A tryst with the Dentist

I am very intimidated by dentists. So much so that every time I go to church for a confession of my sins, I pray to God beforehand that the priest may not send me to the dentist for my penance. I think I owe this unpleasant visit to the dentist to Preeti, my sis., who convinced me that, among others, we should also take good care of our teeth. I am still not convinced that I should thank her for the advice.  

However, I found myself waiting for my turn at the dentist’s hoping that it would never come. It brought back memories of another time and another place where I was summoned by the then Principal of my school for being caught while trying to escape the class with the intentions of bunking it. The wait outside the Principal’s office was more agonising than the juiciest of the cane hammering I was subjected to. When I began comparing, I preferred the waiting outside the Principal’s office to the one outside the Dentist’s. Finally, when my turn did come, I resisted the urge to gather my belongings and dash for the Exit door to the free world. The dentist welcomed me with a smile and when I told her that I had come for a dental check-up, she beckoned me to ‘The Chair’ and said ‘Let’s see what you’ve got.’ I would’ve misconstrued the statement altogether if I wasn’t so daunted by the sight of ‘The Chair’ that seem to come straight out of a sci-fi movie with all the gizmos attached to it. Once I was comfortable in ‘The Chair’ (I am using the word comfortable here for the lack of a better word; I should probably have used the word ‘seated’), the lights came on and I thought I saw horns popping out of her head. She asked me to open my mouth and when did, she peered in and after having a good look at the contents inside, she said ‘uh-huh’. ‘What do you mean uh-huh?’ I asked. She said I had more cavities than teeth. I said ‘uh-huh’ and she asked ‘What do you mean uh-huh?’ I said ok, to which she retorted ‘It’s not ok’. I wanted to say uh-huh, but I held back. She said a cave explorer could venture into my mouth for days altogether and still come out leaving unfinished business. And I think, just to prove a point, she prodded my teeth with some instruments which could just have well been a chisel and a hammer, for with every prod she created an intense pain that caused a convulsion so severe that I was rooted to ‘The Chair’ against my wishes of making a dash for the door. Finally when she was done prodding, she laid down the tools and started scribbling the notepad with a prescription for me before I could come to visit her next week. If I were to hazard a guess, she called me next week because she didn’t have the entire set of tools for cave exploring with her and she wanted to be completely prepared the next time around.

The entire ordeal was enough to give me nightmares. Yet, pay her a visit next week, I will. However, I am prepared with counter measures. On the evening prior to my visit, I will down a great deal of whisky. I will drink till my gills are pickled and I am sozzled. The hangover on the morrow should hurt more than what the dentist has in store for me.

Gonna fly now

First weekend in December, I was at Kamshet at the site and while I was grounded because of an injured foot, Ash and Anand were up in the sky flying at will. I was reduced to taking pictures and videos while they enjoyed the wonderful weather in the sky. Come evening and I removed the bandage on the foot (am I glad) and when I felt much better and comfortable, I made up my mind to fly the following day. This was to be my first flight after the flying season had resumed. Though my flight lasted only for half an hour, good thermic conditions ensured that we gained good height at above 1000 mtrs. One that will be cherished for a long time.

2011: New Year’s Resolution

The month of December holds a special meaning for me. Anything I see assumes the colour of green, red and white. Cds, primarily of Boney M playing Christmas tracks, other artists playing Christmas Carols and the likes begin to reappear on the top of the stack. Not unlike any other, I think about Christmas celebrations with family, followed by New Year celebrations with friends. This year is no different. However, the other day, it reminded me that a resolution I made when the year 2011 arrived was yet to be fulfilled.

I welcomed the New Year 2011 among friends at Ramesh’s place. After the clock chimed 12 and we wished each other New Year greetings, I reached out for my glass of whisky. And as I tasted the woody blend, I decided to make my New Year’s resolution. I held out my glass, looked ruefully at the drink and declared to my friends that I resolve to get myself a drinking permit. My resolution was greeted with cheers and the frolic continued.

Over the months, I had completely forgotten about my resolution. It was on the arrival of December this year, I recollected the resolution that I had made. With the very first opportunity, I headed to the Excise Department and procured a ‘Life Time Drinking Permit’. Mission Accomplished :-)

Exploits in Thailand

My Skydiving Video


Performing with a band at Pattaya


Skydiving at Pattaya topped our list, when me and Ivan had earlier chosen Thailand as one of the countries to visit. Little wonder then that we chose Pattaya as our first destination and soon as we’d checked into our rooms we headed out to enrol for Skydiving for the following day. Once committed, we set out to explore the place. There are bars aplenty and, women inviting you for a drink is commonplace. For a reveller, Thailand is Utopia and I won’t delve into this in my blog, but, on our exceptional exploits. We spent our evening at one of the bars on Walking Street, a lane which is abuzz with neon glowsigns and flocking tourists, that leaves an impression that you are a part of some carnival.

