Sharma Family Journal

Hope Ankur lets us get some sleep on the flight. May be I should be more worried about his brother

I heard this from at least two Indian senior families who flew this otherwise convenient, well advertized flight on an airline with high ratings. It’s a 16 hour flight and they feed you just after take off and just before landing. The other 14 hours, passengers are starving. If you’re a diabetic, may god help you.

While the other gizmos are good, the air hostesses are known to be less friendly (none of them look Arab or like being from Emirates) compared to Asian airlines such as Cathay or Singapore.

The recession and the slump in revenue collection seems to be making counties become super aggressive in revenue collection on law abiding citizens while doing nothing to fight rising crime. My most recent experience: a $100 parking ticket on a state highway which had 50 other cars parked on the shoulder.

So the next time you drive past Manteca/Sonora on highway 120/108 towards Dodge Ridge or Strawberry, CA – beware of these scams. However careful you are, it’s next to impossible to avoid paying the moment you get out of your car. The choice is between local businesses or the local government.

We had a lot of fun though and appreciated how some of the people over there readily shared their snow sleds with us first timers.

So you’re a Desi used to taking Singapore airlines to travel to India via Singapore. But you just happen to pass through Thailand this time and hoping to do the things you’re used to doing in Singapore. Well, I did just that earlier this week.

Pitfalls:

1. 1000 Baht ($33) per person in visa fee.
2. 700 Baht per person in departure fee
3. The tours are not free. Watch out for cab companies trying to sell you trips for 4700 Baht

Since I had only 7 hours and 2-3 hours were spent standing in various lines to get a visa, I had very limited time and couldn’t visit the city. Instead, I ended up taking a cab (230 Baht + 60 Baht in tolls) to visit a place called “Erawan Shrine” located next to a few western looking shopping malls and high end hotels (Four seasons, Grand Hyatt etc) cluster.

The experience at the airport was a bit mixed. There are of course nice people who are very polite and some in high pressure jobs (eg: visa desk, immigration on departure) who were unusually stern. The flight from Bangkok to Bangalore was a lot more disorganized compared to the one originating in Singapore. I had to checkin my carry baggage because space was limited. Boarding the plane was a huge mess. No pre-boarding announcement, no boarding by row. Not sure if the over-eager passengers are to blame or the ground staff.

And make sure that you ask for mild curries. It took me a couple of days to recover from the Green curry.

On July 4th weekend we went on a long drive to “Jungle”. Since my mom read me the story of little red riding hood I have been fascinated by jungle. I wanted to walk in the woods like red riding hood. So we went to the Sequoia national park, a place filled with giant trees. We hiked on a trail to see General Sherman tree, the largest tree in this world. I was worried about the big bad wolf. So I picked up a fallen branch to “gandi pett” (kick the butt) it. I was prepared for an encounter with wolf. But we had a safe hike to General Sherman. After that we drove around to see more trees. We also saw the second highest mountain in USA, Mount Whitney. Next day we drove back home. I had a great time with Nikkianna and Neha.

I went to Tahoe and Reno with my parents and friends. I enjoyed playing on the beach. We went on a speed boat ride. I was feeling scared because of all the water splashing. In Reno I hated the Casino. I threw a big tantrum when we went to Grand Buffet in Reno Hilton. I wanted to just play in the Arcade or be pushed around in a stroller. I didn’t eat much as they did not have curd rice. On the last day I wanted to go for GoKarting with my mom but I did not qualify age limit. Once we got home I was much happier. I played with my friends Akash, Shirley and Amogh.

Just came back from a trip to Europe on United and had the frustrating experience of having my camera stolen from a checked in bag. United tells me that I shouldn't have put any electronic items in my bag in the first place.

They also say that they require passengers to not lock the luggage when checking it in post Sept 11th.

So the moral of the story is that don't put anything precious in your checkin luggage and try to carry it with you into the cabin.

Although my experience with United has been less than satisfactory, I tend to believe their explanation that other airlines have the same policy.

Everytime I travel international to Asia, it takes me about a week to get over the jet lag. It's usually worse when I come back to the US. However, I've noticed that something I call “sh*t-lag” is harder to get rid of. It took me about 3 weeks to reset my cycle to the new clock. I guess, part of the problem is that you can get by with the sh*t-lag for a longer time, before getting fed up with having to leave meetings just because the time is 3pm PDT = 6am in the other time zone!