Musafir hoon yaro

This is a review of our 1-week vacation to Thailand in the 3rd week of August, from August 18th through the 25th.  I basically picked a place where the boys could be near a beach, a place which would not be too far from a city and somewhere that would be easy to reach from Lahore.

We arrived in Thailand from Lahore, a very convenient flight that lasted a total of 4.5 hours.  We were at the Bangkok airport at 6:20am, having left Lahore at 11:30pm the night before.  The Suvarnabhumi International airport is better than the Dulles airport in Virginia/DC.  If you have an American passport, you do not need a visa, you also do not need to fill out any forms; go straight to the passport booth.  There are tons of currency exchange places; the going rate is 34Baht to a dollar or roughly 1.8 Rs to a Baht.

Zan and Faraaz had slept on and off on the flight over, while I watched pieces of Shrek 3.  Thai Air has god service and good food, though their flight back to Pakistan was not as good as the one out of Pak.

We stepped outside to hop on a free shuttle from airport to the Bangkok Bus station (5 min ride), paid 460 Baht for 4 and arrived in Pattaya 1:45 minutes later.  From there, we paid another 80Baht and were at the Jomtien Beach in 15 minutes. This ride was on a mini-pickup converted to a taxi, where you sit facing each other.  It is quite convenient and in abundance in Pattaya.  A 5 minutes stroll put us in front of the Rabbit Resort (www.rabbitresort.com) in the Dong Tan beach.

Dong Tan and Jomtien Beach is a few km away from the busy Pattaya beach and much quieter (read nicer) and more family oriented.  We got there before the check-in time of 2pm.  The resort is a cluster of 2 story bungalows, with some being secluded from others.  Ours was a very nice villa overlooking a garden.

We spent the rest of the day at the beach, which is right across from the resort.  We lounged around in an easy chair, drinking coconut and refusing a foot massage every now and then.  The kids were extremely happy collecting sea-shells and fighting waves.  Since the beach is very passive, we could go quite far into the water and still be not in deep water.

The next day I took the kids to a water park.  The kids having spent the summer school in a swimming pool were having a great time, going down water slides and playing tag in the pool.  Faraaz has become quite a swimmer, so he was more daring than Zan, going on longer slides.  This place was also walking distance from our resort.  The resort had a gorgeous blue water pool and we went there where Zan learnt more tricks in the water.  Having had enough of swimming, we caught the open taxi and went to the city for some quick shopping and dinner.

The kids wanted pasta so we found this Italian place (a bit pricey) where we had a nice sit-down meal.  From there, we legged over to a show called Alcazar. It is in all their brochures and a big highlight of the city.  You can Google it to find out more about it but it is quite family friendly.

The next morning, we had a tour booked for the Nong Nooch Gardens.  It is a place that has acres of beautiful gardens (Saadi, you would have loved it) and flowers.  It also has an excellent elephant show where they play basketball, soccer, darts and you can feed the elephants.  Rizwan, their dart throwing skills are just a little better than yours;-)

On the way back, we made a pit stop at a place called Underwater World, which showcases an aquarium left, right and on top of you as you walk in a huge underground tunnel.  We came back to our resort, having become quite good at the art of haggling, and enjoying the back and forth.

We went to the beach for some more water sports.  The kids having seen the banana boat ride in Lilo and Stich wanted to try that.  We also wanted to try Jet Ski.  After Saman and I went out on Jet Ski, I came back for the kids.  Zan, then me and then Faraaz. I was afraid that Zan would not like it, or I might not be able to handle both of them, but it was really a breeze.  If you have not been on it, Jet Ski is the simplest thing to lean to drive. Even Zan had fun pressing the accelerator and holding the handle.  The enjoyed the ride thoroughly.  Afterwards, to top-off a good day's activities, I enjoyed parasailing, which is quite an experience itself.  We had an excellent Thai dinner at the resort, watching the waves lap at the shore and gentle breeze blowing in the background.  BTW, the weather throughout our trip was simply amazing - breezy and with no rain in site.

The next day was a pretty much a repeat of the previous days's activities.  We were initially supposed to go back to Bangkok that day but decided to stay in Jomtien a day extra - a great decision in hindsight.  The kids immensely enjoyed the pool and the beach.  It was an excellent idea to get more sun and sand, speaking of which, I got a wicked tan.

One thing that I liked about this vacation was that it was balanced with activities and down-time for kids.  Our resort had Disney channel and a DVD player in our room and the kids having taken a couple of their favorite movies, had a great time to unwind.

I have travelled with them to Italy, Spain, London and Germany, but they enjoyed this trip the most.  Just a note to the parents, plan time where kids can do their own activities.  Also, don't cram too many cities/places in your vacation. You are as strong as the weakest link, and in vacation, you should pace yourself at kids' level.

We had a couple of days in Bangkok.  I had booked the Rabbit Resort from the Net but I purposely had not booked the hotel in Bangkok as I was not sure when we would be getting there, which worked out good.  It was easy to book the Bangkok hotel from Jomtien.  We got a place whose location was good, not too far from the shopping and city center.

Bangkok is a shopping heaven.  There were tons of shops close to where we were staying.  We took a quick round.  Next day, we had planned a trip to the crocodile farm, which was well worth it.  So, the Thai have a good way of helping the tourists and themselves.  When you walk out of your hotel, there are taxi drivers and tuk-tuk (a rikshaw) drivers that approach you.  These people get a cut from the travel places they take the tourists to.  It is not a scam, the travel places are normally cheaper than the ones you would find yourself.  So, we booked a tour and also got a guide that came along with it.

Saman and I had a good conversation with the guide.  She was a mass communications expert.  And, as I promised her, I am leaving her email address here, use her if you want if you go there (pat_breaktime@yahoo.com).  We found out about their current government, their monarchy and their economy.  They too, had a military coup, as some of you might already know, last year; their elections are planned for December this year.  Their king just turned 80 last year and has been the longest running king for 60 years, more than Queen Elizabeth.  There is poverty in Thailand but the common man seems content.  95% of them are Buddhist, next highest are Muslims.

The next day was our departure; we got a chance to go to the floating and weekend market.  Floating market was featured inthe Bond movie, “Live and Let Die.” As a matter of fact, so was a scene with Bond jumping on crocodiles headsto reach a clearing.  In any case, the weekend market is like Bori bazaar (actually, I have no idea how that is like but I can guess).  There are deals to be had everywhere and the goras are aplenty to attest to that fact.  Speaking of goras, most are European, and some Australian, we did not run into any Americans.

We took the taxi back to the airport, got on the flight at 8pm and were home at 10:30  We came home and realized that load-shedding was going on.  In Lahore, we are lucky and it lasts only ½ hour a couple of times a day.  Then I remembered that all the time we were in Thailand, there was not a single incidence of load-shedding.  Also, though the traffic was congested in Bangkok, I did not hear a single horn.

I have posted pictures on my facebook account and they are also on AOL pictures.  You can see it at either place.  I will have to share it to you on AOL though.

Swasdeekrub Thailand!

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

• #1 Comment from armughanjavaid 
  8/31/07 10:39 AM | Permalink

  Sounds like a great vacation. The pics were awesome! How much did the resort cost per night?