Chilling out in Ko Samui

The green patches of land, encircled by a wide expanse of blue was my first sighting of Ko Samui, right from the air. On ground, we arrived at a cheery little airport that instantly put you in the holiday mood. We collected our luggage smiling (and truly, how many airports can you say that about?)

Samui is a nice big island with wonderful beaches tucked on all sides. We had decided to stay at the quieter Bophut beach. Our trip happened to coincide with the New Year, and the first evening was spent boogying away at Samui’s most popular beach in Chaeweng.

The next morning, it began to rain. And rain it did for most part of the stay. Luckily, Samui is famous for its spas and we made good use of the weather to get pampered indoors at the Zazen Resort Spa and the Anantara Spa next door. We ourselves were staying at the Ibis Hotel chain, a lazy booking brought about by lack of enthusiasm to search for a truly boutique place. It was quite comfortable, had its own beach and served its purpose.

The rains let up most evenings, leaving us some time to explore the island. One evening was spent by me walking around Chaeweng beach shopping area while D decided to learn some Thai cooking at the famous Samui Institute of Thai Culinary Arts.

Another evening was set aside to explore the neighbouring Fisherman’s Village, filled with restaurants and shops.

One day when the sky was merely overcast, we hired a bike to drive to Lamai beach and that gave us the freedom to make random stops, including one for lunch at the breathtakingly located The Cliff.

What we however could not do thanks to the rains was a trip to the Anthong Marine Park to try a hand at kayaking, snorkeling and a bit of trekking.

Samui was a good trip - plenty of food, lazy strolling around, excellent massages. What more can one ask for..

Bangkok Diary

The trip to Bangkok was planned on the basis of it being the easiest to book within the short timeframe we had to plan a holiday. And Bangkok is certainly easy on the tourist. It has good tourist infrastructure. There is a lot to do but nothing stops you from just chilling out.

Where we stayed – In the Sukhumvit area, close to the Skytrain and Metro. Bangkok has really bad traffic. So choosing a location that lets you commute through public transport can make a big difference. Sukumvit is also close to the malls and has a lot of food joints.

Our actual hotels were the Baan Sukhumvit at Soi 18 and its sister concern at Soi 20. The former is larger and much nicer than the latter. The English owner of the place was friendly and helpful.

What we did – Since this was my frist trip, I wanted to do all the tourist sights. So an entire day was spent ferry-hoping to catch the Grand Palace (massive – takes a couple of hours to get around), Wat Pao (of the reclining Buddha fame) and Wat Arun (Intricate work on the walls)

The rest of the time was spent in checking out some of the malls – Siam Paragan and Central World for branded stuff and MBK for the low end and tourist stuff. Unfortunately, since we were not there in the weekend, we could not see the famous Chatuchak Market that everyone and their grandma had recommended.

D also did a walking tour in Chinatown, following the LP’s recommended route, while I was doing the shallower pastime of window shopping.

Where we ate – Bangkok has great food places and really good street food. So most crowded restaurants turned out to be a good deal. We also wanted to rot in luxury one meal and chose to go to the Vertigo and Moon Bar located on the 62nd floor of a tower in the lumpini gardens business district. The choice was between that and Sirocco and we picked this one because the name was cuter. The views were great, the crowd watching satisfying and the food nice.

Did we get massages (of the legal kind) - Not really. Since Ko Samui was dedicated to the spa visits during our holiday, we did not. But it is definitely economical to get one.

Hot tip - Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) was carrying a TV on the flight back to India. Apparently it is priced very very competitively. So even if you are not in the market for a TV, you need to buy one just to sell it and make a neat profit when you get back home.

Ringing in 2012

How do you know you had a happening New Year’s Eve?


Be in Ko Samui, Thailand – Yes

Be in a party on the beach – Yes

Watch lanterns floating onto the sky – Yes

Hear and see firecrackers at regular intervals – Yes

Sit around a table on the beach sand and get cool neon fake glasses to wear – Yes

Start dancing after a while to the thumping music – Yes

Watch fire eaters do some stunts – Yes

Greet the new year by hugging D and watch the magic around - Yes

Happy 2012!

Declutter

The last time I shifted houses was because I got married and the one cupboard I allotted to D was just not enough to keep the house looking sane. I had bought a chest of drawers to empty my stuff from that the one cupboard, but we still ended up having stuff lying around in the generously sized 1 BHK we were sharing.

