Sometimes, it becomes inevitable but very difficult to control your emotions. I still don’t know, how I’m holding myself back. I was asked to shift my belongings for the fourth time in last three months. Earlier, I thought “Oh! They are providing for my accommodation for free in the foreign land, that’s enough. I’m obliged to assist them.” But today my limit of patience was crossed. How much can one endure?
I got late in obtaining my visa this time and hence my stay in India increased from ten days to two weeks. I was so afraid and regretful. I thought, “They are paying me and treating me just like their employees. This shouldn’t have happened.” Then my father told me to quit worrying coz that was a thing not in my hands. And now those emotions are completely gone!
But I’m a person who won’t say anything. I told my mentor though that this is not fair. But this time, it is for my company only. I had thought in my head, I’ll say this and that but I still couldn’t say anything. When I was told later that I have to shift today itself, I just broke down. Thank God, I was at the room provided to me as abode. I cried for half an hour, this time loudly. At what? At my nature. Why can’t I say anything? If there had been any other person, would have they complied this easily?
I have come to realize, people like me are made use of like that only. If we can’t stand for ourselves, we have to face the consequences. Although, I have known the fact from long before, I still can’t do anything about it. Because people like me think that if I am good to others, others should be too. I always forget that this is what my parents taught me and the world has taken 180 deg turn in the years.
One thing I’m worried about the most is, how I will convince my parents this time. Last time I said the same thing about being thankful and what not. At first they were furious, but then my father accepted it and I was satisfied. This time, they are going to be very upset and one thing I can’t bear is seeing them sad, especially because of others. I just pray for the strength to tell them.
In the end, I can only be angry at myself and my helplessness.
Today’s song –
Although not related this time. Somehow earlier songs fitted with the situations well……..
How have you been? Got confused with the title? I was just summing up my life in and out of my country (physically 😛), nothing else.I reached India some two weeks ago after three months in Thailand. I have fallen in love with that country and my experience there. 20+ years in India and three months in Thailand feel soo….. different. Although, many a times I fail to notice that I’m in a foreign country. Everything is fast in Thailand, yet the pace of life is slow.
I’m not saying anything against India. It is the country in which I was born. How can I do that? Anyways, it is time to go back to Thailand and I am anticipating new adventures for the next two and half months. Thailand has given me a lot. I started taking Korean seriously. I’m already learning a lot in the company. And the most important, it gave me a direction. Now I know what I want to do and how I want to do. Earlier, I was very worried.
Also, these 15 days showed me a quick trailer of how my life is going to be when I come back to India in December for good. Ah! I’m going to miss everyone and everything a lot (you will surely find the same line in some random post after three months).
In the end, I would update you with what is currently going on in my life regarding my language learning and other stuff. I have been listening to random K-pop songs again. I did Korean for whole day yesterday and realized, the grammar is as tough as Hindi’s. A lot of things BUT a lot of similarities. So I’m kind of happy about it. I’m being asked to take a test which I don’t want to but nonetheless I will have to apply for it. I want to take another exam but for my parents, it is kind of secondary, so they are asking me to take both, but first one is mandatory (Sigh!). I have been trying various Korean-English and viceversa dictionary apps for the past few days with much disappointment. Because I want an offline dictionary so that even if I don’t have internet access (whichhappenssometimes), I may still check out the word meanings.
Sometime ago, I connected my social accounts with the blog and I forget to uncheck some of the boxes like for Facebook and LinkedIn, while sharing. Last time I forgot and they got shared. And I don’t know how many of my friends saw this. It’s good on one side but I would’ve been happy if they didn’t get to see through Facebook TT_TT .
Oh! I remembered, today Good Doctor’s next episode would have been released. I’m off to watch that! Which K-Dramas are you following?
PS – Since I am going back now, I will update the blog regularly (preferably on daily basis), so stay tuned!
Today, I’ll take you to this small beautiful unknown place called The Museum of Floral Culture. Situated in very inner parts of the area Bang Kra Bu, just outside of Bangkok, it is very easy to reach there. Many buses go to Bang Kra Bu and drop you on the main road. Beware! There would be bike taxi people who will offer you to take at the place but they themselves don’t know the place or pretend to do so. Ours one agreed to take us there in minimal charges of 20 Baht and then got lost, went somewhere else and then asked for 40 Baht per person. The place is very near the main road at a walking distance.
