Happy New Year

Happy New Year - 2010 to all.

May all your dreams come true.

Keep dreaming.

What happened this time....

Wish i knew the answer!

To simply put i think its the differences in style of working that drove me to take bold step of calling in quit. I have always believed one should work in an environment where each day is enjoyable and challenging. I don't know its me or its the environment that changes every two or three years.

I would come up with another update soon. But for now all i can say is i think i made a very good decision, time will tell though.

Since am going to be free soon i would try to throw in full weight behind my GMAT prep and get it over with. Only then i plan to think about what i want to do.

Come back soon, i would keep you posted on how things turn out. i am guessing my reliving is not going to be smooth and am always up for challenges :D

I Quit!!

Yes again!! seems like my stint with companies doesn't last as long as i wish for.

As per the "regulars" on my blog .. yes i quit without having a job again .. seems to be developing habit :P ( for those who are not aware of what i am talking about - read here)

I would be back with updates personal and general which i think i should be doing more frequently because i would have more free time :)

Bungy-eeeeeeeee

Bungee: This was one thing I never imagined I will do on my short trip to Phuket last month. But I did it YAY!!

We came to Phuket unplanned, our flight back home being late in the evening, we had whole day with no plans and after checking out we headed straight to Jungle Bungee - Phuket.

On our way, sitting in Tuk Tuk, I thought to myself 50m...hmm.. its not that high. Is it? I asked my friend (B) hoping that he would say its high .. very very high .. lets head back and enjoy some coolers and Thai massage on beach :)

No coolers or massage served here mate.. just the jump.. take it or leave it.. That’s the look of the New Zealander who owned the place and he seemed in a hurry to push us from 50m high.

View from 50m above ground.

Looking up 50m .. eh .. its not that high .. a short glance at (B) and we were all set for our first Bungee. That’s when things start to get .. umm .. I would say exciting. After weighing in and some calibrations done it was time to get strapped in and man the guy was really nasty in tying my legs, it felt like this is the last time i am feeling my legs hurt. :)

All tied up!

50m high above from the ground doesn’t seem that high .. however it gets really scary as you move up and when you are there and man the only thing one appreciates is, how wonderful it was to be on ground, even more on a beach.

But there was no coming back from there.. I was up for the jump and very very scared. I wonder why people pay so much to jump down in water or ground as the case may be. It wasn’t the fear of height or the fear of water down below.. for some strange reason I was worried about my neck and that’s what got on my nerves as i reached the top and readied for the jump. On the way up, which was long 5 minutes, I got all the instructions from the jump master on how to execute the jump. (Easier said than done! Huh?)

Here i go .. wait!!

Standing on the jump platform I was scared but not as scared I use to be in my viva questions in undergrad.. but man it was still scary. And I must have been high this morning to pay to get on top here. After few failed attempts to jump myself, I realized that my time is running out and I need some help if I want to make the jump today. So without a doubt I asked my jump master "Why don’t you push me?" What happened next cannot be said so look at the picture below :)

g=9.8m/s2

Yes I was pushed by a guy 50m down.. but its not how you think :) In the end all I would say it was all worth it. Once you leave the ground below your feet its the excitement and boy I appreciated gravity. And yes if you are wondering I did touch water down below. The biggest take away from this experience is that in all my future bungee jumps I would need little more than encouragement to complete the jump ;)

Here is a tip for all of you who want to do bungee, JUMP don't THINK.. Happy Falling!

Phuket

Everyone loves vacation and they are much more fun when you go on an unplanned vacation. As I write this post I ponder into my thoughts and recollect my Pondicherry trip back in 2006 which was totally unplanned, yes we didn’t had a hotel booking and man it was so much fun.

So it happened again, I came back from India in the second half of March after almost a month of break and on Monday morning as I was looking from where to start the pile of work, one of my best friends (B) called and informed he is going to transit to India via Singapore this Sunday. I was excited to meet him again after three year since our Pondicherry trip.

After discussing the details and our plans of all we do when he is here, his dates of travel etc we hung up. I made plans for our visit to Malaysia for couple of days and started to look for details when on Wednesday (Tuesday for B) he calls up again and informed me that he cannot get Singapore Visa in short time and cannot risk in sending his passport and tickets to another city. That dented our plans for Malaysia as he had to apply for Malaysian visa after SG visa. So after discussing even more details we explored the idea of going to Phuket as the Visa was on arrival.

