Thai Memoirs : Exploring The Ancient Ruins Of Ayuthaya

In short this can be termed as an unexpected overseas trip. Just a couple of weeks before got to know that I had to travel to Bangkok for a conference and later on came to know that my wife would be in between jobs during the exact time period. So what more, without much ado we decided to go for an official trip cum personal vacation. During my quick research found an interesting fact about Thailand, that it is the only country in South East Asia not to be occupied by any of the colonial forces, woah that needed some serious strategy and negotiation skills on the part of the Thai people :). One downside of this is that majority of the local residents do not speak much of English or any other popular foreign language. Only those working in the tourism industry would be able to manage some broken English at the most.

Interior Of a traditional Thai Home

Phra Mongkhon Bophit

 Since this trip was not planned ahead in time, the ticket prices were not exactly cheap and to top it up it was a peak season in Thailand especially for the Western tourists. We had 6 days in hand including a weekend, in which we decided to head towards Krabi, which won over other contenders such as Phuket and Pattaya based on our personal interests of nature's beauty over night life, activities etc, which the latter 2 places are associated with. The first 4 days we spent exploring the areas in and around Bangkok and this included the ancient city of Ayuthaya.

Landed on the wee hours of 10th Feb in Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport. Thailand seems like the best overseas vacation spot for Indians considering the number of Indians lining up for the Visa on arrival counter at the airport. It took as nearly 1.5 hours to get our VISA and from there we took a taxi to our Novotel Impact hotel which was in the other end of the city. Meanwhile we got the first glimpse of the city. The entire stretch from the airport to our hotel was elevated and I was really impressed with their infrastructure, even though we encountered slow moving traffic more or less for the entire stretch. It looked like Thailand was ahead of India by atleast a decade or two in terms of infrastructure development. And one more observation is even during a traffic jam/slow moving traffic no one really honks like they do here in India and they strictly follow lane discipline.

Phra Mongkhon Bophit

Wat Phrasi Sanpet

Landed at our hotel after some time. Since it was still early for our checkin time of 2 pm we decided to freshen up at the hotel spa. And after depositing our luggage at the counter we decided to go sight seeing to the ancient city of Ayuthaya 60 kms from here. Not before we had our first encounter with authentic Thai food of some "glass noodles" and even though the server assured us that it was pure veg , we highly doubted it :P. Ayuthaya was the predecessor of Bangkok, being the Royal capital of Thailand (or Siam as it was called before) until the neighboring Burmese invaded it and looted it and hence resulting in its complete destruction. Therefore the remaining ruins reminded me a lot of Hampi. During its peak between 14th to 18th century it was the largest city in the world !!!!!!. Hence after this attack in the 18th century the King decided to build a new capital and hence Bangkok was born.

Ruins of The Grand Palace

We booked a taxi for the entire duration of sight seeing from our hotel which costed us 1500 Thai Baht. Left the Novotel Impact hotel at around 10, and reached the place at around 11. This area is actually an island surrounded by rivers on all the directions. Once in the centre of the ruins we decided to explore on foot. Other options to explore are cycles, elephant rides (not my cup of tea though :( ) , local tuk tuk rides. We explored lot of Wats (thai word for temples) including  Phra Mongkhon Bhophit, Wat Phrasi Sanpet, Ruins of the Grand palace, Wat Phra Ram etc. (I had to look up again in the internet to recall the names :P )

Wat Phra Ram

Phra Mongkhon Bophit had a huge Buddha Statue , the biggest I have ever seen. Little did I know that the size of Buddha statues will keep on increasing as our trip progresses. Wat Phrasi Sanpet has the 3 sphires which has now become the symbol of Ayuthaya. In front of this monument is the ruins of the Grand Palace. There is nothing much remaining apart from the load pillars , but the dimensions of the site gives an idea of the dimension of the medieval palace. Nearby there is a miniature scale model which gives an idea of what the city of Ayuthaya used to look like before its downfall. Further we went to see the Wat Phra Ram, which looked a lot like the world famous Ankhor Wat of Cambodia.

Wat Yai Chai Mongkol

After exploring the structures within the island we got out of it and explored other ones including the Wat Yai Chai Mongkol and Wat Phanan Choeng, both of which were quite impressive. Wat Yai Chai Mongkol had a huge set of steep stairs climbing upto the central shrine and one gets a birds eye view of the entire Ayuthaya region. Near this temple complex is a leaning Buddha Statue and surrounded by a lot of smaller Buddha statues clad with saffron cloth which looks very pleasing to the eyes. Wat Phanan Choeng now had the biggest ever Buddha statue we have seen till now , overtaking the one at Phra Mongkhon Bophit. After this we decided to return back.