Ok, now the place. It would have been a house with people living in them at some point of time. Now it has been converted to a museum. The outside arouses one’s curiosity as to what would be inside. Flowers, as the name suggests? Nopes. The museum shows the history of flowers, how they and the art of flower arrangement in vases, garlands and such travelled in Asia. Very beautiful art and decoration. There is a minimal fee of 150 Baht if you just want to see the floral museum. There is something called tea set museum (which we didn’t see btw) with additional fee.
Biggest regret, they don’t let you click inside the museum. You can enjoy the outside sceneries here though:
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This place is not for biology people nor for those who wish to see botanical garden kind of thing. It’s for history enthusiasts who like to know the connections between cultures of various countries. The tour hardly takes 45 minutes to complete and then they allow you to take as many photographs as you want in the outside premises.
Great time pass if you are left with some 2-3 hours and don’t have anywhere else to go. Not very far from Siam Paragon. Highly recommended!
Just one week after the last incident, I had my second encounter and I’m very happy that I met that ahjusshi…. Yesterday I went to the Museum of Floral Culture (look forward to my next post reviewing this place). It had been past the lunch time and me and my friend were very hungry. We stopped by this mall which had many many Korean shops from cosmetics and clothes to restaurants and book shops.
And there was this pair of shoes I liked so much and they were on sale. I would have got those kind of shoes in India very expensive. Too bad, my size was not available. Then we went to this shop named Korean DD. It was a cosmetics shop. Although I’m not interested in such stuff and my friend was not sure about the brands from South Korea (she is learning a little though under my influence starting with K-Pop), we still entered the shop. What caught my eyes were the posters of K-pop idols all over. And without thinking over I just went inside the shop. The lady inside was a Thai but when I was naming the idols aloud, she and the guy sitting outside started laughing. Nevertheless, I asked if she was Korean and she replied, the ahjusshi standing behind was.
Ah! So excited >.< Then my friend asked me to talk to him in Korean and suddenly I froze (갑자기, 왜?). She then explained him that I was learning Korean and then trivial questions like where do we come from and such followed (but in English. Too bad again). We left the shop and suddenly I thought I would ask something about Korean. He didn’t understand what I was saying. Guess he knew only Korean and Thai (Ah! Too bad. Don’t know how many ‘TOO BAD’ moments I had yesterday). But he was a cheerful ahjusshi who tried to help me however he could (Ok, I could have thought that he was a shopkeeper and hence did all that. Marketing strategy? Even so, I want to trust his help). And thus my faith was restored. Then we went on shopping spree with clothes in another shop selling Korean goods at 80-90% discount. There were K-pop songs playing in background and there were Korean movies posters in the shop too. There also whatever piece I was liking was not available in right sizes. Sigh!
But in the end I got a packet of Jjajangmyeon and on the packet there was nothing non-veg. I’m still doubtful about it and will be translating the ingredients although they are written in Korean as well as English. If anyone of you could tell me whether the noodles themselves are non-veg or not, I’ll be very grateful.
Feels bad right? I thought so too when I came to know that the meeting was always going on when it seemed (or was made like that? Who knows?) the work was to start tomorrow. I so badly wanted to do that one project. But when the other person was establishing new connections with this new party, did I miss out anything which could’ve been beneficial for me in the future? May be or may be not?
Whereas, I did lose the potential new good connections, I did a lot of other things. So what did I do in the meantime? I made more connections in this company itself. And I learnt what I couldn’t see properly or things I couldn’t ask about during my induction, at the starting.
Oh! And I already have two big projects with me. You think I’m greedy? Certainly not. When you know, you are gaining, like, heaps of experience and it’ll look good on your resume, you don’t have to care (at least I don’t). I progressed there and I’m very happy with that.
