Babes to Bangkok

Pre-script:

This is a delayed post. delayed by a month. this has been in draft version as I was organizing something else and this was totally forgotten. now you can continue to read the post... at your own peril :-)
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“Travel and tell no one, live a true love story and tell no one, live happily and tell no one, people ruin beautiful things.” Says Khalil Gibran.

While I love this quote much, its difficult to follow this one. Have you ever tried it?

And hence I will continue to bore you guys with the banter of the little things and ofcourse the big things that is going on in my life. well, anyways you guys do not ruin beautiful things.

Coming to the title, I realise it is an exaggeration to call myself a babe – but what the heck, if not now, then When? With a pricking conscience I will continue with this title. Also, this was the name of our group in Whatsapp right from the time we started discussing about this trip and so I am kind of attached to this name. ( pardon me and my friends for the abundance of vanity and appreciate us for the sense of humour).

It all started off with a casual conversation that my friend Sudha and I were having, over a cup of our regular cafeteria coffee, which tastes differently every single day depending on the mood of the lady who puts in the mix for coffee in the vending machine. We religiously drink this concoction every single day to a point that we are almost addicted to it, which is another story altogether. I digress here.

So an all girls women trip idea was born and you know, “The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” And that’s how it all began. Way back in October 2016.

I initially thought this is one of those stuff which may fizzle out after some discussion, which did not happen fortunately. We were determined to go even if it was just two of us, but we got 2 others who were as crazy as us. Jay is our friend from the current organisation and my friend Rosy who is settled in Australia showed a lot of interest to join us. The plan was that she will join us at Bangkok from Australia and return with us to India. Why did we choose Bangkok – we really do not know.

If we were clear about one point about this trip, it was the fact that this was going to be all girls and no family, though all three others had little children who may want to join. Cruel women we must be right, but you know what, we thought we mothers will make ourselves a priority once in a while – It is not being selfish, a break is always necessary.

Like our Marathon running, we read up, worked with our tour operator, that poor fellow must have gone crazy with the repeated calls and requests to change the itinerary every time a good friend suggests a new place. Shilpa my friend from Bangalore had just been to Bangkok on a holiday end of January and she ran through our itinerary one last time and she helped finalise the plan. Her inputs were so precise, detailed but specific that we felt we could have done away with our tour operator.

Sudha is such a meticulous planner that she had created an excel sheet which had the every day trip broken up into an hour-wise agenda, which included distance between our hotel and the spot we were visiting, address, point of contact and hold your breath guys, she also had the number of dresses, kind of dress needed for every day, including the kind of footwear. Other than this the excel also had check list under various categories like documents to carry, cosmetics, beachwear, and what not. A big salute to Sudha for her eye for detail.

I was the oldest among the group, and surprisingly the families of the other three, were sending them just because I was there. Funny. Thankfully the families didn’t get see the other side of the goody goody Moi.

The trip was an amazing one and it was an experience of a life time – fun, laughter, thrill, joy and what not. For a bunch of working mothers, it was reliving our college days. After our college days, this was the first time, we were all travelling with our friends and that made it even more awesome. Support from families helped quite a bit.

For a place of tourist attraction, Bangkok surprised us with its cleanliness, wide variety of food, quality of stuff available and the fun activities we could do. The first two days were at Pattaya and next two in Bangkok city. We had safe fun with reckless abandon, and did so many things that I never ever imagined I would do. We all went in for the Underwater sea Walk, fed the fishes there, did Para-sailing, went on a water scooter – unbelievable considering the fact that I am scared of water, watching those massive Buddha statues, listening to the funny English slang of the people. The best part of this trip was we were never tired of posing for pictures or taking pictures. 3 mobiles and 1 DSLR together has more than 2000+ pictures. We were creating memories and a few of them were life changing.

The best fun was when we were shopping. Each of us have a different approach to shopping and all hell broke loose those couple of hours when we went in for it and enjoyed it to bits. Slept late every single day but we were all up in the morning all set for the next day. The only problem we had was with Thai food and somehow, none of us could get accustomed to the smell or the food.

We came back all rejuvenated to truck loads of work, but are convinced we will do it again. Some other place. Soon. ( Rekha are you listening???)

Sharing a few memories with you folks.

The blue blue beaches of  Pattaya - Coral Island

Any guesses on how this shot was taken?

and the word down there is babes

At Safari world, Bangkok

The mandatory one

Nong Nooch cultural village, Pattaya.