My Thailand Trip 2015 - Ved's Travel Blog

My Thailand Trip

Part I - Thailand Trip- Chennai Leg

During the vacations for Dussehra, my family visited Thailand. Although it was only for one week, the trip was amazing. We didn't spend much time in traditional tourist places such as Bangkok and Phuket. Instead we stayed in Pattaya, which is a two hour drive from Bangkok and a very beautiful place with beaches and isn't a mainstream tourist attraction as Phuket is. The trip was an amazing trip where we got to see some beautiful sights and have fun with our family friends from Hyderabad. 

  We went with our family friends whose son used to be in my class in fourth grade in Oakridge International School. First we went to Chennai from Hyderabad in an Indigo flight, and in Chennai, otherwise known as Madras, we met with the Bhats (Family friends) and checked into The Park hotel on Anna Salai which is Tamil for Anna road. We met them, as they had arrived in Chennai in a train from Bangalore before us. So we met them at the hotel, but after enduring some horrible rush hour Chennai traffic. 

      The next day, we woke up, got ready and went to eat breakfast, as the hotel we picked didn't serve breakfast, so we booked a cab to take us to the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, then went to the hotel Sarvana Bhavan to eat breakfast. At around 9:30, we hopped into a cab and the driver drove us to the Indian Institute of Technology. As it turned out, the driver was the close friend of one of my father's drivers when he goes to Bangalore, which, in where Aayush,  Sudha, Aaditi and Pavan Bhat live (They are our family friends. Aayush was in my class while Aaditi is in Avani's grade. Pavan uncle and Sudha aunty are their parents ). 

       So we drove to the Indian Institute of Technology and, the heads had assigned a student to give us the full tour of IIT. The student's name was Shourya and he showed us around the Indian Institute of Technology. My father remembered mostly everything about the university and kept entertaining us with his reminiscences. We saw his old lab, his hostel and the library, which was absolutely humongous and filled with complicated books, like: Quantum theory, the advanced perspective. My father's old professor, Doctor Bhaskar Ramamamurthy, is now the director of the Indian Institute of Technology, so it was understandable if he couldn't find time to meet with us but he did. He and my father talked for almost an hour about subjects that made no sense to me. The few things that I understood were that they were talking about business, telephone chips and nothing else. They wrapped up their conference, and we stepped out of an air conditioned room right into the Chennai heat. Now let me explain something about Chennai. The heat is absolutely murderous. That plus the fact that it's very humid makes everyone want to sprint to the nearest A/C. Anyway, we drove out of the Indian Institute of Technology and into the main area of Chennai.

  After that, we drove to the hotel, where we watched TV for a couple of hours and I played ball with Aayush. We ate a large lunch and killed time until four o'clock, when it was checkout time. We checked out of the hotel and went to see the Kapileeshwar temple and marina beach, where Aayush and I played catch for an hour and a half. At about 7:30 pm we started out for the airport to board an Airasia flight to Bangkok. Thus the first leg of our trip closed with us in a flight to Bangkok

Part II - Thailand Trip-Pattaya leg

So, where I left off was on the plane to Bangkok, ready to arrive. After enduring the flight to Bangkok, we exited through customs and outside into the 11 pm Bangkok air. We drove to Pattaya in a van which seated ten humans. So two families were able to sit in one car. We arrived at Pattaya, which is about a two hour drive southeast of Bangkok, so we got there at about 2 o'clock Thailand time. We couldn't check in to the hotel, which was called the Royal Beach View and was in a good location; not too far from Beach road and the city center but far enough so that the normal tourist rush was avoided. In this case, the hotel was very close to an underutilized but magnificent beach. So, they gave us a room (Just one for two families, though). One it was close to 9:30 am, we wandered down to the dining table and spoke with each other as we ate our brunch. The meal took a lot of time, as the food arrived after one hour, so it was our brunch-time.

    After eating brunch, we wandered down to the beach, where we swam in the water for a few hours. The water was quite warm and, inside the water, there were many sharp pieces of coral and, if they were stepped on, the can open some pretty large cuts, as I experienced first hand. After getting cut by the coral many times, we decided to move over to a marked zone, where there was no coral. There we swam for some time, then I started to get a little bored of drinking seawater, so me and Avani moved to the hotel pool. Aayush and Aaditi came after a few time periods of sixty seconds (Otherwise known as minutes). After another forty-five minutes, we hopped out of the pool and dried off and bathed.

     After that, we rested in the hotel until four o'clock, when we took a Baht-bus to Walking Street, which is basically the main road, along with Beach Road. We strolled along Walking Street until we spotted an ice-cream shop, where we bought ice cream. After finishing our double ice creams, we walked some more so we could get closer to a place where they was going to be a dance and vocal show. After realizing that we couldn't make it in time, we hired a Baht-bus to convey us to the place for the show. We arrived just in time for the show. They gave us a complementary soft drink, and we settled in to watch the show. The show itself was, to use one of my favorite terms, not bad. The show featured dancers taking us through a tour of Asia, and dancing to specific music from each country. After it ended, we exited and walked around looking for a place to eat street food. After we found one, we settled in to eat our noodles. Once we finished our more than palatable food, we took a Baht-bus to the hotel and slept.

