of five lessons to get a feel of driving in German roads, learn the rules and try it in Autobahn. After five lessons, register for the exams immediately because registering of the exams takes two weeks. In this meantime, please take five lessons. Make sure, you don’t take more than ten driving lessons. If you are lucky, you clear the exam in the first attempt; otherwise throw the dice till you get your driving license ;) But never miss the chance of driving in Autobahn in your life.