When sometimes, mind starts to follow someone else’s mentality blindly, it affects how you work too. It could’ve happened to me but I seriously don’t like to do things that has already been done. I mean, what’s the point doing the whole experiment again in exactly the same way provided, when you already have the results? And this sometimes calls for a small push, may be silently. I try to make the person understand my ideas and if one doesn’t, other gets it. That happens most of the time, but when I really get upset with the way the work is done, I demand ask, if it can be done again, the next day, by right method or putting variations to get more reliable and different results. And you know what, it doesn’t look rude since the person thinks that it’s already being done, so one day more, no problem.
That just makes me realize that yes, I’m learning a lot – being patient with people I’m not comfortable with and am never going to, opening up with people (at which I “used to” be very bad), seeing good things in everything (the example is before you) and what not. Ah! You say I could’ve asked my mentor to put me on the team when I wanted it so badly? I seriously don’t know why I didn’t do that. Was I too much hurt when I saw people sitting in some other office of the company, about which I had no idea or is it just my pride (ego? Nah!)? But I decided, if my mentor thinks the project is not suitable for me (not the other way round, mind it!), then it’s alright. I know, she believes in me and that’s why, when during an enquiry to some company, I was asked about my position, she outrightly asked me to write “Process Engineer” when I’m just an intern. These small little things make me very happy and proud. And may be that is the reason that the trust is mutual and I don’t fret over these kind of things.
Has this happened to you? Would you like to share your experience, not just in some company but school or some other place too?
Oh! Should I post some song too? Here, my new fav –
As I wrote in my last post, I went to KoreaTown which was a disappointing experience. There is more to what I mentioned last time.
Actually, I have this senior at the adjacent company to the one in which I’m working, who went to South Korea for his post PhD. And he had to leave in between because he couldn’t adjust to their culture. Now that he knows I’m inclined towards the place, he keeps telling me stories about his experience. Initially I used to think that may be, maybe it was just the culture gap. I have seen enough dramas to make out that people are very strict towards work and are very competitive (I hope I’m right). Because, you can’t dismiss everything in k-dramas or any dramas of the world, as a matter of fact, as pure fiction. You can learn a lot about the culture and many a times, general behaviour of the public (saying that by experience 😛). So, I tell him that he must be unlucky to find only such people.
But guess, I was wrong. I met this group yesterday. Two older men and one young girl (may not be as young as I think her to be). They were speaking Korean and I got all excited to see native people from South Korea. Now, I had read in some very interesting book that if you meet some native person of the language you are learning, try to gain as much as possible from them. Though I’m very shy to approach strangers like this, even so, I did-
Me – Umm…..Are you from South Korea?
Lady – Yeah
Me – Hi, I’m from India and I’m very big fan of Korean Culture……
Lady (Interrupting) – Yeah, but you see I’ve to go. I’ve got some company.
Me (Taken aback, don’t know what to say) – Oh, ok. Just wanted to say that I’m very excited to listen to real Korean. Thanks. Bye.
She walks away laughing and telling the uncles about this. I couldn’t hear anything further nor did I want to. I had to go in same direction because I wanted to go to JapanTown too. But I was so shocked that I went to opposite direction, crossed the road for no reason and went to a small book shop in hope to find some Korean books. There also, found only Korean to Thai books.
Ah! My attempt failed. It, kind of put me off. I was thinking of taking admission in some good South Korean university for my higher studies. But now, subconsciously or not, this place will probably go to last country in my list of countries where I was thinking of applying (I will still apply though coz I want to have first hand experience of the culture).
After that, I heard a lot of people talking in Korean and Japanese (which, trust me, has never happened before), but I couldn’t gather enough courage to stop and talk to anyone. I’m not saying that everyone is like that. I haven’t known any real Korean people (I mean personally, I do want to though) and I’m not trying to disregard anyone. I know one or two people can’t represent the whole country. But you are a foreigner here and I’m too. I get it that there are a lot of K-pop fans in Thailand and that’s why there happen a lot of concerts. But at least stop for a moment to listen to me, even if you are in hurry. Am I wrong in expecting that much?
I just know that if some stranger approaches me or tells me that they loved my country when they went there (even though they found a lot of bad things too), I feel so proud and give them a big smile and thank you. Am I overthinking over this whole incident? What do you think?