Wat Yai Chai Mongkol

One more place which we missed was the floating market which we couldnt go due to insufficient time, but later on came to know of the bad reviews given to this place, hence no regrets . One more thing to keep in mind is that majority of the temples/palaces in Thailand have a last entry of 3.30 pm. We returned back to our hotel by 5 pm, ending the first day of sightseeing in Thailand. Overall it was an interesting place to explore, but surprisingly we didnt find any Indian tourists at all !!!!!. Guess this is not part of the popular Indian tourist circuit which comprises mainly of Pattaya-Phuket-Bangkok.

Wat Phanan Choeng

And if you are still wondering, the name Ayuthaya is actually derived from the word Ayodhya. Talk of ancient Indian influences :) . 

Ramanagara Marathon

It had been quite some time since I took part in a running event. One of the major reason being the winter season when I am usually too lazy to get up in the morning to train and hence results in periodic yearly weight gain around this time :P. Therefore with the signs of spring coming, I had to kick-start my training by participating in an event to gauge my present condition  and Ramanagara Marathon conducted on 1st Feb perfectly fit the bill. Decided to participate in the 11km run and not in the half marathon since for the past 2-3 months I had been running 6-7 kms and not more than that , and that too not regularly.

Before Race Selfie

Drone

This time I had Shashi for company and both of us registered for the 11km event. He was participating in the Auroville Marathon the coming week which I had missed to register by a couple of days in December, therefore this was like a preparatory run for him. Both of us left Bangalore in the wee hours of a very chilly Sunday morning on a bike. It was literally freezing while we were riding through Mysore road to reach the venue near Ramanagara. It was not overly crowded as some hi-profile events in Bangalore tend to become and had just the perfect number of around 500-600 runners. There was even a drone covering the event which caught everyones attention and imagination.

Post Race Selfie :P

The run started at 6.30 with the half marathon participants let off and then after a gap of 10 mins we were let off into the track. The route was quite picture some with it snaking through the boulders of Ramanagara which has made the town so famous since the days of Sholay. It was a majorly a trail run and there were a lot of obstacles such as sand, pebbles, stones, boulders enroute which had to be negotiated. Further the  weather was just perfect for the entire duration of the run. This trail reminded me a lot of Kaveri Trail Marathon. I maintained a good momentum,  running majority of the distance behind an IISc runner , making him my unofficial pacer :P. And when the end point came near I had the audacity of overtaking him and finishing ahead of him :D.  I completed the 11 km (actually it was 11.5km) in 1 hr 6 mins. Not a bad timing and I am happy that I would be bettering this time through this summer :). Since there was no chip for this race there was no ranking provided.

Were provided with finishers medal, certificate and followed by an okayish breakfast. Also met a long lost friend after a gap of nearly 12 years. It was so "long lost" that we instantly recognised each others faces but failed to recollect where had we actually met :P. After breakfast, left the venue and later-on came to know that a runner participating in the half marathon had collapsed and had died on the way to hospital. This further reinforces the fact that long distance running shouldnt be taken lightly and one should train and be in perfect condition while attempting such a distance. Hope that persons soul rest in peace.

Go Goa With The Missus !!!!!!

With this trip, I have been to Goa in all possible seasons and with all possible company. First in the scorching summer season with family, second in the pleasant spring with college friends, next in the lively monsoons with my trek friends and finally in the winters with my wife. Of all the seasons that I have been there I must confess that I loved the monsoons the most. Totally deserted beaches, lively greenery everywhere is what that appealed to me the most. December to January is considered to be the peak season in Goa wherein most of the westerners descend upon the sunny beaches of Goa in order to get away from the chilly weather of their homeland. Therefore as expected it can get quite crowded during this time. So much so that there were huge traffic jams in the streets of Goa, something which I had not encountered earlier and much to my disappointment since with this I felt, I was right back in Bangalore :P.

