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Published: October 6th 2009
Hi again everyone.
Well my last blog finished off with Karma & Chenchu handing us over to an Indian driver, at the Bhutanese border town of Samdrup Jongkhar. So off to India we go......
After exiting Bhutan through a massive archway, we crossed into about 2km of ''No Mans Land'', where we passed under another big sign saying "Welcome to India". Our driver (whose English was extremely limited) pulled up at a small concrete hut and indicated we should go in. It didn't look like any Border Post I've ever seen, and I've come across a few isolated ones in my time. Anyway, a rather snappily dressed (and hansome) young man in shorts, tee shirt and the latest "copy"designer sun glasses came ambling over, and said "You want to cross into India?" Now India is very big on uniforms and doing official things properly, and given we were in an area of Northern India (Assam) that is a little unstable at best, it took me a few minutes to realise he was the Border Guard. After a very pleasant general chat and enquiring where we all came from, he collected our passports and proceeded to write our details onto a scrap of paper he found under his desk. He stamped our passports, and said "Ok, you can go now....goodbye!!". During this process a young helper had arrived (equally as casually dressed) with a rather large book, which I assume was the official register. I also assume, our border guard was going to copy our details into it after we left..... anyway not our problem, we had our passports stamped and that was all that mattered!!
So back into the car and off we went..... officially into India with all its, heat, dust, chaos, bumble bee (black & yellow) tuk tuks, and crazy sights. I don't think I have ever seen such a contrast when crossing a land border before. Even though Samdrup Jongkhar was far more Indian than the rest of Bhutan, it still had a Bhutanese feel about it. 2 km of "No Man's Land" and we were in the India I know and love from my past trips. The contrast was really quite amazing.
As I already mentioned it was HOT, Damn HOT. Every bit as hot (if not more so) as at the beginning of my trip in Laos & Vietnam. The vehicle supposedly had air conditioning, but it didn't seem to work. So we wound down the windows and relied on the natural kind of air con.....the wind!! I was sitting in the front seat, and had the sun beating down on me through the wind screen. Even though we had all the windows open, I can tell you I was roasting in about 5 minutes. I actually felt like I was in a microwave.... cooking from the inside out!!! There was quite a lot of road works along the way, so we had to continually decide if we wanted to wind up the window to keep the dust out (and cook), or have moving dusty air !! Generally keeping the dust out won, so it wasn't a particularily pleasant trip.
Anyway, after almost 3 hours we arrived at Guwahati airport. However it was only 12.30pm and our flight didn't go until 7.40pm..... a 7 hour wait. We had tried to talk Karma into leaving SJ much later, but he kept mumbling about traffic holdups and missing our plane. Personally I think he just wanted to hand us over, and not have to worry about us any longer, leaving him the whole day to do whatever he had planned.
Of course as we were so early we couldn't check our luggage in, and had to sit in the waiting area, surrounded by our bags. Fortunately the airport was quite new and modern, and air conditioned, so it could have been a lot worse. By this time the heat was searing outside, even in the shade. We had spoken with some people a few days earlier who had told us the airport was quite good, and I knew it serviced regional international routes. So naively I assumed there would be a money exchange desk... Wrong !!! So without rupees we couldn't even buy a drink. For once the $US didn't count for anything.
Finally at 6pm, after sitting around for what seemed an eternity, we were able to check our bags in, and the flight eventually took off at around 8pm for the 50 minute trip to Kolkata (Calcutta). By the time we collected our bags in the domestic terminal, and walked along a very dark path to the International terminal it was about 9.30pm. Our flight to Bangkok didn't depart until 2am, so we settled in for another long wait. Fortunately we were able to check the bags in at 11pm, so at least we didn't have them to lug around. We also found a cafe that was happy to take our $us, so we were laughing!! Eventually we boarded the plane for the 2 hour flight to Bangkok, and after almost 24 hours travelling, with time differences it was magically 5.30am on Friday morning (2 Oct).
