:-) As far as i remember, i havent been so happy in last n days. Might seem to be a childish post, but i want to write this one with all my heart!
I have never been a champion swimmer or anything. Infact, pretty ordinary one who can manage to stay alive if dropped anywhere! Have been trying to improve on my stamina, not that it is less, still swimming stamina is a lot different according to me as i have had a bit of experience in long distance running too.
So, as of 5 days back, before Saarang started, my state was that i could swim about 700 mtrs at max in one session at the pool. That too something like 100*7. I desperately wanted to improve it as i couldnt see the point in swimming 700 mtrs if i stop 6 times in between for catching up my breath! BTW, for non swimmers, 100 mtrs is a lot! And for pro swimmers, 100 mtrs is Nothing! I was midway so i guess 100 was fine! But just the day before i stopped swimming for Saarang, i swam 200 mtrs in a go 3 times. Also, totally i swam something like 800 mtrs that day. Was kind of happy but not happy as i am today! :-)
Today, i entered the pool, swam the first 2 laps very very peacefully and stopped. Stopped why? Well goggles gave up and there was water all inside them! Stopped. took some deep breaths, some standard breathing fundaes which i have learnt over the days, generally removed ear plugs and put them back, all arbit things! Hehe.. Then it all began! I checked my goggles properly and began swimming. This time i was determined to swim 200 mtrs in one go atleast, where i had stopped just before Saarang.
200 was over in no time, I was not feeling anything! Not a bit of tiredness, no paining of arms, no pain in legs, nothing! I decided to go for 300! 300 done too! Quite easily!
Then i was wondering inside the pool as to, what it should feel like to do a 500 at one go. The number which always interests me! Reason, well it is the distance which you need to swim in IITM Triathlon before going for cycling and running. Quite naturally, i decided to go for 500 after 300 was seeming negligible!
Ta, tada, ta, tada, ta... well i dont know how it is for other swimmers but this is the way my breath comes out inside water if i put some random sylables to the outcoming sound of bubbles! :-))
So, there i was singing this for myself and enjoying every single breath! Ta, tada, ta, tada, ta! This is something like 2.5 seconds btw (just to get the tempo right while reading)!
So, i was just singing and enjoying and i was not ready to stop at all! I was not feeling tired, i was not losing my breath, i was not feeling any pain, nothing!
Lap after lap i kept swimming after the first 300 was over. After 600, somewhere near the end of 600 rather, i thought, well this i 12 laps in a go! I am doing great! I will do another 2 and stop maybe. In all this i had not seen the time at all!!! Was kind of intereted in that too now! :D
After 700 i decided, well 750 is a nice number! 1.5 times the triathlon distance! :-) But, again as i was completing 750, 15 laps, i realised im on the other side of the pool! As in, odd number of laps! Lets not keep it odd, 1 more! Yup, 800 done! ALL IN ONE GO! WITHOUT A SINGLE STOP! 800 mtrs = somewhere close to 480 breaths inside the pool at my pace and rythm! :-)
Was feeling so nice and not tired that i could have done n more laps easily. But i wanetd to see the time desperately! So, finally stopped (kind of against what i could have done more) I see the Big Clock outside the pool and SURPRISE! I was expecting smoething like 25 mins or something. I was about 1.5 mins inside 20!!!! (well if i saw it right!)
Wonderful feeling! :-)
Then it was the routine 2 more laps very very slowly just to cool down the body and i returned a very happy person to the small pool! Floated there looking at the sky for about 3 minutes. Thought about the things going on in my life. Things which are good, things which are bad, things which are arbit! Everything! Actually wanted to do some leg strokes for free style but put ended up putting fundaes on Back Stroke to 4 guys who were completely short of Fundaes! Tought them how to do leg strokes for back stroke and i think around 6 i decided to pack.
The walk back to the hostel never has been so satisfying, never so fast (while coming from swimming) and never so proud! Was litereally dying to write this all down! Will call someone now just to talk and tell this! :-)
Is this what is called perfect state of happiness?! Is this what is called being indifferent to something which has happened at 5 15 AM on the same day! Is this what is called BEING YOURSELF!!! :-) :-) :-)
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Day Two, 23rd December.
So, after a nice and eventful first day of the trip i woke up the next morning at the time of our morning call at 5. Yes, 5 !!! Kesari Tours have this amazing way of organising things in the morning. They tell the previous night as to when they will be wakin us up in the morning and the timings thereafter are separated by 1 hour each. So, wake up call was at 5, breakfast at 6 and departure from Hotel at 7 this particular day. We had lots of things planned for that particular day and hence the early departure.
This was my first experience of a Breakfast in Foreign country and i must say it was nice too. There were something like 20 items on the table of which we could pick anything! Right from raw vegetables, salads to the very end like pineapple, orange juice running through a variety of like Fried rice, Chicken rolls etc etc etc. I must say these people did not seem to be much bothered by the wastage of food. Dont know why. Anyway, i was utterly confused as to what to eat and what not to eat. Finally ended up eating little bits of almost 13 varieties! Was really a filling experience :-)
We proceeded to our bus and the local guide, Aruni or "Tun", started giving us instructions as to what we were seeing around us and stuff. Was somewhere aroung 15 minutes ride to the place from where we were supposed to catch a Speed Boat to go right into the sea for Parasailing!
Speed Boat
I guess this was one of the star attractions for me for the day 2. We were already told that people above the age of 35 or so are not allowed to sit in front part of the speed boat as the boat ride was supposed to be quite a "jerky" one. It indeed was. Me and Manu cought the first 2 seats right at the front corner of the boat and it really was fun going at that speed for the first 2 minutes. But as we went away from the coast it turned into quite an "experience". The captain of the boat was proudly telling that the waters off the coast of Pattaya were quite rough and you can get a fair idea from what that dude is experiencing! Well, sadly enough, the dude was ME!!! I was completely flying out of my seat at occasions and landing hard back again only to be tossed up again due to the impact of the boat on water. As seen in the movies, speed boat indeed was about a foot or so above the surface of the water and it was literally bouncing to this height whenever it encountered a wave. Shortly after the ride began all my energies were concentrated on holding tight to the edge of the boat and i couldnt even take out my Digicam out from its puch to capture the wonderful Skyline of Pattaya city from the distance. All sitting at the back were laughing at the horrid time we were having at the front and i was determined not to let that affect me in the next 2 speed boat rides! I think i will stop here about the speed boat as it came to a halt near the parasailing site.
Parasailing!