Candolim Beach Shack

So on a long weekend thanks to the Republic day we planned for a visit to Goa after visiting relatives in Belgaum. So after visiting relatives in Belgaum we set for Goa in the afternoon. The route between Belgaum to Goa is quite scenic with dense forests to be traversed. By nightfall we had reached the place, and had close to 2 days to explore this mini state. Because of the obvious shortage of time we decided to stick to the main touristy areas of North Goa, namely Calangute/Baga/Anjuna/Candolim circuit. Our accommodation was booked at Candolim beach (Summerville Beach Resort) which was a steal considering that I had got nearly 55% off thanks to a credit card promo offer. After the checkin in the evening we went for the stroll to the nearby Candolim beach and it was a good experience walking along the beach which was illuminated with the various shacks dotting the beach and teaming with activity.

Agoda Fort

The next day we decided that we would rent a scooter for the next 2 days which is one of the most easiest and cheapest way of going around in Goa. Got a Honda Deo scooter for Rs 300/day , which was much  more expensive than the usual 200-250 charged, because of the peak season as well as the long weekend wherein domestic tourists especially from Mumbai and Bangalore had come down for their vacation. The first thing we did was to visit the Agoda fort. There is nothing much to be viewed in this place when compared to the dramatic views Chapora fort provides, but still this is one of the most sought after destination in Goa.

Selfie of Barbie doll and Superman :P

After exploring the fort we went for a dolphin ride which is quite near to the fort. During this ride we were taken in a boat to a spot which are frequented by wild dolphins busy hunting down their afternoon snacks :P. We spotted dolphins quite frequently, but the most we could view was their shiny backs when they surface for a breath. Along with the dolphin safari the boatsman showed us the various buildings dotting the shoreline such as the old central jail and so called Vijay Mallya"s guesthouse and so forth. This trip lasted for around an hour.

Dolphin Hunting

With the temperature rising with the midday sun we decided to move our exploration to indoors and hence decided to head towards Old Goa, home to Churches and museums. Took some time to travel from Calangute area to Old Goa, which is around 25 kms from here, but the route is quite picture-some with the roads to Old Goa flanking the banks of River Mandovi. In old Goa we explored St Xaviers Cathedral which is really majestic from both inside and outside and considering that this was built way back in the 17th century by the Portuguese makes one wonder in awe. From inside one just feels very small in comparison to the grandness offered by the structure and I guess this was actually intended by the builders, so that people loose their ego when they come to worship God.

St Xaviers Cathedral

Apart from that there is a glass coffin with St Xaviers body who had come to India as a missionary and died here during the 16th century. There is also an art museum which was just ok. Opposite to this church is a museum run by the Archaeological Survey of India, which gives an insight to the history of Goa. We spent majority of our afternoon in here, and what more "it was air conditioned !!!!! " :P.  While returning back we had short stopover at the ruins of St. Augustines church and by looking at the size I wondered whether this was more majestic than St Xaviers church considering the size of single wall tower standing.

We returned back to our room and decided to go to Baga beach for the evening. And when we reached the beach,  boy-O-boy the beach was so crowded that it resembled Kumbh mela. With such a crowd everything was a headache. We decided to do parasailing and it took all the time in this world for our turn to come. By the time it came it was dusk with the sun already down and this activity lasting for just a minute or so. Overall I felt these watersports were such a big scam in Goa especially in the peak season. After this we went back to our room and retired for the day.

St Xaviers Dead Body

St Augustines Cathedral

The only things that were remaining in our must do items were Chapora fort and Anjuna beach. Therefore we decided to relax a bit in the morning. We decided to head towards Candolim beach and considering that this early in the morning the beach was quite deserted we played in the waves to our hearts content. After getting refreshed back in our room we checked out, stored our luggage in the resort office and headed towards Chapora fort also known as Dil Chahta Hai fort. After climbing for around 15 mins we came to the best viewpoint available all over Goa in my opinion. Miles and miles of sea, beaches and a huge confluence of a river to the sea. Even though it was midday it was not that hot in here because of the strong breeze blowing from the sea. Spent a lot of time in here absorbing the views.

Baga Beach at Night From the Sea

Near the entrance of the fort there was a guy from Country Club who said they are doing a promo and gave us a scratch card and from it we got to know that we had won an assured gift of either tv, fridge, holiday, phone etc. It was written scam all over, but still I was curious since this seemed to be an authentic scam from Country Club :P . Therefore we were taken to the country club resort near Anjuna Beach and then we got to know the catch. One has to attend an hour or so presentation of Country Club and wherein they would persuade gullible couples to register themselves as members after paying 30-40k. After an hour I lost patience and flatly said that I am not going to register now and please give us our gift. After scratching our gift card, we had won a vacation in any of the Country Club resorts, but again with a catch, one has to attend this presentation all over again :D :D. In summary I would call this white collar soft scam :D.