   The next morning, we awoke, got ready, and sped down for a quick breakfast before we set out for Koh Larn Island. Subsequently, we hopped upon the boat that took us to the island. The boat didn't take us to the island directly, as it stopped twice. At the first stop, there was parasailing, and it sounded exciting, so I went. When you parasail, what you do, is they hook you to a parachute and the parachute to a boat, so when the boat moves, you float in the air behind it. It was an amazing experience and I might never forget it (If I'm lucky).  Thereafter, the boat took us near the island to the sea walk. At the platform, only me and Aayush got off the boat and our parents left us in the care of another couple, who also spoke Marathi. What they (The administrators) did was, they first instructed us on ways to deal with pressure underneath the sea than they took us to a ladder, where they put the helmet on and then they lowered us a good fifteen feet underwater and they told us to kneel in a line and they gave us pieces of hard bread to feed the fish with.

     On the whole, it was a very enjoyable time. After getting out, we took a boat to the island, where Aayush and I found our families and ate lunch. After, Aayush and I jet-skied and rode a Banana Boat. After we swam on the beach, we had to return to the Pattaya mainland. Once we returned, we relaxed in the hotel, then the adults, Aaditi and Avani went out to get a Thai massage. Aayush and I stayed at the hotel watching TV. In about an hour, we met them for dinner. The place served an absolutely amazing Thai curry, so that was what we ate and nothing else. After finishing the sumptuous meal, we retired for the day.

  The next morning, we rose quickly and ate breakfast. After breakfast, a taxi took us to Pattaya's floating market and we shopped around the miniature version of Bangkok's floating market, which had some intriguing mementos. After, we went to Nong Nooch gardens to explore the beautiful gardens and see the shows. I saw elephants playing basketball, soccer, bowling, dancing etc. I never knew that elephants were so talented. After that, we took a bus ride around the gardens, and left to go to a park. We drove to the million years stone park which was Thailand's biggest crocodile sanctuary and saw crocodiles, tigers and giraffes. We exited the park in a tired state, so we drove to the hotel and slept.

  The next morning, we ate and got in a taxi to take us to Sriracha tiger zoo. Where we saw tigers and were able to feed them. The baby tigers cuddled up in our laps and sucked from a bottle of milk. We also saw the tiger show, where tigers were doing all sorts of stunts, like jumping through a circle of fire and stunts like that. After viewing that, we left for Bangkok, and that's where I leave you now.    

Part III - Thailand Trip-Bangkok leg

  Where I left off at the end of my last blog, I was playing on Aayush's Samsung tablet and we were playing a game. We played for two hours until we reached Bangkok, after which, the tablet was confiscated from us. Then, we looked for the hotel and somehow found it in the middle of Bangkok. Then we checked in and wandered around Bangkok after resting. 

  We went by subway and tuk-tuk (auto-rickshaw ) to reach the river, where we bought chips and hired a boat to take us down the river, through the canal, and to Chinatown. In the subway, the men got on the train, and the women couldn't board in time, so we got off at the next station. Then the tuk-tuk was boarded and we arrived at the docks. The ride was amazing, as we saw all these colorful sights, and heard all these amazing things. The driver stopped in the canal so we could feed the fish, and they were catfish and were gigantic. I threw one piece into the water and there were these giant fish that leaped up to the surface and gobbled up all of the bread pieces they were fed. After,  we slowly boated to Chinatown. In China town, we hired a tuk-tuk to take us to a big mall. The drivers everywhere and most people, too, didn't know how to speak English very well, so my father used Google Translate to
communicate with the people. So we were taken to a mall, where we shopped for trinkets, clothes and much else. We did all of our shopping in those few hours and ate at the food court.

  The next day, a taxi came and ferried us to the reclining Buddha at around 8:45 and we spent a few hours wandering the temples and the heat. The Buddha was made of gold, was 46 meters long and 16 meters tall. We saw students on a university tour, and what amazed me was the fact that everybody was so quiet there! There was barely any noise and it was peaceful. After soaking the peace up, we walked to the exit, where we hired two taxis, one to take the kids and Pavan uncle to the hotel, and one to take the other adults shopping. At the hotel, we chilled until it was time to go to the airport to fly back to Chennai. 

  At the airport, we didn't check in bags, and we went through security and got to the gate two hours early. At the airport, we got some Mickey D's for a snack and a Subway for the trip. At 7:45, we got up to go to the gate, and we strapped into the plane. In the plane, I watched a movie and played on the tablet with Aayush until it was time to get down. In Chennai, we stayed at the Savera, and just chilled in the hotel. We swam and played for a few hours, until it was time for our trip to end. We said goodbye at the airport and took the flight to Hyderabad. That was how the trip ended.


PS. All times used correspond to the country they are in