Thailand...a journey that I'd love to take again & again & again

My second and only documented trip to Thailand was a memorable one. Thailand has something for everyone; women and lady boys for the men and for the ladies, SHOPPING! Beaches, temples, food, night life, safaris, mountains ... et cetera et cetera are there to accommodate the varied interests of people. I was amazed, though, to see parents holidaying with their kids in Pattaya. I might want to think twice about taking my kids-to-be there because, Pattaya is not exactly "Disneyland" for children but for adults.

There is so much to explore that I think shopping should always be at the bottom of the travel itinerary. Otherwise, if you are a shopaholic like yours truly, there is a high chance that would shop your trip away. This is exactly what I did on my first trip which I did not regret anyway because I was alone and went there solely for shopping.  The first one got a little lonely from the 2^nd night onwards because the TV in my hotel room did not even show an English Channel, I didn’t know anyone there and nobody really spoke English which eventually led to the preponement of my return ticket by a day. But I did get a lot of people speaking to me in Thai and one noodle hawker lady exclaiming, “Indiiiaaa? Phat vely whaiteee”, (probably meaning to say, "I don't believe that you are from India because you are so fair") when I told her that I was from India. If I could speak Thai I would have told her that there are a lot of fair people in India and that India is as obsessed with fairness as Thailand.

Sawmteii  and  I did the right thing by pushing shopping towards the end of the trip even though we outspent the number of days allocated to it. Another word of advice; 2 days are enough for shopping i.e. if you have the kind of energy that yours truly have. It's just that shopping gives me an adrenaline rush that numbs my body from fatigue, hunger, pain till the shops are closed or my purse is emptied. 

Long story short, I would like to pen down and express through pictures, my Thailand Experience as a way of kick-starting my blogging life after a long pause.

Day 1: We reached Bangkok in the early morning of 26th November 2010. Our hotel room was not yet ready, so we had to venture out without a bath and um mm a time to beautify. Hence, we did not click any face pic that day. We felt quite inferior to the pretty ladies in short skirts and perfectly made up faces as we scanned some of the malls at Siam Square in our travel clothes with last night's face. We were lucky to be chaperoned that day by Mithun, Sawmteii's colleague, who is a backpacker and knows every short cut, store timing, what to get where etc. We also went to Chatuchak weekend market which is pretty much like a combination of Sarojini Market in Delhi, Shivajinagar + Com Street in Bangalore and New market in Kolkata. You can get everything from pets to clothes to furniture. 

Breakfast Lady: Serves a perfect English Breakfast without the knowledge of English. Quite an elegant lady for her age

Zo-Artui: Fresh Farm Eggs

"Graffiti" on the way to Platinum Mall

A view from the "metro"- BKK

..and Mithun also decided not to click a face pic:) Chatuchak weekend market -  sunset & evening strollers  

Day 2: Visited Sawmteii's family friend, U Malsawmi Sen and her family. U Malsawmi took us for a day out where we visited The Emporium, a high end mall in BKK. We then went over to Holiday Inn for lunch and I jumped for joy when I saw Asahi Super Dry, "the subject of my fantasy ever since we had a case study on the Japanese Beer Industry", on the menu card. I ordered for it and clicked a picture immediately before opening the delightful silver can.  It tasted exactly the way I had imagined, light and refreshing!

Asahi Super Dry - I heart You

In the evening. we boarded the bus to Chiang Mai. (BTW I had to convince Sawmteii quite a bit to go to Chiang Mai and she ended up really loving it). I was impressed by the luxury coaches, which are priced at such an affordable rate - some 1200 Baht for BKK to Chiang Mai, an overnight journey. The bus was clean with comfortable seats and had an attached toilet. We were served food and water as soon as we boarded and it stopped somewhere for snacks at night for which I didn't wake up.

This kind of service would surely cost a bomb in India

Day 3: Reached Chiang Mai in the wee hours of the morning and decided to stop for  morning tea before leaving for our hotel. It was friggin cold!!

Quaint tea-shop at Chiang Mai Bus Station

 May I have a  cup of hearts please?:)

We booked our hotel in Chiang Mai based on the recommendation of Mithun and it was a charming, colorful and affordable place called Rux Thai costing us about 600 baht a night.

Rux Thai at Night

Door on the right is the bathroom and  to the left is the changing room

We visited a local mall and took a lot of pictures; went to the Museum which was unfortunately closed as it was a Sunday. Encountered the most horrible food experience barring the fried chicken bum experience we had in BKK. I call it food malfunction! 

It was love at first sight! This charming town transforms itself into something else at night

My first experience of green tea with milk

A special Tribute to Butter Croissant - A faithful breakfast companion throughout the trip

I owe it big time to Sawmteii for ruining this beautiful pic of hers! Story of how it happened later..

The Wine Lady: She has fantastic selling skills!