Anjuna Beach

From here we went to Anjuna beach, hanged around there for some time and then decided to return back. Surrendered the bike and took a taxi to drop us to the private bus stand from where we had to take a 13hr bus journey back to Bangalore. Overall it was a good trip, but I guess with me been to Goa so many times, this might be the last time in here and definitely I am not coming again in the peak season of December and Jan :D.

View From Chapora Fort

The Bloody Saga !!!!!

The title with the "Saga" word seems like an overkill for a blog on blood donation, but that is what it has been to me. This personal saga for donating blood started almost 3-4 years back, but due to various internal and external reasons creeping in, wasnt able to donate blood so far. These varied from reasons such as the donation camp dates in close proximity to some of my endurance sports events wherein I feared that too much blood loss would result in a drop in my performance to a bit outrageous reason such as getting bitten by dogs :P (A person administered anti rabies vaccination cannot donate blood for upto an year). Apart from all these "reasons" I had given myself for the delayed gratification, the real reason for not donating blood was that I was AFRAID. Afraid subconsciously of the big needle inserted into my vein and close to half a litre of blood being taken out.  Hence took me quite some time to overcome that fear and donate blood. Therefore in short this was nothing short of attempting some adventure sport :P.

Every 6 months or so a blood donation camp is organized in our office by the Rotary Club. So when such a camp was organized in the beginning of this year, jumped to the opportunity to finally donate and get over the fear, and I must confess it was a breezy affair. After a mini health checkup, a needle was inserted to my vein and the permissible limit of 450 ml was reached within a matter of 10 mins. Once that is done was put into the recovery phase with lots of fluids and food. I was in and out of the entire thing within 45 mins.

Some advantages of donating blood, which I found over the internet.

1. The feel good factor. The satisfaction of saving 3 lifes from just 450 ml of the blood donated. This includes components such as red blood cells, platelets and plasma which are separated and donated.

2. Free medical checkup. Before the donation a free haemoglobin and BP check is done. And before the blood is injected to the person receiving the donation,  the blood is tested for Hepatitis B, C, HIV AIDS etc. and if anything is found the donor is informed.

3. The health angle. Donating 450 ml of blood is equivalent to burning 650 KCals of energy. Further studies have found that donating blood is good to keep a check on the high iron content in the blood , especially in adult males. Iron content within the permissible limits reduces the risk of heart attack and cancer. Therefore donating blood should be in the must-to-do-list of all the healthy males out there.

Therefore a person looses nothing but gains a lot of benefits. The lost blood is usually restored within 48 hrs, during which the donor should avoid heavy exercise and hydrate himself as much as possible. The recommended intervals between successive blood donations should be atleast 3 months. Therefore now I am planning to donate blood at-least once every year. And what inspired me the most was that a severely physically handicapped guy standing in front of me to donate blood. When he can, why cant we ????!!!!. So have you donated blood for this year ???!!!!!. If not go do it, it feels great. :)

Unearthing The Secrets Of Sharavathi Backwaters

With 2014 coming to an end, something different was planned within the cousins group and it was decided that we would go for a trek/camp considering that majority of the people hadn't experienced trekking and camping in the wilderness. After researching over the net came across this nature camp "package" offered by Sharavathi Nature Trails (aka Sampath Kumar, http://sharavathi.blogspot.in/) which promised us lot of things such as island camping, boating in the backwaters of the Sharavathi river, trekking etc.

Group Selfie

[NOTE ABOUT THE ORGANIZER : But sadly this package was one of the biggest disappointments I have experienced in recent times and eventhough I dont resort to personal insults in my blogs I must confess that I found Mr. Sampath Kumar to one of the most arrogant person who thinks that he is doing a great favour to mankind by letting people come on this trip even though he demands 2k/person. Being a travel-freak myself I agree that sometimes unexpected things happen which is not within the control of the organizers, and we have to adjust, but when the organizer (Sampath) instead of informing the people beforehand itself in a manner which is understandable, lets the trekkers  discover for themselves in the nth minute which adds to the frustration and to top it up when we called him up he doesnt want to do anything with it at all and starts to act like a bully. So things like island camping gets dropped, full day of water sports(kayaking/canoeing/rafting) gets converted to a couple of hours of playing in water and surprisingly there was not even a sign of apology anywhere. Our taxi driver (a local), went to the extent of saying that this was a badly managed trip. Therefore I would personally not recommend anyone going via this package. Anyway in this blog I would rather concentrate on the good things rather than ranting about the bad stuff again and again. ]