Next morning we were picked up from our hotel and taken to the drop zone where the Thai Sky Adventures conduct tandem Skydiving. Skydiving, as anticipated was an absolute thriller, where they took us to about 13,000 feet in a porter pc6 aircraft and then we just lean out and take a plunge. The moment you are about to leap out gives you an exhilarating feeling like nothing else. During our instructions, I learnt that a glider (not a parachute) is deployed after about 45-50 seconds of free fall, and I informed my instructor Frank that I am a Club Pilot in Paragliding. When he was convinced, Frank handed me the brake toggles to steer us to the landing before he took over for the final approach. The Skydiving video is one of the videos (thanks to Pradeep, our camera man) which I’ll cherish forever.

Evening, we landed at Walking Street again to celebrate. We went to ‘Blue Sky’ where a Rock Band was performing to requests. Elated, as we were with our skydiving experience, we placed requests after request for our favourite tracks to be performed by the Band. When I was about 5 or 6 pegs of JD down, I had a sudden urge to sing and approached the band with the request if I could perform with them. They assented and the next moment I was up there on the stage lending vocals to the song ‘Creep’. Ivan could only manage to capture a small snippet for the video as the memory card in the camera got exhausted and could go no further. For me, this was the second thrilling experience of the day.

We stayed in Pattaya for three days before we headed to Bangkok for the final leg of our journey. The day we arrived in Bangkok, was spent in fun and frolic. The next day, we took off early in the morning for Kanchanaburi for the Tiger Sanctuary. By the time we reached the sanctuary, we could only manage to see the tigers at close quarters. If we’d have reached a couple of hours earlier, we would’ve got a chance to play the big cats. However, we found good friends in Jacek and Martyna from Poland on our way to Kanchanaburi. On our way back, we were delayed so much that we’d missed our last public transport from Kanchanaburi to Bangkok. And so, we were left with no alternative than to hitch-hike and fortunately we managed to hitch a ride in a pickup truck and the owner of the pickup was so helpful that, not only did he drop us off at the Kanchanaburi, but he ensured that we got an economical transport all the way to Bangkok. On reaching Bangkok, me, Ivan, Jacek and Martyna ganged up again to chill out for the rest of the evening.


Pandemonium on our way back.

We had only one day left for shopping for family and friends; we devoted the next day to it and, after all the rigmarole we decided to go ballistic that evening. We cleared our hotel bills, packed our travel bags in advance and set our alarms to 7am so that we could reach the airport the next day by 9am, for our flight was scheduled for 12. Needless to say, we were partying till the wee hours in the morning and I woke up to stare at glaring sunlight on my face. I panicked when I saw that the time was 9:10am. I battered Ivan till he was wide awake. We made good time as our cab reached us the airport at 10:45am and we managed to check in our luggage alright. While we were at the screening area for personal belongings, a lady constable accosted me and asked me to step aside. Much to my bewilderment, she emptied the contents of my waist-pouch on the table, and there popped out the empty cartridges of the fired bullet shells, we’d collected as mementos, from Vietnam. When I explained to the lady about the shells, she said that I could carry on, except the mementos would now adorn the trash can. It wasn’t an option presented to me and, my hangover notwithstanding I tried convincing her no avail. Finally I conceded and as I joined Ivan, he reprimanded me for being careless. He also refused to give me one of the mementos shells that he had in his baggage ‘checked in’. My loss coupled with the hangover was enough to get me morose and our connecting flight got us to Singapore where we had another four hours before we could board the flight to Mumbai.

The drama that ensued assumed gigantic proportions. I stepped out of the Singapore screening area while Ivan was now asked to step aside. Ivan had not ‘checked in’ the memento shells after all. While I was only confronted by a lady constable at Thailand for the blunder, Ivan was gheraoed and led to a cordoned off area. I tried explaining to one cop who wouldn’t let me in and though every cop seemed hostile in the beginning, they seemed more responsive when they realised it was only empty shells. The cop I had confronted earlier came back and informed me that it was only some formalities that required taken care of before Ivan could walk free. He pointed out to the lounge where I could wait for Ivan before he could join me within the hour, to which I retorted (understand this, I was still under the influence of alcohol or hangover, if it makes more sense) “Keep him for another three hours if need be” and to myself “while I catch up on some lost sleep”. Formalities done, Ivan walked scot-free and hammered me till I was wide awake. He proudly displayed the gum he’d been chewing all along while he was being questioned about the shells and I thought to myself “is he for ‘real’?” or is ‘he’ for real?” The rest of the trip from Singapore to Mumbai was all about reminiscing, hi-fi-ing and more Jim Beam on Singapore Airlines till we touched down.