This again was my first time at parasailing and i was the first one to stand in teh queue not able to resist the temptation of flying! Was given some ticket and something was written in Thai on my hand and i was standing right besides the parachute that was supposed to take me up. 2-3 strong looking Thai men held me tight and within no time i was strapped at my shoulders, chest, thighs etc with strong belts. They had the hooks which were directly going to be attached to the parachute. Ours was the first batch to arrive at that particular Parasailing spot and hence the parachute was quickly attached to my body and the boatman signalled Thumbs up! I noticed the speed of the speed boat he was in by looking at the fast decreasing length of the rope at my feet. Within no time i felt a violent jerk and off i went! It felt really amazing!!! After the jerk infact i didnt feel anything ODD going on with me. Was quickly into the air about a 50-70 feet from the surface of the sea and i was flying! They had showed me how to keep my hands on the ropes of the parachute to hold it just in case anything went wrong with the hooks. I was least bothered about it and proudly put out both my hands in Titanic pose. As i was the first one from our group to go up i could easily see others very vry excited and clicking photos and taking videos! Have quite a few on my comp too! :-D
Then within some 2-3 minutes it was time to land and again i didnt feel anything wrong going on. The boat steadily came to a halt exactly where it had started from and the parachute automatically came down nicely. The strong guys cought me instantly and i was literally hurried out of it. Then i saw that the next person in line was going to be tied to the same parachute immediately before it rested down. Again there were some Thumbs shown and off went the second guy!
I was then quitely out of the clowny looking straps i was wearing and it suddenly felt like my weight had reduced by about 10 Kgs!
I was next excited about the later part. Taking "profeessional" pics and videos of Manu and Aai as they were in line too. Baba was not too keen on the ride and was happily sitting and watching the fun.
I must mention 1 particular thing regarding Manu's parasailing. Her weight was too less and i think just to increase the weight, one more person from the attendants went up with her. The only difference was that he was just sitting on the ropes of the parachute without being tied or anything! Was a wonderful site to see this too! He was literally hanging with his hands when they came for landing and jumped onto the floor! Manu, the innocent one, very very excited after the ride didnt even know that one more person was sitting behind her! This somewhat diminished her enthu but nevrtheless she enjoyed it thoroughly.
Same with Mom too. She was short of words to descirbe the great Flying experience!
After parasailing we were given an option of either going for an "underwater walk" or to go and have fun on beach. The cost of the underwater walk was quite high though. Mom was saying i can go but i was anyway not interested in going down and seeing some arbit fishes or corals too. Just decided to pack it. Some 6-7 of us went ahead while most of the group was again "put" in another speed boat which took us to an arbit Island!
Arbit Island!
I seriously dont know why we were taken to that particular island as there was nothing there. Absolutely Nothing!!! Some childish boat rides like Scooter boat, Banana boat etc were the only things visible apart from a terrific density of people! I have nothing to write about this place as it was the most irritating part in the 10 days we spent aborad. I will just quickly thank the person who sold us a boiled Corn. It was awesome! Wish i had one more! :-D
From the arbit island after a wait for the people who had gone for underwater world we were again taken into a boat. This one was a slow moving one with glass as its floor. Quite easily one could guess what it was all about and the whole fun was lost for me. They took us to a calmer part of the sea and showed us some arbit max varieties of fish and corals. I hate both! Thankfully it was not more than 15-20 minutes of torture!
This time something new came up. They made us climb from that boat directly into the speed boat! Ladies wearing sarees had quite a bit of problem climbing up but ultimately they were fine. Again the 3rd speed boat ride began and this one was the longest one. This was right till the place where we had started from in the morning. This time i was determined to click some photos or videos in the speed boat and had taken out my camera before the ride began. Took some pics and videos of the approaching skyline of Pattaya as also the ride as such.
After about 20 minutes of flying around we boarded off the boat and said goodbye to this fabulous sea which was well and truely an unforgettable experience for all of us! It was even like a dream come true for Fatak Ajoba as he had always wanted to do parasailing. Guess what. He did it that day at the age of 69!!! Hats off!
Te ride back to the hotel was again one of the shorter ones of the tour and we were there at the hotel by about 11 30 or so. Then after about an hour all of us were neatly dressed in our formal clothes, unlike the "shorts+T shirts" in the morning, all set for lunch and then a visit to the Gems Galary!
Lunch was nice but again at the same restaurant we had it the previous day. After about a 30 minutes ride we were at the entrance of the Gems Galary. The programme was to first take a small tram ride which they arrange for everyone who visits to show how the Gems are explored and stuff. It was a disappointing ride with nothing being added to our knowledge about gems other than 2-3 new names of precious stones!
Then after te tram ride we were ushered in the factory, well they claimed it was a factory, but i dont think so! A female named Laura showed us around the place and the various operations like cutting, polishing etc etc that were going on. I was utterly bored but somehow the fact that we were next going to go to the Asia's biggest Gems Galary made me go ahead. After 10 more minutes we were in the Galary and i must say i have not seen anything like this before!!!
The Gems Galary was about 5 times the size of my hostel! There were all types of finished ornaments displayed there for sale! BTW, one interesting thing which happened here was that i didnt see a single Video camera looking at us. All were perfectly well hidden, needless to say why! Felt nice that i was proudly walking there with nothing more than 50 USD in my pocket! :-D
The prices were also very high of everything and we just decided to do window shopping there! We knew about the visit before but we had anyway not planned to purchase anything there so went about seeing all the items (Varieties) and were out after about 45 minutes.
After a complementary drink we went ahead to our bus.
The next thing coming was quite a big one! In the bus we were given an option of going for a Traditional Thai Massage or to go back to our hotel and roam on our own. We were there in Pattaya for the last 2 days and i must say that the maximum number of shops we saw were massage centres! This particular place is very famour for different types of massages they give. Foot massage, head massage, body massage, scientific massage, traditional thai massage etc all were there on the price list. We chose to get a scientific massage as it was adviced by our guide and was 1 hour in duration which quite well fitted in out tour schedule. So i was having in mind some massage like the ones i had seen in "Friends". Being made to sleep with all my clothes off and a nice female massaging me! Believe me this one was nothing like that! We were infact given a uniform for the massage!
The part that followed was an enjoyable one. The female nicely massaged almost every (accesible :-D) part of my body. Infact, 13 of us were there getting massaged together and we were seeing each other too during that time. It was nice to know that everyone was enjoying it. Anyway, i must tell the cost of this too. It was slightly on the higher side 300 Baht per hour. And 3 of us, Mom, Dad and me had the massage and ended up spending 900 Baht in 1 hour! Nevertheless, it was a good experience although i would not recommend it as it didnt seem worth 300 Baht.