So today, my day started very bad coz everybody in my friends circle refused to go to Bangkok due to one reason or other. I mean, each and every single one of them backed out! But i dared today – to go alone to Bangkok. And guess what! I got the model of the mobile phone which I wanted to buy and was out of stock till yesterday afternoon. And…….. And I got to see Japan Festa in Bangkok 2013, being held outside Central World Mall. There were a lot of cosplayers and there were a lot of random outlets. There were Japanese food stalls too; but I’m a veg so I couldn’t taste that.
Some gen pics –
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Here are some cosplay pics of the characters I know :
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Then I went to KoreaTown situated on Sukhumvit 12. I went there by BTS train (just like metros) and the place was some three stations away from the above place. And to tell you the truth, it was a huge disappointment. After the pleasant surprise of attending an unexpected cosplay event, I was excited what the day was to unfold for me and I was really upset after seeing a deserted place with only Korean food shops and dental clinics and hair salons. What would have I done there? I thought I could buy some books for my Korean learning there. But there wasn’t even one book shop in KoreaTown (at least I didn’t find any). I did find one book shop a little far away but all it had was Korean books for Thai people 😦
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The I went back to the event again and had more clicks. This time, since it was around 4:30 in the evening, the weather was pleasant. So I had some more fun. By 5:00 p.m. I had to reach the headquarters to take the company’s van, so I had to leave this awesome and fantastic place, much to my regret. Why did I waste time going to Sukhumvit. If only had I attended this festival properly, I could have a chance to finally try a kimono TT_TT
Some more pics with cosplays I don’t know or don’t seem to recall –
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But truly. The people were there from the morning to the evening. Must have been sooo tiring. Hats off to the cosplayers! Getting clicked by so many strangers, posing for each one of them differently……. truly amazing.
With this, I’ll end my post today. I hope you enjoy the pics 🙂
I, recently came across this blogger (whose name I forgot), whose all entries about his/her internship had headlines as “Hopeless Internship Day #”, something like that until it got over (or it may be going on till now). I laughed to myself. The headline seemed appealing and you indeed are tempted to read what he/she may be going through to give such a name to his/her posts until I came across such situations where I wanted to say that too.
We, interns, sometimes, are looked down upon by the bosses of our bosses, who don’t know our value. We are working for you for much less than we are worth of, often times, doing same jobs as many of the employees do and many a times, better work than them. I’m not degrading the employees nor talking against the bosses. I know it takes time to see the actual effects of the projects we undertake. Moreover, there is a lot of under the surface work, which goes unnoticed. Actually, they won’t even consider that as work but we did it. We put time in it. And it is more apparent in those conditions, where, the bosses are new and unaware of the process of taking interns and their work. Something like this happened to me a while ago, when the company head came for a visit and we were asked to attend a meeting with a future supplier, in which, he was also taking the part.
Obviously, when you suddenly are asked to attend a meeting, with no prior knowledge on the topic, you are bound to remain quiet, just in case you offend the higher-ups sitting there. So, we were just sitting quietly, listening to the conversation, paying attention to the details, so that we might get some of the things, at least, from this advanced stage meeting (this was actually third or fourth one). I must say one thing, these meetings teach you a lot – how the suppliers try to convince you that they are the best, how you talk to them, how you give them details by not so giving them “the” details and what not. For now, it also taught how one creates a pressure on other party and how the other party handles that. I have come to realize that our company is doing so much for us (they let us attend the meeting with suppliers and we are free to, rather encouraged to, ask questions of our own) and we are growing with each and every activity we do here.
That aside, in the end, we were asked to give our input. We were asked what we were working on. And it had been around 15 days from the time we started. We told what we were working on and we were bombarded with a lot of question which were totally out of our field.
My dear boss’s boss,
We are engineers, chemical engineers. I understand we do economic analysis too with the technical details. But that doesn’t mean we have to do market analysis also, that too on everything. That is not our area, you see. It’s not that I’m not ready to learn. I’m eager, you teach me and you’ll see how fast I can do the things. But please don’t expect us to know every field like that.