So to a new 2BHK house it was. The first few weeks, my legs actually ached from all the extra space we had gained (Only Mumbai people can know what it means to go from 650 sq ft to 900 sq ft carpet area. Everyone else would probably laugh).

It has now been close to two years and a couple of months ago, I got the nagging feeling that we had two many things piled up on our second favourite clutter spot – the dining table. Freshly ironed clothes, handbags, a shoebox looking for a spot, newspapers and so on. This was partly on account of the fact that the folks were visiting and the first favourite clutter spot – the guest bedroom could suddenly not be used to stow junk away out of sight.

Yet it made me think if I really wanted to go back to the time when we had to pick our way through stuff scattered on the floor. And if we would have to find a bigger house in an expensive city.

That’s when I decided that I was going to reduce our possessions by 25%.

The good thing about being a corporate slave is you can come up with percentages that are randomly chosen. It seemed like a good number though – not pushing us into the hermit zone with barely enough to get by and yet enough to create space and provide a sense of achievement.

The process began slowly about a month ago. Item number 1 on the agenda was to stop buying stuff till we got rid of some stuff. Quite commendable given my shopaholic tendencies.

In the meantime, I attacked the biggest culprit – clothes. Clothes are one of the toughest things to throw away. You know for sure that there are a few items in your wardrobe that predate you by a couple of crucial kilos. No matter how pessimistic you are about the economy, your job, your life and so on, the one thing you are optimistic about is going back to being your thinner self.

I convinced myself that if I threw out the old clothes then I could go shopping for new ones if I ever lost weight and that would be a good incentive to lose weight.

I began to look for a worthy charity till mom pointed out that charity begins at home and told me to just give everything to the bai. I had been doubtful if her daughter who is half my height would fit into my tops. It turned out that we share a shoulder size. Bai was quite teary eyed when she thanked me (surprising since I have regularly passed on sarees but she has never been quite so moved. Talk about motherly love).

Filled with a warm glow, I have gone back to culling out more clothes. Last evening was spent in trying out favourite t-shirts and tops that highlight my burgeoning paunch. Now another pile awaits the bai’s daughter.

The next on my list are the electronics cupboard and the book shelf. The first one has built up through sheer neglect – headphones that no longer work, electronic phones that don’t work either and so on. Books, on the other hand, have been survivors of failed culling attempts in the past. This time, I am planning to give them away to a library so atleast I know they have found a good home.

This set off a much needed round of decluttering at work. After clearing out several piles of important looking papers that largely comprised the company strategy for 2008, training materials from 2009 and so on, I have discovered enough space to move my mouse.

The biggest decluttering at work though, will have to be my mail box. I have mails from 2010 which I had been undecided about at that time and which stayed on. Now, I have mercilessly started deleting mails on which I have been clearly copied in as irrelevant-but-just-in-case person #5. I have started dealing with daily mails before the day-end. As for the exploding archive of old mails, I have been sorting through 30 or so in a day.

My ambition is to have only 10 mails in my inbox at any point. This seems like a tough order and going by my progress, an impossible task. Yet as Farhan Aktar says in ZNMD – ‘Koshish karma hamara kartavya hai’ (it was used in a cute way in the movie)

So if there is a New Year resolution for 2012, it is ‘Declutter’. Now that I have got a headstart on it, I am hoping to see it through next year too.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Rating - Read

The Sense of an Ending is a rather short book and can be quickly finished in one sitting. Or one can savour it, slowly letting Barnes’s thoughts sink in. I followed the second option, mostly because I am sleeping even earlier than usual and also because the book is so absolutely shorn of needless meandering that you need to pause a bit and savour.

The story is told by Tony Webster, a sixty something retired British gentleman, with a daughter, an ex-wife he is still friends with and a life that can be defined as normal. Tony recollects events from his youth, centering around his friendship with school-mate Adrian and then with his one serious girlfriend, Veronica. Somewhere in the middle of the book, we flip to the present. Tony’s view of his past has been shaped over the years with his own bit of editing and recomposing memories but as it catches up slowly, he (and the reader) is forced to reexamine his version.

The book kept me thinking long after I had finished the last page. Primarily about how we may be snipping at our memories till, usually, we come out quite decent. (Not such a surprisingly thought given that I have sometimes caught myself editing my recollection of particular incidents).

The fluid writing and the observations make for a good read. Not surprisingly, it was this year’s Booker winner.

Take it straight down with a dash of lemon or nurse it over a couple of days. Both ways work.