From there we went to our hotel and then we were supposed to have 1 hour break until about 7 30. At 7 30 we all went walking for dinner and again it was nice indian food cooked specially for us. I also tasted some Thai food which i didnt like much, so the less said the better.
On our way back the previous day our guide had shown us a particular place called "Walking Street". As far as i remember he had told us that it is a place for shopping at night. Now, 2 of us, being the most active members of the group, Ankit and me, got interested to have some night adventures on our own!
Night adventure!
We came back to our hotel at about 9 30 or so, but Ankit and me were very interested to roam around a bit and obviously not sleep until 12 atleast. We took permission fom our parents, a little money with us and started walking towards walking street. What was to come totally was unexpected!
We had almost reached the place when we started noticing weird smells. Infact all kinds of animals were being cut in the kitchens of roadside restaurants for the night animals who were eagerly waiting for their dishes. From one point, we started seeing only Bars and nothing more. We just thought that this was some gully which was leading us to the walking street and kept walking. Soon the number of bars kept increasing and the crowd too as we went further ahead. The place was lively with Music, Christmas trees and foreigners richly spending on beer. We also waited at a particular bar to hear some band playing summer of 69. Ofcourse, outside the ar we were! :-D
Then we actually turned into walking street and to our wildest surprise ever we could see ourselves stranded in the middle of Dance Bars now! All sorts of females doing pole dances, lap dances and what not! Needless to say all the bars were overflowing with Drunk foreigners and we were feeling terrible to have come to such a place where we have nothing to do (Obviously!!!)
But Ankit was feeling nice about it after sometime! He actually said to me, dude im seeing such things for the first time. Only for his insisting we kept on going. There was not a single shop on the whole road other than Dance bars and prosti houses! There were females proudly standing outside them to welcome them in. There were some other male workers who were giving, almost making them read all the items on the price list! A guy cought me too and its better if i dont write what all was there for what prices! Terribly ashamed of myself we began our journey back and started noticing newer things now! We could see females dancing on 3rd floors in gallaries just to attract people and stuff. Again there was certain place where people were taking photographs of one female and she was quite easily posing for them in her scanty attire!
Anyway, we came out of the place within some 30 minutes and i must say i was very very relieved. Somehow going to such places without anyone knowing makes me feel guilty! I just came back to my hotel and told mom that we were very tired and there were nothing but dance bars there so we came back early. She didnt ask much and i guess she knew what had happened! hehe.. Anyway, gladly, the topic was closed.
And so also came to an end 1 more amazing day in our trip with me watching a Chelsea match in our hotel room. See you at Day 3, 24th December's wake up call. Good night! :-)
This was my first experience of a Breakfast in Foreign country and i must say it was nice too. There were something like 20 items on the table of which we could pick anything! Right from raw vegetables, salads to the very end like pineapple, orange juice running through a variety of like Fried rice, Chicken rolls etc etc etc. I must say these people did not seem to be much bothered by the wastage of food. Dont know why. Anyway, i was utterly confused as to what to eat and what not to eat. Finally ended up eating little bits of almost 13 varieties! Was really a filling experience :-)
We proceeded to our bus and the local guide, Aruni or "Tun", started giving us instructions as to what we were seeing around us and stuff. Was somewhere aroung 15 minutes ride to the place from where we were supposed to catch a Speed Boat to go right into the sea for Parasailing!
Speed Boat
I guess this was one of the star attractions for me for the day 2. We were already told that people above the age of 35 or so are not allowed to sit in front part of the speed boat as the boat ride was supposed to be quite a "jerky" one. It indeed was. Me and Manu cought the first 2 seats right at the front corner of the boat and it really was fun going at that speed for the first 2 minutes. But as we went away from the coast it turned into quite an "experience". The captain of the boat was proudly telling that the waters off the coast of Pattaya were quite rough and you can get a fair idea from what that dude is experiencing! Well, sadly enough, the dude was ME!!! I was completely flying out of my seat at occasions and landing hard back again only to be tossed up again due to the impact of the boat on water. As seen in the movies, speed boat indeed was about a foot or so above the surface of the water and it was literally bouncing to this height whenever it encountered a wave. Shortly after the ride began all my energies were concentrated on holding tight to the edge of the boat and i couldnt even take out my Digicam out from its puch to capture the wonderful Skyline of Pattaya city from the distance. All sitting at the back were laughing at the horrid time we were having at the front and i was determined not to let that affect me in the next 2 speed boat rides! I think i will stop here about the speed boat as it came to a halt near the parasailing site.
Parasailing!
This again was my first time at parasailing and i was the first one to stand in teh queue not able to resist the temptation of flying! Was given some ticket and something was written in Thai on my hand and i was standing right besides the parachute that was supposed to take me up. 2-3 strong looking Thai men held me tight and within no time i was strapped at my shoulders, chest, thighs etc with strong belts. They had the hooks which were directly going to be attached to the parachute. Ours was the first batch to arrive at that particular Parasailing spot and hence the parachute was quickly attached to my body and the boatman signalled Thumbs up! I noticed the speed of the speed boat he was in by looking at the fast decreasing length of the rope at my feet. Within no time i felt a violent jerk and off i went! It felt really amazing!!! After the jerk infact i didnt feel anything ODD going on with me. Was quickly into the air about a 50-70 feet from the surface of the sea and i was flying! They had showed me how to keep my hands on the ropes of the parachute to hold it just in case anything went wrong with the hooks. I was least bothered about it and proudly put out both my hands in Titanic pose. As i was the first one from our group to go up i could easily see others very vry excited and clicking photos and taking videos! Have quite a few on my comp too! :-D
Then within some 2-3 minutes it was time to land and again i didnt feel anything wrong going on. The boat steadily came to a halt exactly where it had started from and the parachute automatically came down nicely. The strong guys cought me instantly and i was literally hurried out of it. Then i saw that the next person in line was going to be tied to the same parachute immediately before it rested down. Again there were some Thumbs shown and off went the second guy!
I was then quitely out of the clowny looking straps i was wearing and it suddenly felt like my weight had reduced by about 10 Kgs!
I was next excited about the later part. Taking "profeessional" pics and videos of Manu and Aai as they were in line too. Baba was not too keen on the ride and was happily sitting and watching the fun.
