It was a most ordinary day, and after a hectic day of work I returned home and straight away logged into my FB account, to see like all other stupids if any new notification has come or any new pic has been uploaded by some x-y-z friend of mine... Sorry to deviate from the topic but FB has deeply understood the human mind and designed it in such a way that even the most intelligent and logical ones can get trapped in its illusion!! (i meant me :P) Nevertheless, as usual some frustrated friends of mine were online and the "algorithm lord" - Mr Kushal came electronically to my desktop in the form of a green dot, which proclaimed that he was online followed by some text - "Aur kya nayi khabar?" I never knew this chat was gonna be the start of the best holiday of my life!!
As we text-ed over FB, sharing our frustrations and boring life, a sudden idea of holidaying creep-ed in our genius engineer minds! I was ever ready for an adventure holiday and gave my full support. So the search for the best place to visit began almost instantly. Sincere thanks to Google Lord for providing endless options. The places our galvanized mind considered are :
- Bike ride to Jog Falls (Shimoga) from Bangalore - a 5 day extreme biking holiday
- Trip to Ladakh and also a place where Sanjivani herbs could be found, which could arose the dead (we were highly inspired from Ramayana)
- Go Goa - again on bike
Suddenly the creepy idea of not ruling out a foreign country in our destination list, came in Mr. Kushal's algorithmic head. Yes, why not. We actually could go to Malaysia for an adventurous holiday. We instantly agreed to this plan and Malaysia was decided. As the "Project Holiday" deadline was by September end, we started our R&D on Malaysia and found that some changes were required in the SRS. Malaysia had to be ruled out as visa-on-arrival was stopped and we didn't have enough time (thanks to our project deadline) to apply for Visa in the time frame. Alternate search for an equally exciting location began and alas - Thailand - The extreme country was the winner!
In the next 2 days, the place was finalized to Bangkok-Pattaya (after seeing the location and distance explicitly on GMaps). Before we could find out about the place and enquire of package trips (as we thought it would be cheaper), Mr Kushal found that AirAsia was offering a mind blowing rate to fly to Bangkok. I tried to give my practical-ideal and stupendous suggestions but... 24 hours, and I get the news that our flight tickets are booked for Bangkok. Just 2 weeks and our trip would begin. For God's sake it was an international trip and we had no planning as to where all to go, budget required etc etc. We followed the thinking of "aam aadmi" - "Chalo ho jayega... abhi to 2 week hai"
Soon 2 weeks were over. We had planned nothing and had no itenerary to follow (Believe me guys that was the best part). So this was the day. We set out for BIA (Bangalore International Airport) at around 5:30PM to catch the 8:45PM Kingfisher to Kolkata. Our flight to Bangkok was from Kolkata the next day at around 12:30PM. We boarded the flight on time and had some great time in the flight practicing to talk in unique Thai accent - Khoppun Khaap :P We reached Kolkata late night- at around 2AM, had dinner at Kushal's place and dozed off for the day.
It was a bright day following and we got up before time (atleast Kushal got up!) We were out for the airport at 8 AM itself as Kolkata airport is the crappiest place on earth. We entered the airport to discover there weren't any ATM's inside the airport. Had to create some scene to come out and take out money and re-enter. Finally after a little "yaap" we were inside and waited in the dirty seating arrangement for about 2 hrs, before we were allowed to proceed for immigration. We had some bad luck as we exchanged currency at a higher rate in the airport. Anyways we cleared the immigration and got the green signal to board the flight.
Oops I forgot to mention some more drama that Mr.Kushal did during security check-in. Kushal is practically Ghajini Part 2 (forgets anything and everything). He kept my boarding pass in his pocket, and the moment I put my bag in the roller for security check, he proclaimed that my ticket was not with him. My bag was already inside the scanner and I was in a mess as to where my ticket had vanished. With an extremely low tone, I requested the security guard to pull back my bag as I must have kept the ticket in my bag (as I thought). The guard gave me an "Amrish Puri" look in bengali style and ordered the roller to rotate backwards, and my bag came back out like a proud peacock. I began searching my bag nervously for the ticket, when Kushal re-entered the scene like Shatimaan (fk fk fk fk) of DD1 fame... The moment he told me my ticket was with him, I felt like ###$$$*** - censored due to company policy! So finally Shaktimaan and me were near the boarding gate awaiting the boarding to begin, all excited about our first international adventure trip!
