Thailand Trip August 2019

We took an uber from Kadavanthra to Nedumbasseri airport while the rest of the group in the trip organized by Swapnatheeram had arrived in a van from Kannur. Waiting area in the airport was filled with young hearts in their sixties and seventies. The first task was to fill up "Visa on arrival" Thailand forms. The group was divided into about five tickets,  the check in process would be done per ticket. Our family and Deepti's family were in one group but my parents were part of a different group. Check in process completed, security check completed, boarded, about four hours of flying and we arrived in Bangkok airport early in the morning.

At Bangkok airport,  which was quite unappealing, when compared to the Changi airport in Singapore, (which I had just visited) we got into the long and winding "visa on arrival" queue. As there were  kids in our group, an officer pulled us over to a separate queue, we were asked for the hotel reservation voucher, which we got from Sreeraj(chief organizer from Swapnatheeram) standing in a different queue, got our passports stamped with on-arrival Thailand visas. It was quite easy for us. However, the senior citizens had a very long wait. For a country with tourism as the fulcrum of it's economy,  the officers were very poor in English. One of the ladies actually shouted at the group in Thai language for not queueing up properly.

After everyone got their visas, we were given time to brush our teeth and freshen up. Our Thailand guide Gift(real name - Mallika)  had arrived with the "Swapnatheeram" placard. The placard that we would follow for about hundred times in the next 3-4 days. We followed her to the volvo bus which would be our vehicle for the entire trip. We had stepped outside the airport, set our foot on Thailand soil.

Our first visiting spot was the tiger zoo. We had a simple breakfast from the zoo cafe with a tiger  watching us over from outside the glass. After the breakfast, as we walked through the tiger zoo, we noticed that the beautiful flowers and creepers lining our walk was all made of plastic. This is a pattern that repeated in many other venues as well. Our immediate destination is the crocodile show which was compered in Thai language to my surprise again for a tourism centered country. The show was pretty bland even while one of the performers put his head into the open mouth of the crocodile who had it's mouth open pretty much all through the show. At one point, the performer had put his hand into the mouth of the crocodile, crocodile did a quick snap and the performer pulled his hand out in time of course.

The second show we had in the tiger zoo was the tiger show which showed a bunch of meek well built tigers jumping through rings, doing namastes to the crowd etc. Spoke about how much India contributes to Thailand tourism.

We took a few interesting photographs here though - Divya, Deepti, Arnav and Niya sitting on a bench with a tiger cub on their lap and Deepti feeding the tiger from a milk bottle.  We also had two separate photographs - one of Appu sitting on top of the crocodile, and another of Kittu sitting on top of the crocodile

After the two shows,  our bus took us to an Indian restaurant for a late lunch followed by checkin in to the hotel in Pattaya. In the evening, we went for the Alcazar live performance show. The speaker system seemed really really old. Live performers performed various dances in various costumes , some of the choreographies were impressive, while some of the costumes were. The strobe lights used were striking. There was a performance to a hindi song as well. The guide, the hotel staff, the show helpers, everyone knew some basic hindi - "Uper chalo", "Chavi dalo".

As we got back into the bus after the Alcazar show, Gift asked us how many females were there in the show - answers ranged from 10s to 150, but the right answer was zero. She informed that the entire cast of the show were transgenders, and that Thailand as a country is very accommodating of transgenders in general.

Second day 

The second day was to focus on Coral Island and involves many speed boat trips and the elders were warned over and over by both Sreeraj and Gift about potential aggravation of back pain. We were concerned for my father's health but my father felt that that should be fine. So we did take the trip and based on where you sit in the boat, the jerks you feel were very different. If the elderly sit in the front,  then the chance of back pain is very very high where as at the back, the ride is reasonably stable.

After a pretty good breakfast from the hotel, the bus took us to the Pattaya beach. First thing that strikes you is how crowded the water is with all the water scooters and banana boats. The water is clear and the sand is white and the sea is generally calm. Inspite of all the warnings, only one senior citizen stayed back. Everyone else to my surprise decided to take on the jerky ride to the coral islands. As we entered the boat, pictures were taken - ostensibly for security reasons but most of these converted to 100 bahts per photo memoir after we were done with our visits to the Coral Island.

We sat in the back first and indeed the boat jerks were not bad enough to have my father stay back and miss the fun. The boat was pretty fast and we quickly reached the parasailing wooden podium. We bought one combo ticket per family which includes one parasailing, one underwater walk, one banana boat, and one water scooter. Arnav and Niya were all excited, and lined up separately for parasailing.

Divya, Deepti and Shajichettan went parasailing. None of them took the dip option which would put them into water while landing. This was recommended but not done and parasailing without the dip was just an ok experience for everyone. From here, we took the exciting boat ride for the few of us who were sitting in the front section of the boat. The jerks were literally throwing us off the boat. Niya and Arnav were very excited as were the adults sitting in this section.

Once we reached the underwater section,  Balu (from Trichur), Arnav and me walked out of the boat into the underwater podium to do our underwater walk. This was a fun and unique experience. While we were doing the underwater walk, the rest of the group was not made to wait. They were taken to coral island with the banana boats/ jet scooters. Once our underwater walk was done, a small speedboat carried the three of us back to the group.

Now, it was just a simple beautiful beach with clean water and white sands, and some photography, while some of us also did the banana boat ride where we sit on a banana boat which is pulled by a motored jet scooter. The jet scooter ride was to have you sit in front while the conductor drives the scooter. While we were chatting and taking photographs etc, we felt that having some skin-in-the-game experiences like parasailing/underwater sea walk definitely felt like a very good idea.