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Cambodia: Of Temples, spiders and birds…

Video of me devouring an entire bird in Cambodia ;-)


Day 10: Sept 13

We reached Phnom Penh at around noon and as we alighted we were surrounded by a swarm of tuk tuk drivers who swooped on anyone that resembled an alien entity. After we managed to extract ourselves from the chaos, we headed to the bus station from where we had a pickup to Siam Reap. The bus to Siam Reap would drop us at our destination at around mid-night and so I headed to the nearest Liquor shop to buy some Cambodian whisky. When I returned Ivan excitedly pointed to a lady selling roasted spiders and asked if I was interested in devouring one. “Goes without saying” I said as I made my way to the lady and bought a couple of roasted spiders. Among EEW’s and Yuck’s from our European co-travellers, we bit into the spiders and frankly speaking it tastes nothing different from dried fish and it’s a good drink accompaniment. Enroute to Siam Reap, our bus halted at a restaurant for dinner where one of the accompaniments to the meal was what appeared to be a small bird that was roasted entirely, including the beak and claws. I couldn’t resist helping myself to one and among more EEW’s and Yuck’s from our European co-travellers, I relished the bird. We reached the Jasmine Lodge at around midnight and arranged for a tuk tuk to take us to Angkor Wat.

Day 11: Sept 14

We were advised to reach the site as early as 4 am to beat the crowd and we did just that. While Ivan got around to setting up the camera on a tri-pod to get that perfect shot, I engaged myself in counting the number of tourists who alighted the steps while gaping at the magnificent structure, clearly not noticing the puddle at the foot of the steps and stepping into it and out of it clumsily. As the count increased, so did my excitement; and I knew that it was going to be a terrific day after all. Angkor Wat needs no description; the magnificence has to be experienced. So were the other temples that we covered during the day i.e. Bayon, Banteay Srei and the Ta Phrom temple. Each temple was unique. At Ta Phrom, Ivan appeared interested in the gigantic trees more than the temple itself. However, by evening after we reached the Jasmine Lodge, we decided we’d had more of temples than we’d asked for in Cambodia and we decided to depart for Thailand the following day. Evening we engaged in a game of pool with other tourists from the hostel and it turned out to be a long night as our bottle of whisky came out.

Day 12: Sept 15

After checking out, we bade farewell to our new-found friends, especially Mr. Kunh, the gentleman who owns and manages the Jasmine Lodge, creating an opportunity for young kids to work there and earn for specifically paying for their own education.

By now, we had crossed borders via air (flight), water (speed boat on the Mekong delta); we had decided to cross the Thailand border via land at Poipet. Even though the visa charge for Thailand is nil, the fact that we had got our visas done from India itself made every border crossing much easier.

Saigon

Day 9: Sept 12

We checked into a hotel in Ho Chin Minh only for the purposes of safeguarding our luggage and headed out for the tour of Kuchi village. Having read about the villagers of Kuchi who were peasants by day and Vietcong by night, we could not wait to visit the village. Mr. Lan, from Delta Adventures, was our tour guide and even as he talked about how the simpletons of Kuchi, under the leadership of Uncle Ho, fought the heavily armed US forces, it sounded incredible. At Kuchi, we were told about how the Vietcong built tunnels in three levels and how they survived the enemy by staying crouched inside the tunnels to ward off enemy attack. It’s only when we were shown one of the many such entrances to the tunnel that the magnanimity of the experience struck us. The camouflaged entrances to the tunnels were hardly one and a half feet in length and breadth, just enough for a person to enter only if slithers inside with hands raised. Once in, it only offers you breathing space to go down on your fours and thereon crawl to enter the passage way into the tunnels. Mr. Lan offered us a chance to try and enter one of the tunnels. I grabbed the opportunity and almost got stuck while entering. One minute inside and as I came out, I felt cramped all over. Further on, Mr. Lan held the audience captivated as he explained the guerrilla tactics employed by the Vietcong. Various trap doors and weaponry, crafted from wood and with sharpened bamboo sticks integrated as spears, designed to kill or maim the enemy, kept us in awe. Finally, we arrived at the destination that was one of the key reasons for visiting Kuchi, second to its historic past of course, i.e. the shooting range. Here, one could buy bullets for AK47, MI 16 et. al. and fire it in the shooting range. We bought 10 shells of AK47 each and took our turns to fire them. Fantastic experience. We took 2 shells of the spent bullets as souvenirs. Little did we know that these spent bullet shells will later tell us a different story later on.

