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. :-)