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! :-)