I must mention 1 particular thing regarding Manu's parasailing. Her weight was too less and i think just to increase the weight, one more person from the attendants went up with her. The only difference was that he was just sitting on the ropes of the parachute without being tied or anything! Was a wonderful site to see this too! He was literally hanging with his hands when they came for landing and jumped onto the floor! Manu, the innocent one, very very excited after the ride didnt even know that one more person was sitting behind her! This somewhat diminished her enthu but nevrtheless she enjoyed it thoroughly.
Same with Mom too. She was short of words to descirbe the great Flying experience!
After parasailing we were given an option of either going for an "underwater walk" or to go and have fun on beach. The cost of the underwater walk was quite high though. Mom was saying i can go but i was anyway not interested in going down and seeing some arbit fishes or corals too. Just decided to pack it. Some 6-7 of us went ahead while most of the group was again "put" in another speed boat which took us to an arbit Island!
Arbit Island!
I seriously dont know why we were taken to that particular island as there was nothing there. Absolutely Nothing!!! Some childish boat rides like Scooter boat, Banana boat etc were the only things visible apart from a terrific density of people! I have nothing to write about this place as it was the most irritating part in the 10 days we spent aborad. I will just quickly thank the person who sold us a boiled Corn. It was awesome! Wish i had one more! :-D
From the arbit island after a wait for the people who had gone for underwater world we were again taken into a boat. This one was a slow moving one with glass as its floor. Quite easily one could guess what it was all about and the whole fun was lost for me. They took us to a calmer part of the sea and showed us some arbit max varieties of fish and corals. I hate both! Thankfully it was not more than 15-20 minutes of torture!
This time something new came up. They made us climb from that boat directly into the speed boat! Ladies wearing sarees had quite a bit of problem climbing up but ultimately they were fine. Again the 3rd speed boat ride began and this one was the longest one. This was right till the place where we had started from in the morning. This time i was determined to click some photos or videos in the speed boat and had taken out my camera before the ride began. Took some pics and videos of the approaching skyline of Pattaya as also the ride as such.
After about 20 minutes of flying around we boarded off the boat and said goodbye to this fabulous sea which was well and truely an unforgettable experience for all of us! It was even like a dream come true for Fatak Ajoba as he had always wanted to do parasailing. Guess what. He did it that day at the age of 69!!! Hats off!
Te ride back to the hotel was again one of the shorter ones of the tour and we were there at the hotel by about 11 30 or so. Then after about an hour all of us were neatly dressed in our formal clothes, unlike the "shorts+T shirts" in the morning, all set for lunch and then a visit to the Gems Galary!
Lunch was nice but again at the same restaurant we had it the previous day. After about a 30 minutes ride we were at the entrance of the Gems Galary. The programme was to first take a small tram ride which they arrange for everyone who visits to show how the Gems are explored and stuff. It was a disappointing ride with nothing being added to our knowledge about gems other than 2-3 new names of precious stones!
Then after te tram ride we were ushered in the factory, well they claimed it was a factory, but i dont think so! A female named Laura showed us around the place and the various operations like cutting, polishing etc etc that were going on. I was utterly bored but somehow the fact that we were next going to go to the Asia's biggest Gems Galary made me go ahead. After 10 more minutes we were in the Galary and i must say i have not seen anything like this before!!!
The Gems Galary was about 5 times the size of my hostel! There were all types of finished ornaments displayed there for sale! BTW, one interesting thing which happened here was that i didnt see a single Video camera looking at us. All were perfectly well hidden, needless to say why! Felt nice that i was proudly walking there with nothing more than 50 USD in my pocket! :-D
The prices were also very high of everything and we just decided to do window shopping there! We knew about the visit before but we had anyway not planned to purchase anything there so went about seeing all the items (Varieties) and were out after about 45 minutes.
After a complementary drink we went ahead to our bus.
The next thing coming was quite a big one! In the bus we were given an option of going for a Traditional Thai Massage or to go back to our hotel and roam on our own. We were there in Pattaya for the last 2 days and i must say that the maximum number of shops we saw were massage centres! This particular place is very famour for different types of massages they give. Foot massage, head massage, body massage, scientific massage, traditional thai massage etc all were there on the price list. We chose to get a scientific massage as it was adviced by our guide and was 1 hour in duration which quite well fitted in out tour schedule. So i was having in mind some massage like the ones i had seen in "Friends". Being made to sleep with all my clothes off and a nice female massaging me! Believe me this one was nothing like that! We were infact given a uniform for the massage!
The part that followed was an enjoyable one. The female nicely massaged almost every (accesible :-D) part of my body. Infact, 13 of us were there getting massaged together and we were seeing each other too during that time. It was nice to know that everyone was enjoying it. Anyway, i must tell the cost of this too. It was slightly on the higher side 300 Baht per hour. And 3 of us, Mom, Dad and me had the massage and ended up spending 900 Baht in 1 hour! Nevertheless, it was a good experience although i would not recommend it as it didnt seem worth 300 Baht.
From there we went to our hotel and then we were supposed to have 1 hour break until about 7 30. At 7 30 we all went walking for dinner and again it was nice indian food cooked specially for us. I also tasted some Thai food which i didnt like much, so the less said the better.
On our way back the previous day our guide had shown us a particular place called "Walking Street". As far as i remember he had told us that it is a place for shopping at night. Now, 2 of us, being the most active members of the group, Ankit and me, got interested to have some night adventures on our own!
Night adventure!
We came back to our hotel at about 9 30 or so, but Ankit and me were very interested to roam around a bit and obviously not sleep until 12 atleast. We took permission fom our parents, a little money with us and started walking towards walking street. What was to come totally was unexpected!
We had almost reached the place when we started noticing weird smells. Infact all kinds of animals were being cut in the kitchens of roadside restaurants for the night animals who were eagerly waiting for their dishes. From one point, we started seeing only Bars and nothing more. We just thought that this was some gully which was leading us to the walking street and kept walking. Soon the number of bars kept increasing and the crowd too as we went further ahead. The place was lively with Music, Christmas trees and foreigners richly spending on beer. We also waited at a particular bar to hear some band playing summer of 69. Ofcourse, outside the ar we were! :-D
Then we actually turned into walking street and to our wildest surprise ever we could see ourselves stranded in the middle of Dance Bars now! All sorts of females doing pole dances, lap dances and what not! Needless to say all the bars were overflowing with Drunk foreigners and we were feeling terrible to have come to such a place where we have nothing to do (Obviously!!!)