The Museum visit still proved useful because we bought a map..Oh! I miss my natural hair:(

Food Malfunction

At night, we checked out the Chiang Mai Night Bazar which was bustling with activity. Not a serious shopping place but definitely a great opportunity for cultural exposure! The products that were sold in the market, the traditional clothes etc. resembled that of Mizoram so much that I felt nostalgic and my curiosity to trace the poorly documented Mizo history got heightened.

It's so alive!!

Finally, a perfect meal - Roasted Duck with Sticky Rice

Ain't the Chai Wallah Cute?:)

Day 4: Booked a Northern Thailand Tour which covered a visit to Mae Kachan Natural Hot Springs, Wat Rong Khun (White Temple) in Chiang Rai, a visit to Golden Triangle and Laos-Thailand border, a lavish buffet lunch,a visit to the Thai-Myanmar border and ended with a trip to Mae Sai to see the long necked tribe.

A dip in the Hot Spring

Chai mal-function. It tasted Yuck!

White Temple

Entrance

Golden Toilet

Boat trip - Burmese Casino in view

Snake & "other"  whiskies

My complimentary shot...no it was not snake!

Kids in the Laos Border

Chanels at Dirt Cheap Prices:)

Crossing over from Laos to Thailand

Behind us is Burma

Entering the little village of Long Necked Tribes

Innocence & Purity

This lady looks like she belongs to the Bru Tribe in Mizoram

Quite similar to a Mizo Hut

Felt like I was home

Little girl soon to be transformed into a long-necked woman

Forget-Me-Not....

Day 5: Visited the Museum, Wat Phra Singh Temple, took a stroll around Chiang mai Wall and left for Pattaya at night. Visiting the museum is a must because this cultural capital has a lot of stories to tell.

Pad Thai - the Thai way

Doesn't  the monk  look real?

Love the colour combination & everything

Colourful lanterns everywhere

TUK-TUK.. wish we had one in India

It's attention to these small little details that makes the town so attractive

See..

The Wall

Day 6: Reached Pattaya in the morning and by this time I have successfully managed to accidentally delete all the pics from Sawmteii's camera. The worst part was that we used her camera mostly because I forgot to pack my charger... One of the top Argh moments in my life!


Checked into Flipper Hotel or something, close to the beach. We didn't like Pattaya after spending time at the beach which was filled with old people. Also, it was really filthy with a general air of kinkiness everywhere. Spent the rest of the day at Central Mall where we impulsively decided to colour our hair after being held in the clutches of a sweet talking Chinese man who really understood Consumer Behavior. He made me look like a Thai blondie but he was so nice that I just could not ask him to re-colour it nor take my money back even though he told us that he would give our  money back if we didn't like the color. This goes down straight to the list of the many catastrophes that I have inflicted upon my hair over the period of my life. Fringe and yellow blonde streaks combo is totally not working for me. 


After our beauty transformation, we headed off to watch the Alcazar Show which was quite a treat. I bet the loud applause when a Bollywood number was performed came from fellow Indians and I bet 50% of the crowd was us.

A sanpiau like snack served at the mid-night stop

Telling you, I was mesmerized too

Hotel Roof Top

View of Sea from Hotel

A Ga-Ga impersonator at the Alcazar

Day 7: Pattaya was planned so badly because we actually intended to go to Phuket for the beaches. Plan was dropped at the last minute as we were afraid to lose too much shopping time. Headed off to Koh-Larn island on our second day in Pattaya and I swear, we should have stayed there the previous night instead of Pattaya. White sandy clean  beaches, beautiful people, great food; quite a contrast to  our Pattaya experience. It was sad that we did not have enough time there as we had to leave for BKK in the evening. Otherwise, it would have been awesome to hang around for sometime, get into a mild adventure like paragliding and laze around without a care in the world.

Hhooly..Pattaya City

Bridge leading to the boat that would take us to Koh-Lan Island

My beautiful drink

The crowd was so much better than Pattaya

<3 Umbrellas

Sunset!

Day 8, 9 and 10: Back to BKK and it was all about shopping. I honestly think that going to  high end malls is a waste in Thailand as street shopping is the USP of BKK. Hence, much of our visits to high-end malls were merely restricted to window shopping and eating.