After all the excitement at the coral island, went to the hotel and freshened up, had our lunch and went to the floating market, where local sellers sell their products in canoes. Sweet little canoe ride through the shops - offered good rustic sights.

After the floating market, on the way to the hotel,  some of us stopped at the aquarium, which was not all that great, while the rest of the group rested outside the aquarium in the chairs that were present.

Second day was definitely much better than the first. Personally, I enjoyed walking under the sea for the first time in my life much more than watching a performer put his head inside the ever-open mouth of a crocodile.

Third Day 

We were leaving Pattaya to go to Bangkok on the third day. After an early morning breakfast, everyone boarded the bus and Gift did her Thai head counting and off we were to Bangkok. Pattaya is indeed a very touristy city with many buildings and shops and huge crowds. So many shops that you wonder how can all this stuff be consumed.  Every forth shop or so is a massage parlor. Massage is deeply entrenched in Thai tradition and some massage diagrams were engraved in stone in the historic temple we visited on our forth day. There were huge health facilities specializing in massage as well.

In the bus, with about a three hour journey to Safari Park in Bangkok, we had time to do introductions using the mike. Everyone gave nice friendly  open introductions and then it was time to present songs/ share experiences etc. Subrahmanian uncle (aged about 75) recited a poem about the conversation between a female foetus and it's mother. Sreeraj did an impressive mimicry of malayalam actor Janardhanan. By then, we were at the Safari Park. The journey had been completed with hardly any drudgery. All through pretty much all the bus rides Kittu, Appu, Arnav and Niya were creating a ruckus and enjoying themselves from the back of the bus. This meant that our group was pretty much confined and we did not get much of an opportunity to mingle with the rest of the group.

At the safari park, the bus drove by various animals while Gift spoke about them. People stood up in the bus and looked to the left side and to the right side with their cameras.  Here, we had five shows - the cowboy stunt show - american western-humor themed with gunshots (clearly imitated from the west) but reasonably done, the dolphin show, which was similar to the sea-world show in San Diego, but very well executed and fun despite the repeat,   humorous Orangutan show, the birds show with a parakeet taking out cards to spell "camel" and a bird singing "happy birthday" though I strongly suspect ventriloquism as the conductor and the bird never speak together. There was the "Spy War" show with lot of live engaging action and heat waves were sent to the audience synchronized with the blasts in the show to given the impression that is is real fire/blasts that is happening few feet from the audience. The shows in general were very good and engaging while the entire program is a copying of similarly themed programs from America. All of these shows were present in Sea World, San Diego. Tendency to copy the west is a trend in the east while the west is copying yoga and the like from the east as well.

For the lunch at safari, we opted for the Thai option. This was an option that Gift and Sreeraj had informed us multiple times over their announcements that if anyone is interested in Thai food, then just let them know and it can be arranged. Surprisingly, only our family took the option. Coconut ice-cream with it's gentle coconut flavor was the best of the Thai buffet. Pork rice was good. Yam beet with custard was the Thai style fruit salad. The familiar green curry was there but with fish instead of chicken. The green traditional dessert with tapioca and sugar was pretty good. The buffet here was unlike the popular Thai restaurants we see a lot in the US. In US, Thai cuisine is very popular and familiar where as in Kerala, not as much. That is probably the reason why having Thai food was an easy option for our family while not as much for the rest of the group.

It is August 15th, Indian independence day. Most of the shows in the Safari park acknowledged that. Performers shouted "Vande Matharam" slogans. "Jana Gana Mana" anthem singing had been organized at the hotel.

Forth Day 

Forth day kept the variety going and this day was for some Thai tradition, with visits to two very impressive Thai temples. Very well maintained, the architecture was very impressive and colorful, presenting lot of opportunity for photography. At the second temple, there was a huge statue of the golden buddha which as per our guide is fully gold.

After the temples, we were brought to a big gem store. Quite a few purchases were being made as the pricing is lower than in India. My parents bought Niya an ear ring. Deepti bought a ring as well.

Rest of the day was for shopping. Lot of small shops with cash bargains - about eighty percent of the shops were clothing based.  I wanted to do some "brand" shopping as I felt that those might be cheaper here and they have a surety to their quality. So we enquired around and walked to the impressive and huge "CentralWorld" mall. We were running short on time as we were to get back to the bus by 5 PM and couple of us had an earlier flight to catch. So we had to be there at 5 and it was already past 4. We ended up at H & M and bought some clothes and took a "Tuk-tuk" back to arrive just in time to the bus. Everyone else was already there and the bus engine was running.

As soon as we reached, the bus left to the airport. As we reached the airport, the dinner packets had arrived. Swapnatheeram had arranged dinner packets as the airplane does not provide dinner. Very good hospitality for the price indeed. It was time for goodbyes. Atmosphere got slightly emotional and many of the senior citizen ladies blessed Gift by touching her head. Once at the airport, some of us who had Baht currency exchanged it for Indian Rupees. After the plane reaches Kochi,  I just need to take an Uber home but the rest of the group including Deepti's family needs to catch a train towards Kannur from Angamali railway station. The plane arrived half an hour late, chances for catching the train was a bit slim, but the train was about fifteen minutes late and everyone was able to catch the train. Very smooth and well arranged trip. Would definitely recommend "Swapnatheeram" based on our experience.