Jog Falls Enroute

So all 7 of boarded the overnight bus to Sagar from where the local taxi would pic us up. From Sagar the lodging place was around 25kms near Talaguppa and this lodging (Camp Tiger Rock) is situated in middle of an forest with some great bird eyes view of the backwaters. The plan for day 1 included driving to spot from where we would be able to indulge in activities such as kayaking/canoeing/coracle rides etc and camping for the night in an island formed by these backwaters. So after having a good breakfast and travelling for nearly 2 hrs we were let into the quient banks of the backwaters and were provided with the safety equipment such as life jackets. Just then when everyone asked where would the water activities be conducted, we were informed by our guide that it has been cancelled because a DFO was visiting on this particular day and the organizers expected us to spend the entire day just playing in water and without even having a basic courtesy of informing us in advance. Anyway we made the best of the moment having a good time in the group, playing in water. Floating around lifelessly in perfectly still water with eyes closed almost felt life floating in space :), an awesome experience.

For lunch we were taken to a local tribal home wherein they had prepared a simple lunch of rice, sambhar , papad, pickle etc and we gulped it down within no time. We returned back to the lodge/resort , had some fun around a bonfire and some of us slept in tents to get a feel of sleeping in one. Just then it dawned upon me that it has been exactly 5 years since I went for my first camping trip in Kemmangundi :).

The plan for the next day was to trek to a viewpoint from the resort from where the entire backwaters can be seen and to catch the sunrise. This viewpoint is around 45 mins climb from the resort and it was a decent climb. But unfortunately by the time we got up and ready, the sun was already up and we still trekked to the viewpoint. The view from the top was breathtaking with an birds eye view of the huge expanse of the Sharavathi backwaters and the various tiny islands dotting them. Spent some time at this place absorbing the view and after that got down to have our breakfast and then left for the trekking spot for the day which unfortunately was around 3hrs drive from the lodge. The trekking route would take us to Goodanagundi falls and Bellagundi falls view point deep inside the Sharavathi Wildlife sanctuary. The organizers had all got the necessary forest permissions for our entry to this place and surprisingly there were no other team/individual who was trekking on this particular weekend.

Sharavathi Backwaters Viewpoint

Trekking to Goodanagundi falls

So after a tiring 3 hrs ride we landed at the starting point of the trek. This trek can be graded as an easy one with the entire trekking distance of around 7 kms and with very little steep gradients. But the views especially the sun kissed grass along the way was simply a treat to the eyes. The route traversed through grasslands and super dense jungles and it looked like the route through the jungle hadnt been traversed very frequently. And we had a surprise package waiting for us in the jungles.... Leeches !!!!!!. Leeches in the middle of December in Western Ghats is pretty much of an unheard phenomenon, but unfortunately they were there and so were we :P. This kinda freaked out many of the first timers seeing these squiggly beings latching on the legs to suck on the blood.  Overall by the end of the trek each of us got close to 10-12 bites :P. Apart from the leeches the other wildlife we encountered were a group of wild boars, a sloth bear and lots of colorful butterflies (see the video).

After close to 2 hrs of trekking along the dense jungle flanked by the rivulet we came across Goodanagundi waterfalls, a virgin and an untouched falls. All of us took a shower directly under the soothing water of the falls for some time. Had a simple lunch prepared by our guide and driver and then started the trek towards Bellagundi falls. It was around 3.30 pm and we were already running short on time since we had to catch the 9pm bus back to Bangalore and therefore it hastened our pace to Bellagundi falls viewpoint. Spent just a couple of minutes at this place and we were  back on track towards the place where the taxi was parked. Reached there at around 5.30pm , after spending close to 4.5hrs in the wilderness. After this it was a boring  journey back and we caught the bus back to Bangalore just in the nick of time, hence bringing down the curtains on our first ever cousins trip :P. Apart from the fiasco with the organizer explained above the guides and resort caretaker were good and provided good care, especially the food throughout the duration of our stay. Therefore we ensured we left a good tip for them :).

Goodanagundi falls

Bellagundi falls

Video Compilation