But Ankit was feeling nice about it after sometime! He actually said to me, dude im seeing such things for the first time. Only for his insisting we kept on going. There was not a single shop on the whole road other than Dance bars and prosti houses! There were females proudly standing outside them to welcome them in. There were some other male workers who were giving, almost making them read all the items on the price list! A guy cought me too and its better if i dont write what all was there for what prices! Terribly ashamed of myself we began our journey back and started noticing newer things now! We could see females dancing on 3rd floors in gallaries just to attract people and stuff. Again there was certain place where people were taking photographs of one female and she was quite easily posing for them in her scanty attire!
Anyway, we came out of the place within some 30 minutes and i must say i was very very relieved. Somehow going to such places without anyone knowing makes me feel guilty! I just came back to my hotel and told mom that we were very tired and there were nothing but dance bars there so we came back early. She didnt ask much and i guess she knew what had happened! hehe.. Anyway, gladly, the topic was closed.
And so also came to an end 1 more amazing day in our trip with me watching a Chelsea match in our hotel room. See you at Day 3, 24th December's wake up call. Good night! :-)
Friday, January 5, 2007
Day One, 22nd December.
So, we had just left Mumbai Airport on day zero, btw i call it day "zero" because according to our tour programme it was not part of our tour and our tour really started with departure at 11 50 PM on 21st December which was 22nd December for Kesari right from the start. Anyways, so we left and this was my first International Flight experience. Tried to compare with some Domestic flights i had flown by. Suddenly seats seemed to be slightly more spacious, people more decent and ofcourse Air hostesses YOUNGER! ;-)
I had heard about international travels from several friends saying it was boring and all that. Nothing too see for n hours and stuff. But i must say, i enjoyed every bit of it!
It was a really nice thing which Thai Airways projects on the main screen( I dont know if its the same in other airlines too). They were showing many technical parts of the flight. As in, altitude, temperature of surrounding air, ground speed, head/tail wind speed. It was nice to brush up the simple formulae i had learnt in my first year and actually check the Mach number and stuff from what i remembered about A 330-600. :-D Almost exact Mach number thats specified on any website and stuff. Felt great!
Soon we were served with drinks after about 20-30 minutes. Writing about this as there is a kissa which Dad claims is true although all 3 of us say he is just hiding what actually happened!
Mom, well, doesnt like to see dad drink and is generally very much against it even if its done when she is not seeing. And, i took orange juice, Manu took Apple juice and Mom took something like Sprite. On the seat ahead of us, Vaidya kaku had taken red wine! Mom was shocked and was almost staring at what and how and all that! And then all we noticed the next moment was a can of Singha Beer on dads table!!! Mom, obviously asked what is going on and dads claim was that he asked for 7 Up and the airhostess mistook it for Singha!! Hilarious.. still dad claims so. Meanwhile Mom had her say in the argument too. She said she heard dad saying 7 Up but he was pointing towards Singha beer can while saying it "purposely". So the battle still continues in our house as to the airhostess, well her name was Narintip, was right or wrong!
Anyway, i showed to mom perhaps what would have pacified her a bit. On the Singha beer can, a sentence saying 6% alcohol by volume. She just smiled at me. I gladly accepted it and quickly had 2 sips before she could even stop me. The great Beer tasting saga was over for me and i must say, I WILL NEVER DRINK SINGHA BEER IN MY LIFE! Hated the taste!
Then there were a few more things which i will just mention and not write in detail. I was awake all the flight and had read the magazine of Thai Airways almost so deeply that i can remember that the Channel schedule was on page 83 and duty free shop addresses were from pages 15 to 20!!! Manu had a hard time sleeping with she claiming that the seat and the backrest and all that was just too inappropriate for her "tiny" size. She even had plans of filling up the Thai complaints form!
Finally at 5:05 local time we arrived at Bangkok Airport and it was a hard time for some parents to wake up small small kids! First impression of the airport.. GODgiri. Had read about the new Bangkok "Suvarnabhumi" airport in Thai Airways magazine and that it had opened recently on 28th Sept 2006 and stuff. First thing i tried to look was the much takled about ATC tower which is the tallest ATC tower in the world. Found it ultimately after i left the airport :-)
Whole Airport was very brightly lit and there were 100's of counters at every place. "Travellators" was a first time experience for me and it was nice too! Looking at our own reflections in glasses alongside seeming like running and stuff was enjoyable. BTW, Bangkok International Airport has around 500 check in counters! That i guess gives an idea of the magnitude of the whole affair. I think we would have walked through about 1.5 kms on travellators and climbed up and down about 4 floors when we finally reached immigration counters.
Immigration first time for me was a kissa kind of! From what i know, and from what is followed actually too, we are required to give our passport, immigration form and if asked our boarding pass at the immigration counter. The dude sitting on the counter was a trainee and he asked me to produce my flight ticket!!! I was like, what the hell and managed to say "we are not supposed to show it right?" He gave m one sad look and i came to know he was not letting me in without it. Quietly left the counter and got back with the flight ticket which were in my moms purse and she had already cleared immigration and was on the other side, ofcourse without tickets. Then just felt for a moment that people are staring at me and stuff, well i still think thats imaginary too! hahaha.. Anyways, it was over and we had a half an hour break in which we were supposed to collect our luggage and freshn up for a 2 hour Bus journey from Bangkok Airport to Nong Nooch Village...
Then we all proceeded behind our guide to our bus and it was a really nice and comfortable one to travel in. All buses there meant for tourists were same. Nice ones and about 3 times more superior than a Neeta Volvo! Bangkok's first glimpses were too impressive. There were about a dozen flyovers near the airport and i did not feel surprised when the guide announced the next moment that Bangkok is called the Bridge City. There are 100s of them in the city and outskirts!
We were on our journey to Nong Nooch village and like every Indian would obviously do, i was aprreciating the cleanliness and the condition of the roads! Every single road was of the level of Pune-Mumbai expressway. No wonder we were going at speeds of about 110 kmph in that bus. Had a short stop for breakfast at Mc Donalds midway and reached Nong Nooch village sometime. well, i dont remember the time!
Was a beautiful place of about 600 acres and first thing that came to my mind was IITM is bigger than that! hehe.. still, Nong Nooch was a typical tourist spot with all the basic things which the tourists love to see. Huge lush green lawns, dozens of flower gardens, butterfly and bird parks as also eating spots!!
We were there to see a typical thai cultural show and i just kept my fingers crossed that the show should not be longer than half an hour! I just hate the word Cultural! For me, it is very hard to appreciate things lik cultural shows, adivasi dances, and ofcourse Modern art!