I do know my roles. But this is real life situation and we have just started. It takes time to understand each and everything of the plant. You want us to know everything well in advance, that’s okay. I know, you are paying for almost every utility for us besides the stipend and I assure you that I won’t disappoint you. But give us some time. We are also humans. I’m sure, in the end you’ll say, it was an excellent deal to bring these kids here. But for now, you must understand that it hurts when we are deemed to be not working or not under proper guidance. Because I feel like, I’m doing bad to my mentor, my boss more than myself.
I also understand very well that, being from a reputed university, we are expected to know everything. Yes, we may know more (sometimes and sometimes not) but that doesn’t mean everything. You need to see that, although it fires me up when you say, we are not doing anything (even when we tell you about the projects we have already completed or are undergoing), but deep inside, it does affect my confidence. At least once in a while, you can appreciate us too. Won’t that be a better boost? Won’t that make me work more, to hear more praise?
I’m really grateful to have this opportunity to work for this particular company, I swear. I love everything here. But please, could you please, just read this once and try, just try, no, just think over it and implement some of the things? I shall be really very very thankful to you.
Oh, and this is from me only, my boss is not involved in it, I assure you. Please don’t say anything to her. Thank you, once again.
Yup, I committed a grave grave mistake and I’m very sorry for that to myself. I don’t know how I missed it. Why did I think it was in September? And I didn’t even bother to check it. On the top of that, I came across the whole thing on the last day of all days, not even once in past twenty days?
Oh, sorry sorry. I was talking about 32nd TOPIK registration. I just came to know yesterday that I had already missed the deadline. Everybody keeps a milestone for the date of exam but no one tries to display registration dates. I had a list of plans to execute before and after the exam. I have to take another engineering exam in February and I thought I would start preparing for it after this one. But oops! Everything failed. So what now?
Nothing. Life will go on and I will take the exam next year. 34th TOPIK for sure. And I won’t be outside the country at that time so I won’t get confused as to where to take the exam and where to register. That being said, now I’m going to study even harder and become serious. I already started from yesterday. Everyday, learning new words feels so great. And I have decided to continue with Japanese also.
It makes me a little worried though. Now I’ll have to give time to everything including my engineering related studies whereas earlier I was thinking of taking up Korean only till TOPIK exam.
I know I am 바보 and I seriously wanted to clear at least one level before sitting for placements in December, but oh well, it may as well be advantageous for me. May be, that’s why I’m not regretful about it.
It’s been a while since I posted some song with my post, so here it is –
We had plans to go for snorkeling but the accident last night left us with no choice. We didn’t want to really leave our friend behind and have fun. So we decided to go for elephant jungle trekking. It was around 500 Baht initially (probably) but after some insistence and persistence, we bargained for 450 Baht/person. The arrangement was done by the resort people only. To tell you the truth, we would not have got the deal if we would have gone on our own.
The taxi came to pick us up and we reached the place, full of big and small elephants. We were offered water first. Oh, I remember, there are two choices you can pick – One hour or Two hours. The one we took was one hour one. The Two Hour program would have cost 650 Baht/person. In one hour, we were taken to the mountain and in the Klong River. That’s it! But it was really fun ride, you see. The elephant went into the water, deep down. We didn’t get water splashed on us (Thank God! Otherwise, I didn’t have any other clothes ‘NOT’ intended for beaches since we were going back after this). And the scenes! When you reach almost top of the mountain, you can see whole island in front of you. Felt like touching the sky!
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We were photographed by the camp people and by the time we reached the camp, it had been prepared and framed. We could buy it for 200 Baht. The fruits had been prepared for us already and then the baby elephants came out. He was sooo cute!! He took me by surprise when he suddenly lifted me up on his trunk! And when his master used to say “Khorp Khun Khrub” meaning thank you (said by males), the baby use to bow down by stretching his front legs. We took some clicks and had delicious fruits. The fruits and water were included in the ticket itself and we were not charged for them separately.
Now in two hour program, they take you to the beach with the elephants and you can have a lot of games and rides with them. We did want to do that but time constraints were there. You can feed the elephants too! Baskets with small bananas are kept for 20 Baht/basket. It could have been free if we went to hotel back, but we had to go back to pier for ferry. So for there, they themselves brought a taxi and with heavy heart, we started our journey back to our home. Once again roller coasters and a lot of tourists in the taxi, we reached the pier, took the ferry and…… sigh!