... to be continued
As we text-ed over FB, sharing our frustrations and boring life, a sudden idea of holidaying creep-ed in our genius engineer minds! I was ever ready for an adventure holiday and gave my full support. So the search for the best place to visit began almost instantly. Sincere thanks to Google Lord for providing endless options. The places our galvanized mind considered are :
- Bike ride to Jog Falls (Shimoga) from Bangalore - a 5 day extreme biking holiday
- Trip to Ladakh and also a place where Sanjivani herbs could be found, which could arose the dead (we were highly inspired from Ramayana)
- Go Goa - again on bike
Suddenly the creepy idea of not ruling out a foreign country in our destination list, came in Mr. Kushal's algorithmic head. Yes, why not. We actually could go to Malaysia for an adventurous holiday. We instantly agreed to this plan and Malaysia was decided. As the "Project Holiday" deadline was by September end, we started our R&D on Malaysia and found that some changes were required in the SRS. Malaysia had to be ruled out as visa-on-arrival was stopped and we didn't have enough time (thanks to our project deadline) to apply for Visa in the time frame. Alternate search for an equally exciting location began and alas - Thailand - The extreme country was the winner!
In the next 2 days, the place was finalized to Bangkok-Pattaya (after seeing the location and distance explicitly on GMaps). Before we could find out about the place and enquire of package trips (as we thought it would be cheaper), Mr Kushal found that AirAsia was offering a mind blowing rate to fly to Bangkok. I tried to give my practical-ideal and stupendous suggestions but... 24 hours, and I get the news that our flight tickets are booked for Bangkok. Just 2 weeks and our trip would begin. For God's sake it was an international trip and we had no planning as to where all to go, budget required etc etc. We followed the thinking of "aam aadmi" - "Chalo ho jayega... abhi to 2 week hai"
Soon 2 weeks were over. We had planned nothing and had no itenerary to follow (Believe me guys that was the best part). So this was the day. We set out for BIA (Bangalore International Airport) at around 5:30PM to catch the 8:45PM Kingfisher to Kolkata. Our flight to Bangkok was from Kolkata the next day at around 12:30PM. We boarded the flight on time and had some great time in the flight practicing to talk in unique Thai accent - Khoppun Khaap :P We reached Kolkata late night- at around 2AM, had dinner at Kushal's place and dozed off for the day.
It was a bright day following and we got up before time (atleast Kushal got up!) We were out for the airport at 8 AM itself as Kolkata airport is the crappiest place on earth. We entered the airport to discover there weren't any ATM's inside the airport. Had to create some scene to come out and take out money and re-enter. Finally after a little "yaap" we were inside and waited in the dirty seating arrangement for about 2 hrs, before we were allowed to proceed for immigration. We had some bad luck as we exchanged currency at a higher rate in the airport. Anyways we cleared the immigration and got the green signal to board the flight.
Oops I forgot to mention some more drama that Mr.Kushal did during security check-in. Kushal is practically Ghajini Part 2 (forgets anything and everything). He kept my boarding pass in his pocket, and the moment I put my bag in the roller for security check, he proclaimed that my ticket was not with him. My bag was already inside the scanner and I was in a mess as to where my ticket had vanished. With an extremely low tone, I requested the security guard to pull back my bag as I must have kept the ticket in my bag (as I thought). The guard gave me an "Amrish Puri" look in bengali style and ordered the roller to rotate backwards, and my bag came back out like a proud peacock. I began searching my bag nervously for the ticket, when Kushal re-entered the scene like Shatimaan (fk fk fk fk) of DD1 fame... The moment he told me my ticket was with him, I felt like ###$$$*** - censored due to company policy! So finally Shaktimaan and me were near the boarding gate awaiting the boarding to begin, all excited about our first international adventure trip!
... to be continued
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