Shopping Tips: Start from Siam Square which is right at the BTS Station and you will reach Siam Centre which houses mid-range products but I didn't buy anything there. From there, you can walk across to Siam Paragon, a luxury mall which houses luxury and high end brands. Siam Discovery is the next mall and this houses the recently launched Madam Tussauds. From Siam Discovery, you can visit MBK through an overbridge on the 3rd/4th Floor. MBK is a good place for gold jewelleries and there are a few good shoe shops. There is a nice small shop that sells awesome boots on the third floor ( a lot of patience is required to find the right shoe store ). From MBK, you can use the skywalk toThe Central, the largest mall in Thailand which houses a lot of mid range and high end brands. Platinum Mall is about 20 minutes walk from there (another option is to go directly from Siam Station to Ratachewi and it is about 10 mins walk from there). To me, Platinum Mall is retail heaven because they have fashion forward products at 180-250 Baht and the best way to buy cheap is to buy at the wholesale price for which the minimum piece requirement is usually 3. Never leave a store thinking you will go back the next day.If you want something, get it right there and then is the advice I would like to give you because the rate of change is too rapid there. Some stores allow you to mix the designs and most stores don't allow trial. However, many of them can be convinced by being extra sweet. Love the food court there as well because there are plenty of options and the portions are small. One thing that I have noticed in Thailand is that there is food everywhere but the portions are quite small. I guess this explains why Thai women are so slender. 


Apart from these options, Chatuchak Weekend Market and Sampeng in Old Bangkok are must visits to understand the fashion trade in BKK. Pratunam Mall is also a smaller non air-conditioned version of Platinum Mall and you can get good bargains there as well.


Our Hotel: We instantly fell in love with Padi Madi when saw its picture on the website. We were really glad that the real one did not disappoint us. It's located in Sukhumvit, a prime area within  2 minutes walking distance from Thong-Lo BTS station. The owners were friendly and they had locker facility, optional room service and super cute rooms. There are a lot of Japanese restaurants in its vicinity as it is a predominantly a Japanese area.

Sticky rice, chicken clear soup & steamed chicken...from the street

Our Super Cute Room

The Space between Siam Paragon & Siam Center is a great entertainment spot over the weekends 

Vietnamese Restaurant at Central..I think

Vietnamese Food

Christmas Decor at Siam Paragon

It's so Christmassy!!

Aww! I love this cute little place

And this is how it ended

Left for Suvarnabhumi airport on the 6th of December 2010 around 3:30 PM BKK time and the biggest bonus was that we did not have excess luggage since we were allotted 10 kgs extra on our return journey. This is how the Thai govt. encourages everyone to shop in Thailand and I love them so much for it! Word of advice: "Don't buy those cheap Thai Whiskies in the airport even if you are cash strapped". 


Made it to Bangalore around mid-night with empty bank account(s) but gained an experience of a lifetime along with suitcases full of clothes. 

Dream Job

I remember as a kid, my answer to the standard question, "What is your aim in life?" changed at different phases of my life as my heroes, idols and circumstances too changed. I think my first dream was to get married cos' I really used to enjoy playing wedding ceremonies where I was always the de facto bride. My first kiss also supposedly happened at one of these ceremonies, which I found out only this year on the wedding day of a childhood friend when my now “ex-husband cum first kiss” reminded me about it. I don't remember enjoying weddings as much as I used to do back then, being a flower girl and all, seeing the bride in a beautiful gown and singing, "Chhei raw kha  a lawi dawn e" ( a song that was meant to celebrate the bride's entry into the groom's household). While in kindergarten, our kind and loving teachers inspired me to become one myself someday and around middle school, "Miss Universe" took over. I remember proudly proclaiming, "Juhi Chawla!!!"when asked what my horoscope was at a Miss Project Veng contest that was held among the resident children of Agriculture Complex in Kolasib. The questions in such contests used to be as simple as, "Which soap/ shampoo do you use?" and winners were mostly chosen on a rotation basis. Then I grew up, stopped growing at 5 foot something inch, acquired a lot of scars due to my accident prone nature, got attracted to the glamorous lives of IFSs (Indian Foreign Service) which eventually led to the abandonment of my "Beauty Queen" dream. Since then, I've switched to "Doctor" (mainly because it was mom's unfulfilled dream), followed by "Scientist" etc. Then, one day as I was watching friends, I came across this episode where Rachel got a job at Bloomingdales as an Assistant Buyer. For the first time I learnt that I could be paid for shopping and just like that, a new dream job was born. Unfortunately that time, the Indian retail industry was largely unorganised and the buying function was not that prevalent. I was clueless as to how to go about chasing this dream and like the others in the past, it has only remained a dream. Whether it becomes a reality or not depends on a lot of factors and who knows, I might just find another dream job along the way!