And this is how, we ended our memorable trip. (Lol! While writing this sentence, I suddenly remembered “How I Met Your Mother”)
Alright, time to complete the task which I have been procrastinating from long time (one week, that is). Yup, it’s been week since I travelled to this faraway land and I’m not able to forget the serenity and beauty of this place (not that I haven’t travelled to any seaside place before but this has been a particularly memorable one). And, this post is gonna be a long one!
Ko-Chang (meaning Elephants Island) is a district in Trat province located around 310 km from Bangkok and second largest island of the country (Source – Wikipedia……. Who goes on a fun trip and asks for geographical data?………Well, at least, I don’t)
Since, I’m living in Saraburi, I’ll describe my journey from here only. We went to Bangkok from our company taxi (which, obviously, cost me nothing). Reached Bangkok, roamed around, visited some malls and blah, blah, blah……..
Random Roaming and Clicking in Bangkok
Bus time! We took 11:30 p.m. VIP bus from Ekamai bus station to Trat. Awesome and comfortable journey. Good condition seats and AC. Best part, you have got toilets on board!!! (For Indians, it is a new thing). Four and a half hours and we reached Trat bus station (must have been the closest district to Ko Chang island but I forgot to see the name……. anyway, it will drop you at the right place, if you are in right bus, so don’t worry). Our ferry to Ko Chang was around 6 in the morning, so we decided to wait at the bus station itself, but the driver who was supposed to take us to ferrypoint kept pestering us to hurry up, hence, we had to leave the place earlier. It took us about half hour and we made a stop at the ferry ticket counter (which was about 15min away from actual pier). This lady, who was booking tickets, was very helpful (and real business-minded, I must warn). She not only booked ferry but convinced us to book ‘open’ tickets for returning bus from Trat to Bangkok, since 12th, Monday (the day we were supposed to return home) was holiday all over Thailand in honor of The Honorable Queen’s Birthday and many people would be going back. Since the ferry and bus tickets were both open, we weighed our options and decided to go with it. We just needed to inform the lady when we would board the ferry while coming back so that she would confirm our bus tickets. Not bad. Now, no tension and no hassle of buying tickets to our way back.
We were taken to the pier and we were lucky enough to see the sunrise (bumper bonus!). See for yourself. Although it was cloudy, sun came out for enough time to get clicked by us.
The sun is also a fan of being photographed!
Ferry took around half an hour to reach the actual island! Although slow, it was a fun ride, giving us a chance to feast our eyes on beautiful sceneries, never seen before.
Oh finally
Oh, prices…. I’ll make sure to ask coz till now everything was paid by one of my friends and I just received the cumulative bill in the end (Oops! that reminded me, i still haven’t paid her). From now on, I can tell you. After climbing down the ferry, we took a taxi who’s driver was charging 100 Baht per person from foreigners till our hotel (which was quite far, I must admit).
And trust me, that was one hell of a ride. Why, you ask? If you want a roller coaster ride without an amusement park, this is the place. The roads are so steep, so steep, that at some places, you are literally at a perpendicular plane to that of the sea you can see from there (Sorry if you are bad at maths, but this is the only way I can say that). Since we were moving, we couldn’t click the exact thing but I hope that these give you some idea.
The downward slanted road as can be seen from side wall
The angle !
The dangerous turn
Is it same as second one?
So, somehow we arrived at the hotel “Bai Lan Beach Resort” at 8 in the morning but our check in was at 11. And while my friends were talking to the receptionist, asking for information, I had a look over the place and it was really breathtaking scene.
Ok, so the resort was good. We had already booked the rooms since we were afraid of holiday season. We relaxed a little bit and rented motorbikes (scooties actually) and tried to find veg food. Now, it’s not like we were not getting veg food in the resort but it was a little expensive for people like me. Again, the roads are really up and down, so until and unless you have confidence to drive on such roads (where you can barely control the speed of the vehicle while going down), I would suggest you sit behind some expert. Keeping this in mind, I opted to be the passenger rather than driver. There are a lot of marts out there where you can buy various kinds of bread (without egg too) and frozen food. Meanwhile, we stopped in between to have a look on other small waterfalls and beaches (our resort’s was a rocky one). Here-
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A little more masti, some more clicks and we went to the resort again. Oops! 11a.m. was check out time for previous customer and check in time was 12 noon. One more hour we waited.
