Thailand and Malaysia

Thailand and Malaysia

I am going to work through a couple of trips that I went  on – the first to Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand - and a whole country that I have always loved, not because of the cities and places, but because of the people..

The first time I was there was for Siam Commercial Bank, a huge number of years ago.  I was introduced to the Board by the Far Eastern CEO of the organisation that I worked for.  He had obviously done no homework on the Thai culture or the bank – so he made the odd mistake here and there, but was quickly banished to a chair behind the bank’s main Chairman – the brother of the King and therefore a demi-God.  It all went very well and I was accepted and given a great young man to help me with meetings and finding my way around.

I was to give the bank a plan to implement what they had paid for enormously, from Price Waterhouse.

It went extremely well, I helped them with a suspicious package and left feeling quite pleased with life.  My only problem was the lack of being able to say ‘goodbye’ to my chum, which I have regretted every time I think of the place.

I was able to stay over in Puket for weekends in a place that had just been built and was just so wonderful that it was difficult to go back to work.  Thanks to the resort and everyone who worked there, and then the dive manager who was fighting hard to make his operation work, it was a memory that will linger for as long as I live.  I also have terrific memories of the hotel in Bangkok, which was not luxurious but lovely and deep inside the city, the bars being inhabited by ex-pat locals, and the hotel restaurant by locals only.

Then there was another visit, years later. The client was the national income taxation authority of Malaysia.  It was a terrific client and one that I could never forget. This was training and for a non-security company in the UK. 

The client was based outside of the town so I was put up in a five-star golfing resort nearby.  It was lovely, so nice I took my wife to the hotel after the project, and to meet the lady who ran the authority.

The whole training team was made up of ladies of different ethnic persuasions, with just the occasional guy entering.  I remember the start up session however.  It was huge, as far as I was concerned totally unexpected and full of the Bank’s dignitaries.  All very well – except with absolutely no warning whatsoever, I was the main speaker and required to give a synopsis of the whole thing. I managed to get away with something short and the whole project lurched into life.  It was a grand affair, and I ended up with lots of happy memories.