Anyway, the show was about half an hour length exactly and it was OK OK.. i obviously didnt appreciate the dances and acting but the sets on stage and also the costumes were just wonderful. It was dark in there and my camera battery almost got drained with the number of flashes i managed to click.
Next we went "quickly" to elephant show. Quickly - thats because many shows in Thailand are such that you get seats on first come basis. So as our guide had told, we almost ran to the elephant show to catch good seats. Managed to do so and i must say, Elephant show was the highlight of the first day!
Elephants doing almost all kinds of things. Right from a baby elephant to an old one. They played dart, football, basketball etc. Cycled around in the arena and gladly devoured almost anything that the crowd was feeding them. Highlight within the show for me was the paintings made by elephants during the show! They were just awesome. Purposely enough, they were done on plain white t shirts which were sold later in the crowd. I can remember everything that the elephants painted and wondered how they teach animals to do such things!
Then there was a rock and roll dance of the elephants which the kids thoroughly enjoyed. Then there were some idiotic things like the biggest elephant massaging the back of volunteers from the crowd with his leg and stuff! I hate such things. What if the elephant accidentally steps on me! hehe...
After the show we then went to botanical garden and then to our Bus. It was very hot by that time and we were glad to get inside the bus. After about 1 hour journey we reached our first overnight stay hotel. Hotel Central Pattaya, Pattaya. Was a kind of small place from the outside but a nice hotel from inside. Then we were having our first "rest" of the trip till about 7 o clock after we had lunch at about 2 in the afternoon. Needless to say i slept as did everyone.
Went for dinner with the group again and after dinner we were taken to the world famous Alcazar show. This was a total paisa wasool show as i would call it. Reason, well it was a slowish cabaret or whatever one chooses to call it! Again the sets, the backdrops and the costumes were just too awesome. Mom didnt appreciate them much as also the show but i guess you need to be age 30 or less to appreciate such things! As i can remember, i had said bhari dresses hote na tyanche and mom replying kay kapde re baba tyanche! hahaha...
Anyway i enjoyed every part of the show as it was individual + group dances alternately. When an individual performance would be going on the backstage people wold be arranging for the next group dance and the individual performer actually performing in front of a curtain! That was one thing i had never seen before and appreciated it very much. So much time is saved this way! The drink served during the show was also nice and i must say i came across the most weird shape of icecube, well not a cube. In my drink i found an elongated toroidal shaped ice piece which i tried to recollect whether i had read its name anywhere but no luck! It was just a more than weird shape!
After the show we were again taken back in our bus to the hotel and we were told that the wake up call next morning was going to be 5 30, breakfast 6 30 and departure 7 30. I was already scared! 5 30???
BTW there are so many more things to write about the entire day as the tourist buses have PA system in them. Almost throughout the entire time we spend in the bus the guide is constantly telling what we are seeing on our right and left sides. That was again a new experience for me and i must say i enjoyed this sight seeing more than any of the actual shows/places we were supposed to see.
I guess i will stop here with Day 1, 22nd December as it was time to say Good night to newly formed friends. :-)
To be continued in Day Two, 23rd December.
I had heard about international travels from several friends saying it was boring and all that. Nothing too see for n hours and stuff. But i must say, i enjoyed every bit of it!
It was a really nice thing which Thai Airways projects on the main screen( I dont know if its the same in other airlines too). They were showing many technical parts of the flight. As in, altitude, temperature of surrounding air, ground speed, head/tail wind speed. It was nice to brush up the simple formulae i had learnt in my first year and actually check the Mach number and stuff from what i remembered about A 330-600. :-D Almost exact Mach number thats specified on any website and stuff. Felt great!
Soon we were served with drinks after about 20-30 minutes. Writing about this as there is a kissa which Dad claims is true although all 3 of us say he is just hiding what actually happened!
Mom, well, doesnt like to see dad drink and is generally very much against it even if its done when she is not seeing. And, i took orange juice, Manu took Apple juice and Mom took something like Sprite. On the seat ahead of us, Vaidya kaku had taken red wine! Mom was shocked and was almost staring at what and how and all that! And then all we noticed the next moment was a can of Singha Beer on dads table!!! Mom, obviously asked what is going on and dads claim was that he asked for 7 Up and the airhostess mistook it for Singha!! Hilarious.. still dad claims so. Meanwhile Mom had her say in the argument too. She said she heard dad saying 7 Up but he was pointing towards Singha beer can while saying it "purposely". So the battle still continues in our house as to the airhostess, well her name was Narintip, was right or wrong!
Anyway, i showed to mom perhaps what would have pacified her a bit. On the Singha beer can, a sentence saying 6% alcohol by volume. She just smiled at me. I gladly accepted it and quickly had 2 sips before she could even stop me. The great Beer tasting saga was over for me and i must say, I WILL NEVER DRINK SINGHA BEER IN MY LIFE! Hated the taste!
Then there were a few more things which i will just mention and not write in detail. I was awake all the flight and had read the magazine of Thai Airways almost so deeply that i can remember that the Channel schedule was on page 83 and duty free shop addresses were from pages 15 to 20!!! Manu had a hard time sleeping with she claiming that the seat and the backrest and all that was just too inappropriate for her "tiny" size. She even had plans of filling up the Thai complaints form!
Finally at 5:05 local time we arrived at Bangkok Airport and it was a hard time for some parents to wake up small small kids! First impression of the airport.. GODgiri. Had read about the new Bangkok "Suvarnabhumi" airport in Thai Airways magazine and that it had opened recently on 28th Sept 2006 and stuff. First thing i tried to look was the much takled about ATC tower which is the tallest ATC tower in the world. Found it ultimately after i left the airport :-)
Whole Airport was very brightly lit and there were 100's of counters at every place. "Travellators" was a first time experience for me and it was nice too! Looking at our own reflections in glasses alongside seeming like running and stuff was enjoyable. BTW, Bangkok International Airport has around 500 check in counters! That i guess gives an idea of the magnitude of the whole affair. I think we would have walked through about 1.5 kms on travellators and climbed up and down about 4 floors when we finally reached immigration counters.
Immigration first time for me was a kissa kind of! From what i know, and from what is followed actually too, we are required to give our passport, immigration form and if asked our boarding pass at the immigration counter. The dude sitting on the counter was a trainee and he asked me to produce my flight ticket!!! I was like, what the hell and managed to say "we are not supposed to show it right?" He gave m one sad look and i came to know he was not letting me in without it. Quietly left the counter and got back with the flight ticket which were in my moms purse and she had already cleared immigration and was on the other side, ofcourse without tickets. Then just felt for a moment that people are staring at me and stuff, well i still think thats imaginary too! hahaha.. Anyways, it was over and we had a half an hour break in which we were supposed to collect our luggage and freshn up for a 2 hour Bus journey from Bangkok Airport to Nong Nooch Village...