Rooms were good, clean bathrooms, mini fridge (equipped with beer which is NOT included in your room rent), TV, AC etc. Our room was with garden view and a double bed, so the price was around 1000 Baht for one night and it included one time breakfast and all the service taxes. Time to freshen up and leave all the tiredness of the whole night journey behind, to enjoy the day’s endeavours. And then we went for kayaking, since it was free and available at that time. Other sports were far away and their time was in morning. We had nothing to do so we went kayaking. And the whole team – amateurs! (Since there were no trainers or anyone like that….. you were free to go by yourself, which we did). It’s easy to see someone and analyze how they do the things they do but very difficult to do it by self, which was the case here too. We turned the kayak upside down a hundred times (a little exaggeration) but still had loads of fun. Then we went to a beautiful whitesand and clear beach called ‘The Lonely Beach’ (and it was exact opposite to it’s name). The tides are a little high in the afternoon. There are massage parlors too (genuine ones please, not those kinds). So while having a good view, you can have a good massage too. Lunch at 5 and then we took our motorbikes to explore more. A little unfortunate accident stopped our little expedition then and there, but you can still find lagoons, small streams and waterfalls to visit by the road itself. Many people were taking a bath too, in these fresh water streams. Went back and had dinner at some peaceful place. The place was a little empty, so it was nicer atmosphere. The prices were reasonable too, not very expensive but not very cheap either. Came back and relaxed on lounge chairs by the seaside till midnight. Had some drinks and the day finished. The accident did upset us a lot and how we wished, we could go further up ahead but, oh well.
Now, my dear vegetarian friends, if you are worried about your food, I suggest you don’t. When we were planning our trip, many people told me, I won’t get anything since I’m a person who doesn’t take egg even in cake. But, I did get fantastic food there, that too pure veg. Thai people call “no egg, no meat” food as “che”. All you have to do is, use this word, if they don’t understand, while ordering food and they will prepare it for you or tell you what are the dishes suitable for you on the menu.
Next part – Elephant Jungle trekking….. Coming soon
Sitting on the beach lounge chair by the seaside, I can see the vast ocean before me. There are three, rather four islands in the sea. People are playing in cold water on the beach. The sounds of waves are shadowing their joyful screams. It is drizzling; small droplets going through my hair and falling on the ground. There are big mountains in the background afar, covered with lush green trees, looking so fresh after heavy rains last night. Clouds are touching the top of the hills making them look like a factory where they are being manufactured, defying all laws of science. It is peaceful, it is relaxing. I have left all the worries of the world behind.
But why does it make me so sad? Is it because, it is almost time to leave this place? Just one day trip is not enough to grab all the gifts this place has to offer. I regret not taking more leaves now, as the time draws near. At this serene place, I can spend days sitting and doing nothing.
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Then, is it due to jealousy, I’m feeling against people arriving here and checking in to the resort now, because they can start enjoying and for me, it is the end? Or, is this vastness of the ocean making me feel so? Because, I can’t see myself anywhere. This does make me seem insignificant similar to those four islands which are looking like small dots from here, or the speed boats going to and fro, even smaller.
What is this feeling? I have never had any attachment to any place before, not even my college or school. But, why here? Why does it feel like my last trip I’ll ever have? Is it some bad omen? Female’s intuition?
It’s time to go on the last adventure for this trip – elephant jungle trekking. As I gather my thoughts and my emotions and my belongings, the sun is coming from behind the clouds, shining its hopeful rays on me, inspiring me to start anew and do something for myself and the world.
PS – I wrote this, when we were just going to leave Ko Chang as you can make out from above. I did not have any internet though, that’s why I’m posting it today. The review of the place is coming soon with lots of photographs. For now, enjoy these sceneries from where I sat and wrote.
Oh! And about my intuition, something bad did happen but that I will tell in other parts.
The Joys and Worries of an East Asia Lover 