To forgive & forget

Holding grudges, letting anger take over, hatred and bitterness poisoning our hearts, is it all worth it? Sometimes it is difficult to forgive people easily, especially when their actions don't seem to show any amount of guilt or repentance. Then, there are those who inflict pain on you and are completely apathetic about it either because they are a little loose to understand or that they are completely heartless. If that's what it takes for them to get what they want, they would go for it with ease. Thinking about such people in my life makes me bitter, angry, hateful and makes me want to throw a punch every time I see their sick, seemingly happy faces. The human in me wants to see them unhappy, sad and unsuccessful in everything they do. But when I think about it, I wonder if there is any point in being so bitter. Our hatred and anger does not affect the other person as much as it affects us. There is really no point in wasting time thinking about all the negativity. Even with this realisation, I find it so difficult to make amends with anyone because there are other things like my ego which simply cannot digest the act of going up and talking to that person. My chatterbox says, "What if I have not really forgiven? It would be wrong to tell someone that I forgive when I really have not. Do they even care about my forgiveness?" Despite all the risks, I strongly believe that it's stupid and harmful to hold and accumulate grudges in life. But whenever I try to forgive, all the negative thoughts pop up in my mind and then I 'd be back to square one.

One day, I finally realised that I simply could not do this alone. I turned to God for help and prayed that I wanted to forgive and that I wanted to remove these negative scars from my life. God's answer was that I just had to declare that I forgive and that He would do the rest. A huge sigh of relief and contentment washed over me when I did this. This is the second day since I took the big step to forgive and it's not been easy. The negative thoughts still pop up and I still get a slight pinch thinking about whatever has happened, but they don't control me any more. With time, this too shall pass because it's always easier to forgive than forget.

Confessions of a B School Survivor

My life at IIMB has drawn to a close and I am glad that  I  landed here because this institute has taught me so much.There are the hard skills -  It gave me my first experience of using a scientific calculator, making power point presentations (never used power point in college), using excel sheets, the meaning of debit & credit  etc etc and then there are those that I could never truly get. However, the most valuable lessons that I have learnt here are the life lessons, the much neglected soft-skills. The first few months of my common existence with some of the best minds in the country pushed and shoved me under-ground and my confidence level was, close to zero. I had experienced so much pressure for the first time in my life (I was a general arts student so one can imagine). I did not handle it well but it was an experience that shaped my life and I am glad to have learnt from it. I have met many people who also succumbed to the pressure, including my own friends who have done and said things that I normally deem as inappropriate, opportunistic etc. However, I also know that if anyone else had been in this situation for the first time, there's a high chance that they would have also screwed up. So, I have learnt to understand, be non-judgmental and give people a chance. Of course, there are people whose nature is permanently like that and the best way to deal with such people is to just leave them be because we can't be friends with everyone and we don't have to like everyone. I have also learnt that the most important things in life are the relationships that we have - our relationship with God and everyone else. My biggest regret is that I have compromised on a lot of these relationships during this period of my life and  I now realize that it's NOT AT ALL WORTH IT. There is more to life than grades, degrees and achievements... Money can certainly give one the power to get material things...power, prestige, fame, possessions, fake friends, fake love etc, but there is one thing that it certainly cannot give,“happiness". I never got as much happiness dining out in the fanciest of restaurants with a heart that is broken than having mug noodles with rice and some obscure South Indian curry in a cramped room with a loved one. It's easy to take things for granted when you know that it's there but it's a loss that makes you realize that whatever you wanted, looked, striven and  yearned for was right there with you. Suddenly all the fancy cars, plush accommodations, high flying career etc. seem to lose their shine when it comes to the end of the line. A valuable lesson indeed and I wish I did not have to learn it the hard way...but I am mighty glad I learned!

Winter 2010 - What has been worn and will be worn

What is the new black?: When it comes to color, subtlety seems to be the order of the day. Grey is the new black & other hot picks include beige, light brown & black. 

Accessories: Sling bags are still a favorite & belts are going the skinny way. Leggings are still a safe bet, especially when wearing shorties, to keep away from the cold (even tho' we girls do not usually care about the temperature when it comes to looking good:). Among many girls, especially the Blair Waldorf wannabes' (including yours truly:)), the "hair band" is still an important fashion accessory. 

Shoes: "Bye Bye Gladiators, welcome chunky blocked heels." UGGS are still on the rage & they are getting fatter & and warmer this time. Flat pumps have also achieved the status a "necessity" ( what a black cardigan was to us back in those days). Not spotted on many feet yet (perhaps due to non-availability in the Indian market) , Oxfords &  Clogs are bound to be a hit soon. The non-branded market in Thailand has gotten hold of wooden chunky blocks but not clogs ;( It has not yet proliferated much of the high street stores either:(

Apparel: The leather jacket rage has finally caught on...at least in Mizoram. Jumpsuits are also making a slow entry &  expected to get bigger this summer. Boyfriend Jackets and Men's Coats are also here to stay, soon to achieve mass adoption. Blouses are also seeping in, especially 50's inspired pussy bow blouses which are normally tucked into a high waisted trouser or skirt. Flared pants &  full A-cut skirts are also donned by a few people but the trend is expected to be big. The word's that belle bottoms would also soon become another rage in the fashion world..

Word of advice: Go get yourself a Belle Bottomed Trouser + Clog & be a trend setter this season:)

Love

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
                                       -Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam:27, 1850