Then we all proceeded behind our guide to our bus and it was a really nice and comfortable one to travel in. All buses there meant for tourists were same. Nice ones and about 3 times more superior than a Neeta Volvo! Bangkok's first glimpses were too impressive. There were about a dozen flyovers near the airport and i did not feel surprised when the guide announced the next moment that Bangkok is called the Bridge City. There are 100s of them in the city and outskirts!
We were on our journey to Nong Nooch village and like every Indian would obviously do, i was aprreciating the cleanliness and the condition of the roads! Every single road was of the level of Pune-Mumbai expressway. No wonder we were going at speeds of about 110 kmph in that bus. Had a short stop for breakfast at Mc Donalds midway and reached Nong Nooch village sometime. well, i dont remember the time!
Was a beautiful place of about 600 acres and first thing that came to my mind was IITM is bigger than that! hehe.. still, Nong Nooch was a typical tourist spot with all the basic things which the tourists love to see. Huge lush green lawns, dozens of flower gardens, butterfly and bird parks as also eating spots!!
We were there to see a typical thai cultural show and i just kept my fingers crossed that the show should not be longer than half an hour! I just hate the word Cultural! For me, it is very hard to appreciate things lik cultural shows, adivasi dances, and ofcourse Modern art!
Anyway, the show was about half an hour length exactly and it was OK OK.. i obviously didnt appreciate the dances and acting but the sets on stage and also the costumes were just wonderful. It was dark in there and my camera battery almost got drained with the number of flashes i managed to click.
Next we went "quickly" to elephant show. Quickly - thats because many shows in Thailand are such that you get seats on first come basis. So as our guide had told, we almost ran to the elephant show to catch good seats. Managed to do so and i must say, Elephant show was the highlight of the first day!
Elephants doing almost all kinds of things. Right from a baby elephant to an old one. They played dart, football, basketball etc. Cycled around in the arena and gladly devoured almost anything that the crowd was feeding them. Highlight within the show for me was the paintings made by elephants during the show! They were just awesome. Purposely enough, they were done on plain white t shirts which were sold later in the crowd. I can remember everything that the elephants painted and wondered how they teach animals to do such things!
Then there was a rock and roll dance of the elephants which the kids thoroughly enjoyed. Then there were some idiotic things like the biggest elephant massaging the back of volunteers from the crowd with his leg and stuff! I hate such things. What if the elephant accidentally steps on me! hehe...
After the show we then went to botanical garden and then to our Bus. It was very hot by that time and we were glad to get inside the bus. After about 1 hour journey we reached our first overnight stay hotel. Hotel Central Pattaya, Pattaya. Was a kind of small place from the outside but a nice hotel from inside. Then we were having our first "rest" of the trip till about 7 o clock after we had lunch at about 2 in the afternoon. Needless to say i slept as did everyone.
Went for dinner with the group again and after dinner we were taken to the world famous Alcazar show. This was a total paisa wasool show as i would call it. Reason, well it was a slowish cabaret or whatever one chooses to call it! Again the sets, the backdrops and the costumes were just too awesome. Mom didnt appreciate them much as also the show but i guess you need to be age 30 or less to appreciate such things! As i can remember, i had said bhari dresses hote na tyanche and mom replying kay kapde re baba tyanche! hahaha...
Anyway i enjoyed every part of the show as it was individual + group dances alternately. When an individual performance would be going on the backstage people wold be arranging for the next group dance and the individual performer actually performing in front of a curtain! That was one thing i had never seen before and appreciated it very much. So much time is saved this way! The drink served during the show was also nice and i must say i came across the most weird shape of icecube, well not a cube. In my drink i found an elongated toroidal shaped ice piece which i tried to recollect whether i had read its name anywhere but no luck! It was just a more than weird shape!
After the show we were again taken back in our bus to the hotel and we were told that the wake up call next morning was going to be 5 30, breakfast 6 30 and departure 7 30. I was already scared! 5 30???
BTW there are so many more things to write about the entire day as the tourist buses have PA system in them. Almost throughout the entire time we spend in the bus the guide is constantly telling what we are seeing on our right and left sides. That was again a new experience for me and i must say i enjoyed this sight seeing more than any of the actual shows/places we were supposed to see.
I guess i will stop here with Day 1, 22nd December as it was time to say Good night to newly formed friends. :-)
To be continued in Day Two, 23rd December.
Day Zero, 21st December.
December of 2006 was perhaps the Best time i had with my family when we went to a trip of 10 days to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. This is almost the entire description of our trip which i think was best to write day by day.
So it begins...
The day started off perfectly i would say with something really nice happening on Yahoo messenger after 12 at night! Then i slept off sometime around 1 30 and woke up at around 8. We were supposed to leave Pune around 3 so there was just about enough time for me to sneak in to Nana's party at his house the same morning. I managed to leave home at around 12 45 but sadly as i had reached there and started talking with people a frantic sounding sis called me saying there was an accident on the expressway and now we were supposed to leave 1 hour early!
Please! I didnt even taste the chicken and had to leave saying Bye Bye to all my friends right away.
Came home and we left at around 2 15 for our bus to Airport from Kesari office in Pune.
Journey was nice and fast until the driver decided to turn into Ghatkopar instead of taking the bus to the Airport from the usual road which i knew. No wonder there was not an inch on the road available for pedestrians as it was 5 30 PM! Just didnt get the funda behind turning into Ghatkopar! I think we took about the same time to reach Airport from Ghatkopar as we took from Pune to Lonavala!
Reached airport around 6 30 or so and there already were Kesari people waiting there for us. They have this way of treating us like small kids. Guess what, they had even kept our passports with them as in some trip in the past people had come to airport and then realised they have forgotten their passports at home! Well, appreciate the care they are taking but kind of too much for me! hehe...
Then there was this so called "get together" of the Kesari people which was total flop according to me! I thought it would be something like we introduce ourselves with our fellow travellers for next 10 days and stuff. Turned out it was just snacks! No probs though as the snacks at the Celebrations restaurant at the airport were awesome! Wouldnt have asked for a better Veg Sandwich in my life! Ate up 3 i guess! Mine, Dad's and Mom's too!
