Trip to Thailand

Despite being a software consultant for over 4 years, I never succeeded in travelling abroad. Ofcourse there were very valid reasons but ultimately, my passport was clean and fresh. With domestic holiday trips equalling international packages in cost, I decided to dirty my passport before the end of this year. We decided to fly to Thailand.

Why Thailand? Well, we were thinking of Singapore/ Malaysia and other islands. But I was interested in exploring & doing something different much more than shopping for the season. Of the lot, Thai seemed close to my expectations, and proved to be one too. We took a couples package with Cox & Kings. There were a few glitches but otherwise I'm impressed with their professionalism throughout the trip. We shelled out 30K per head all inclusive. Package included 5days 4 nights - 2 days in Pattaya, 2 days in Bangkok and last day morning, we caught our return flight. (Shouldnt it be 4 days 4 nights then?) The hotels were very good with breakfast taken care of. So, we had freedom to explore by ourselves despite it being a package tour.

Our flight was at 12am and we took Thai airways from hyderabad. There were many newly wedded couples going on a honeymoon to the same destination. The seats in thai airways were pretty cramped for an international flight. Once the flight started, the feast began... I mean post 12, till 5 in the morning, I was timesharing eating and sleeping! That was my first experience with Thai food. I identified it with the smell of Odomos (mosquito repellant) cream. This strong smell is due to a typical Thai herb. Since the food was hot, it was easy for me. We landed at Suvarnabhumi airport and came out at about 6am.

The airport was huge and beautiful, so huge that we did take walkalators without option. Cleanliness is one thing that clearly makes you feel inferior outside India. I was even wondering how foreigners bear with us! I was dangling somewhere in between sleep and wakefulness and caught up a good sleep when we waited at the airport for the tour operator. We started off straight to Pattaya at around 8am. I have to admit, the van they used for transport was cool.

We checked in at hotel Baiyoke there. After some more sleep and a nice bath, we were ready for our vacation! We went to Noong Nooch village the same day. It is a beautifully landscaped tropical garden with lots of flowers, cacti and other plants and trees. Everything there was a part of the package. Cultural show included grandly dressed Thai women performing their classical dance, humorous mock kickboxing, episodes from wars with rajas on elephants, and demonstration of their martial arts. Next we shifted to an open ground for Elephant show. They had wonderfully trained elephants entertaining us with basketball, cycling, dancing to music, painting, bull's eye and finally elephant massage on volunteers from the audience! I appreciate the way these programs were designed to get audience involvement mixed with a good sense of humor! There were options to take photos with live elephants, chimps and tiger. Oh, I should have tried one with tiger!
The rest of the evening was left for us to explore the place. We had to arrange for a pair of slippers and shorts for next day's water events. We went through "walking street" (called so as no vehicles are allowed after 7pm). The entire stretch has discos, gogo bars and restaurants with flashy lights in reds, blues and pinks. It definitely is not a place for family but one can go around to have a feel of the place. One end of this street gets you to the waters and the other end to the shopping center. We enjoyed a good walk up and down this entire length. That was the most descent looking restaurant, just outside the walking street and with our stomach growling, we just barged in. I took tom yum (shrimp) soup and Thai fried noodles, it was yummy. A bit of homework researching on the net did help us very much on what to eat/ buy and where. On our way back we went into a small shop near the hotel for shorts. The lady inside was watching some thai serial (serious background music, a slow closeup of an actress - A typical sop serial.. You know what I mean) And I smiled, oh here too! She was so engrossed that she asked me to decide on what I liked and then call her. (huh?!)

Next day we got ready for the beach. We took the speedboat to Coral island. On the way we took up parasailing and undersea walking (we had to pay extra for both). I had already done parasailing but it was first experience for Maddy. Underwater walking was new to us. With a 30kg helmet on my head, it was hard to control & coordinate yourself inside water. We walked to some distance, we fed the fishes there and touched the corals, oysters, starfish and snail like creatures. The Coral island was beautiful with bluish green waters and white soft sand. Somehow I feel the guides there tricked us by making us pay for even the chairs and overlooked the glassboat trip which were part of the package but they werent part of our itinerary we were given at the airport. Anyway, we should have got that clarified earlier. We were then taken for lunch to an Indian restraunt. Ahhh... the food (esp the chicken dish) was simply out of the world.
In the evening, we went for Alcazar show. The grandeur, the colors, the magic... simply awesome. They danced for Bhumbaroo song in one segment. That was very sweet. Guess Indian tourists contribute a lot to their business!
At night we went to starbucks and Brew house. The dinner with live music was a first experience for me. Thoroughly enjoyed it. And the waitress there, the moment she confirmed we were from India, she started saying how big a fan of SRK she is and sent her "hi"s and wishes for him... cute kid! We wrapped the day with some bit of shopping in "Mike Shopping mall". It was a nice place for bargain. Now I think I should have bought some more instead of waiting for shopping in bangkok.

After two days in Pattaya, it was time for us to explore Bangkok. With the map in hand and roaming around in Pattaya for a couple of days, we felt comfortable with Bangkok as well. The third day we were taken for city & temple tour. It was a 4 hour business taking us around the main roads covering Golden buddha and Reclining buddha temples. Somehow they dint include the Grandpalace, WatArun & Emerald Buddha temples in this tour though these were very close to the places we were visiting. And since we were not so interested in going to a zoo and we also wanted time for shopping, we decided to dump the safari world and reworked our schedule. With some bargain with the tour agent, he asked us to pay extra for the change of schedule (which was absolutely ridiculous according to me and it's a different story that finally no one asked us and we too dint pay. May be he just wanted to keep us from asking for more on his end as we were compromising a lunch and a whole day program for just a 4 hours plan. Very smart!). Ambassador hotel was very close to Nana skystation. So we went for some shopping there in the night. Someone had recommended MBK mall (which was more like our bigbazzar and I didnot find it worth). Chatuchak weekend market was too far, so we ruled it out. We tried the skytrain this time. I liked the train service, but were not very sure about the ticketting system. We hooked up with an Indian group there who said they would take us along. With them confused over the right train, we too missed it... hehe! When we reached the hotel, our foot was crying for mercy with all the walk for the past 3 days. So we decided to treat ourselves with foot massage. I was very impressed with the very look of my foot after the massage. The fresh clean look lasted for a week. May be I should have tried the thai massage as well.. hmmm...

Next day we went for the temple of dawn, Emerald buddha temple and Grand palace. The palace rooms were closed for the weekend (Oh, we should have known that!!). Even then the place was pretty crowded with tourists. The guide this time was pretty good. He gave a lot of tips on what to buy where and dropped us at Indra market (for more shopping) and King Power duty free mall was also close by. You could buy clothes and leather handbags there. I felt Pattaya was a better place than Bangkok for shopping though (hmm... distant pastures!). The next day morning was our return flight.

It was a wonderful experience, that shall be cherished for a lifetime or may be until maddy takes me for the next trip ;)