Being in Singapore for more than two years now and the process they have in place still surprises me. The only way to apply Visa for B was to apply online and the immigration officer on phone told me that it will take three working days to know the outcome of the visa application that meant till Friday I cannot make any travel plans. Any sort of travel seemed impossible nevertheless I applied visa online on Wednesday afternoon and to my surprise the visa application was approved in 3 hours flat. I don’t know what happened may be glitch in their system but I got Multiple Entry visa for B.

It wasn’t till Friday afternoon when the hotel confirmed my booking any by evening my travel iternary for Phuket was compete. Flying on Sunday and coming back on Tuesday. All set and done. Hey, wait what to see, what to do, how much currency to take .. Damn in rush to get the travel iternary done I forgot to make the list of what to see and where to go and where not to go.

I had to work on Saturday so as to compensate on my sudden absence of work, so I knew it’s going to be an unplanned (almost) trip.

On my way to airport we took a detour to the nearest library and borrowed two available books on Phuket and off we went to Phuket. After passing over crowded Phuket immigration there we were standing outside Phuket international airport waiting for our minibus to take us to a place called Patong.

Phuket is basically an island state of Thailand and is divided into different localities. Most popular of them all are Patong, Kata and Karon with the later two being most popular among Europeans, so a good place for family holiday planners. On the other hand Patong is the main party place of Phuket, the night life what Phuket is famous for is all in the Soi or lanes of Patong.

There are so many things in Phuket to see and do so one should come prepared with plan well in advance, however as for us it was just a vacation for 2 days and we are more spontaneous travelers so our main aim was to explore as much as possible and minimum sleep :)

Here’s what our travel plan for Phuket was when we landed --
1. Sunday:

• Explore Patong .. pub hopping
• Book Island hopping tour for Monday
• Thai Food

2. Monday:

• Island hopping
• Thai Food
• More pub hopping
• Thai massage

3.Tuesday:

• NO PLANS at all
• Check out by noon
• Thai massage
• Fly back home to Singapore

Armed with our plan and 2 hand books about Phuket we marched on from our hotel in corner of Patong to the Patong Centre which by sunset was buzzing with activities with sea food restaurants buzzing with hungry sun bathers and surfers. Neon lights just starting to come up and the streets we filling with beautiful ladies.

Patong at night!

There are bars and only bars at Th. Bangla road and the road is closed after 7 pm or so for regular traffic and by 9 pm daily it’s full of party goers. If you are into rock music there is a bar right at the start of Bangla road, Hard Rock City, it’s a must go for rock music lovers with a live band its definitely worth the money. Our motto for the night was two drinks max and off we go to another pub. So after four more pubs which we thought were decent for guys like us ;) we decided to end our night in one of disco mentioned in one of the books we were carrying. It was good may be second best after hard rock city, they had awesome music and crowd.

After getting just hours of sleep the next morning we started early for our island hopping tour and I have to admit this was the highlight of our tour only second to what we did on Tuesday morning, which I would come to later. Island hopping tour comprises of visit many islands of which main attraction was Ko Phi Phi where movie BEACH was shot.

Koh Phi Phi.

However to me the best attraction was Maya Bay where we did snorkeling. The natural beauty was awesome.

Maya Bay.

After being with nature all day long, it was time to soak in some real authentic Thai food and pamper ourselves with some sea food delicacies Thai style.

FOOD :)

With our Phuket trip almost over we headed to the bars of Phuket one last time and after few pub hopping we finally sat down in one of the quieter place hearing jazz music and that’s when I passed on wacky idea to go Bungee on Tuesday afternoon after checking out. I don’t know if it was the drinks or sheer tiredness from trip we decided to go for it.

The next morning we got up late and checked out by noon and headed straight to Jungle Bungee.
Man 50m is high and to jump from there are u kidding me? And you have to pay 2000 THB for that... are u kidding me again? Well there is a separate post coming up so do check it out in coming days.

We wrapped up our trip with the rest of the day on Patong beach,

Patong Beach.

enjoying over cast weather and water activities. I have had great time in Phuket and can’t wait to go back there as soon as I get time :)

May be next time i would like to stay in Kata and visit James Bond Island!!

50th Post

To my surprise this is the 50th post in my blog and looking back i have mixed feeling considering the posts and feedbacks i have got.

I can't say that i would be regualr on my blog or to the blogging world but what i can definately say is  i would be in constant touch with my and other blogs i read.

I was in India last month and the better half of this month attending marriages, meeting old pals some after long 13 years. This trip was also speical because i got to be with my family for Holi ater good four years.

Later half of this month has been pretty busy catching up with work and my sudden trip to Phuket, Thailand. I will be writing post about my Phuket trip soon so do visit in day or two for some tips on travelling to Phuket.