BTW till now our "Tour leaders" had still not arrived. It was almost 8 o clock when they came and suddenly there was a group of crazy people around them getting intro and trying to make "first good impressions"!! Was totally ridiculous.
Kesari has this amazing knack of arranging their tours properly and i must say i cant give a better example than this. There were 105 people leaving with Kesari on 21st December to Bangkok! That was 3 batches in which ours was the one with 43 people total. But group booking for 105 people on 1 Thai Airways plane is somehow an unsurpassable record i guess!
I was thinking of all the nice time i will have "seeing" and "checking out" people( u know who!) in the plane and suddenly it was 105 people whom i had already seen! Not to mention the dejection!
Anyway, we were given the "important" instructions and order in which things were to be done on which Kesari had already wasted lot of paper at the time of booking too. But i guess when you are bound for international destinations we need lots of TP due to the long waiting involved. So, we "all" followed the noble path and cleared check in! Hehe... Ofcourse there were some problems with the security check when 105 people were there! Some had forgotten to take out their liquids out of the hand baggage which is quite seriously checked these days at Mumbai Airport. So, there were some Face wash, shampoo and mineral water bottles confiscated straigtaway.
Anyway, everything was over by around 10 45 or so and we were in the waiting hall just outside the Gate from which our plane was leaving by then. So there was still 1 hour left. Didnt know anyone of the 105 people and i thought that would be a nice time to atleast get introduced to some of the 43 travelling with me. Started off with 2 ajobas, ages 69 and 74. That was amazing! Then looked again at the list and found out that the youngest member was a 5 year old girl! I must say, India is a diverse country! :-)
Finally the wait was over and the gates were opened. There was a line of business class people first and then a never ending line of economy class. I think they were either just too eager to sleep off or else see plane for the first time from inside! Anyway, boarded the plane and somehow studying in aerospace engineering makes you look at so called "unnecessary" things first!
Took out the safety manual and checked the Model of the plane. Airbus A 330-600. Felt nice that i kind of remembered its dimensions which i had come to know sometime, i dont know why! Then automatically its the wing thats the next target. Tried to re re re re revise the "parts of an airplane" diagram which i might have seen about 10 times atleast by now! Nice it is to actually see it again. The plane was 2*4*2 seating arrangement and we got the middle 4 seats being a family of 4. Sad!
I guess i will stop now as anyway the flight took off well and stuff and also it was 12 midnight in 5 minutes too. So, to be continued in Day 1, 22nd December. :-)
So it begins...
The day started off perfectly i would say with something really nice happening on Yahoo messenger after 12 at night! Then i slept off sometime around 1 30 and woke up at around 8. We were supposed to leave Pune around 3 so there was just about enough time for me to sneak in to Nana's party at his house the same morning. I managed to leave home at around 12 45 but sadly as i had reached there and started talking with people a frantic sounding sis called me saying there was an accident on the expressway and now we were supposed to leave 1 hour early!
Please! I didnt even taste the chicken and had to leave saying Bye Bye to all my friends right away.
Came home and we left at around 2 15 for our bus to Airport from Kesari office in Pune.
Journey was nice and fast until the driver decided to turn into Ghatkopar instead of taking the bus to the Airport from the usual road which i knew. No wonder there was not an inch on the road available for pedestrians as it was 5 30 PM! Just didnt get the funda behind turning into Ghatkopar! I think we took about the same time to reach Airport from Ghatkopar as we took from Pune to Lonavala!
Reached airport around 6 30 or so and there already were Kesari people waiting there for us. They have this way of treating us like small kids. Guess what, they had even kept our passports with them as in some trip in the past people had come to airport and then realised they have forgotten their passports at home! Well, appreciate the care they are taking but kind of too much for me! hehe...
Then there was this so called "get together" of the Kesari people which was total flop according to me! I thought it would be something like we introduce ourselves with our fellow travellers for next 10 days and stuff. Turned out it was just snacks! No probs though as the snacks at the Celebrations restaurant at the airport were awesome! Wouldnt have asked for a better Veg Sandwich in my life! Ate up 3 i guess! Mine, Dad's and Mom's too!
BTW till now our "Tour leaders" had still not arrived. It was almost 8 o clock when they came and suddenly there was a group of crazy people around them getting intro and trying to make "first good impressions"!! Was totally ridiculous.
Kesari has this amazing knack of arranging their tours properly and i must say i cant give a better example than this. There were 105 people leaving with Kesari on 21st December to Bangkok! That was 3 batches in which ours was the one with 43 people total. But group booking for 105 people on 1 Thai Airways plane is somehow an unsurpassable record i guess!
I was thinking of all the nice time i will have "seeing" and "checking out" people( u know who!) in the plane and suddenly it was 105 people whom i had already seen! Not to mention the dejection!
Anyway, we were given the "important" instructions and order in which things were to be done on which Kesari had already wasted lot of paper at the time of booking too. But i guess when you are bound for international destinations we need lots of TP due to the long waiting involved. So, we "all" followed the noble path and cleared check in! Hehe... Ofcourse there were some problems with the security check when 105 people were there! Some had forgotten to take out their liquids out of the hand baggage which is quite seriously checked these days at Mumbai Airport. So, there were some Face wash, shampoo and mineral water bottles confiscated straigtaway.
Anyway, everything was over by around 10 45 or so and we were in the waiting hall just outside the Gate from which our plane was leaving by then. So there was still 1 hour left. Didnt know anyone of the 105 people and i thought that would be a nice time to atleast get introduced to some of the 43 travelling with me. Started off with 2 ajobas, ages 69 and 74. That was amazing! Then looked again at the list and found out that the youngest member was a 5 year old girl! I must say, India is a diverse country! :-)
Finally the wait was over and the gates were opened. There was a line of business class people first and then a never ending line of economy class. I think they were either just too eager to sleep off or else see plane for the first time from inside! Anyway, boarded the plane and somehow studying in aerospace engineering makes you look at so called "unnecessary" things first!
Took out the safety manual and checked the Model of the plane. Airbus A 330-600. Felt nice that i kind of remembered its dimensions which i had come to know sometime, i dont know why! Then automatically its the wing thats the next target. Tried to re re re re revise the "parts of an airplane" diagram which i might have seen about 10 times atleast by now! Nice it is to actually see it again. The plane was 2*4*2 seating arrangement and we got the middle 4 seats being a family of 4. Sad!
I guess i will stop now as anyway the flight took off well and stuff and also it was 12 midnight in 5 minutes too. So, to be continued in Day 1, 22nd December. :-)
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