Enter the next stage of our trip, Jomtien Beach, Thailand....... We are staying in a Time Share apartment in a hotel resort, approx 2 hours out of Bangkok. Fortunately I'd had the foresight to pre arrange a transfer from the airport, as I don't think any of us had the energy to think about anything at this stage. Just finding the transfer desk was hard enough, and I have learnt my way around Bangkok airport pretty well over the course of this trip!!
We have a very nice (and spacious) 2 bedroom apartment up on the 15th floor (top floor) over looking the beach, and I can tell you by the time we arrived it looked like a little piece of heaven!! It has a lovely pool area, and all the necessary amenities, and we happily settled in for a week.
Now Jomtien Beach is about 10km further along the coast from Pattaya....Thailand's capital of Sin and Sex!!! We had convinced ourselves that Jomtien would be lovely, quiet and nothing like Pattaya, and in many ways that's correct. It is MUCH quieter, and has none of Pattaya's girlie bars, but it still has a certain atmosphere of sleaze!! Not to worry, we are just ignoring it. There are a number of very good and cheap restaurants, and we sit out on our 15th floor balcony surverying the world. It's amazing how different everthing looks from up there. We have plenty of time to work on our tans in the pool area, and are training the restaurant staff to bring us drinks out to the pool.
One interesting thing that I've never come across before, is this area has a lot of package tours from Eastern Europe (Russia in particular). All the restuarants have the menu's in Russian as well as English, German & Thai, and there are a lot of Russian signs along the streets. Our hotel seems to specalise in Russian Honeymoon tours!!
Jomtien seems to be a favourite day trip from Bangkok for local Thais. On the weekend there was a lots of family's picnicing on the footpath in front of the beach (the tide was in and there was very little sand). They also do "Disco"tours for Thai teenagers. They load them into these massive coaches that are painted in all sorts of bright graffitti like pictures, and turn the music up LOUD. Once they arrive the teenagers pile out, and sit around on the footpath by the bus (where the music is still blaring) or filter down to the deck chairs and umbrellas on the tiny stip of sand. They don't appear to go swimming (normal for Asians) and the girls especially were obviously dressed up in their "coolest" clothes for the outing. Fortunately our hotel is at the far end of the beach, so none of these goings on happen up here..... Thankfully it's far too quiet and boring...... Just as well, or we may have had "3 Grumpy Old women"!!
Sunday night we ventured up to 'The Strip' in Pattaya, and saw a "Lady Boy" caberet show. I have seen some ordinary shows in my time, but this was really bad. All the songs were mimed very badly, and the dancing defies description....all I can say is that the contestants in the the first week of "Dancing with the Stars" look like seasoned professionals compared to these guys. Anyway, it only went for 1 hour, and we did have very good seats right up the front. Maybe if we'd been seated further back, the short comings wouldn't have been so obvious!!!
After the show we walked around for about 30 minutes, by which time we'd had enough of the crowds, bright lights, girlie bars, and general sleaze. I think I must definately be getting old, as I just couldn't handle it, and couldn't wait to get back to our nice quiet and relatively sedate Jomtien Beach!!
The weather has been excellent until this morning (Tuesday). It is quite warm and moderatly humid, so very pleasant. The sun has been out every day, however this morning when we woke up it was raining... the light misty stuff that seems to get into everything. Fortunately it looks like it's clearing, and I think we'll be back at the pool this afternoon.
So guys, that's about it from me....... I plan to spend the rest of the week lazing here by the pool working on my tan, and then fly home to Sydney on Friday evening. I can't believe my holiday is almost over, and now have to face the reality of looking for a job!!
I hope I have entertained you with my travels, and I'll see you back in Sydney.
Cheers Ali xxxx
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Debbie
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Thanks!
Hi Alison You have done a terrific job of keeping me entertained - so nice to read something nice on emails! And a great distraction from MY reality!! :-) So, for all your entertainment, you'll have to drop by one evening and I'll shout you a cocktail at our favourite cocktail bar in the Mariott! Enjoy the rest of your break and we'll see you soon! Deb xxx