Once the Kuchi tour was over and we were back in the city, we picked our bags from the hotel and headed to Chou Doc, from where we intended to cross international borders to Cambodia via the Mekong Delta on a speedboat. Come morning and we joined eight other tourists on the speedboat to Cambodia. Our boat dropped us off at the immigrations and from thence, after having done with the immigration formalities, we were picked up by another speed boat to Phnom Penh.

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Castaway in Vietnam

Day 8: Sept 11

On the bus from Nha trang to Ho Chin Minh, we whipped out our tribal mix i.e. Vietnam whisky in coke bottles, soon as we’d settled in our seats. Ivan’d had a restless night in the bus the previous night, was groggy even before he had finished his bottle and was asleep by 10pm, while I nursed my whisky at a leisured pace till I had lapped it all up and went to sleep a little later. I woke up in the middle of the night, around 2am, to realize that the bus had stopped to drop a couple of European girls enroute. I glanced out to see that the driver had stepped out for a smoke and his helper was fishing out the girls’ luggage from the luggage compartment. The stop was at a hotel and there was a dim light in the lobby and no staff around. The hotel itself was the only structure and it was surrounded by fields on all sides. My bladder was bursting at the seams and I saw an opportune moment to relieve myself. I called out to Ivan, but he was deep in a slumber and I decided against waking him. I got down and asked the driver the directions to the loo and he pointed it out to me. I went in and as I came out a couple of minutes later, I was baffled to see the bus nowhere in sight. Only the two European girls were around and I walked up to them to inquire about the bus. Even they expressed their surprise at the bus having started off without me. However they told me the bus had not gone ahead. The driver had reversed the bus and had stopped about 250-300 metres away from the place we were standing. They pointed out to the distance and I could see the bus’s headlights. The effects of whisky and sleep suddenly vanished and I was contemplating if I should walk towards the bus or stay put for it to come back. When the bus showed no signs of moving, I started walking along the road with only the waning moonlight and the bus’s headlight in the distance guiding me. As I neared the bus and was within 50 metres from it, the bus started moving. I waved frantically at the driver. To my utter disbelief, he just ignored me and sped past, while I was left wondering if this was really happening to me. To top it all, the sonovabitch didn’t even stop the bus at the point I had got off it. I started walking back through the darkness towards the only light in the vicinity and the European girls were still there. While walking back, I was weighing my chances of catching up with Ivan in the morning. Fortunately I had a good amount of money, in dongs and USDs, and my passport with me in my waist pouch. So I knew I could travel to Ho Chin Minh in the morning by the first transport available and call up Ivan on his mobile and meet him again. My only concern was, callous that Ivan is known to be, he was most likely to overlook my luggage when he got off.

The European girls had witnessed all that happened and they asked me my POA. They were as bewildered as me and I told them I had no chance but to stay put till I found some transport in the morning to Ho Chin Minh. They were apparently waiting for their hotel transport to pick them up. While we were chatting, my ears picked up the sound of a motorbike approaching and the next moment, I hastily excused myself and was on the road flagging the bike. When it stopped, I explained that I had missed my bus and asked the bike rider if he could help me catch up with it. He agreed and I hopped on waving the girls goodbye. It had been only about 10-15 minutes since my bus had left and I felt a surge of hope as the bike picked up speed and I egged the pilot all the more. A good twenty minutes later, we caught up with the bus and we flagged it to a halt. I alighted from the bike and headed straight to the bus. Now I was fuming and wanted to vent it out on the driver. As I approached the bus, the driver realized his folly and even as I yelled at him, he was apologising profusely and kept repeating only one word ‘sorry’. I calmed down, stepped out again and paid the bike pilot 1,00,000 dongs. He thanked me as I thanked him for bailing me out of a nightmarish situation. As I stepped in, I passed a couple in the bus who were giggling about me being stranded. I was still in a foul mood and I asked them if they thought it was really funny. They said they didn’t mean offence but that it was quite an exciting evening that I had. I acknowledged it and as I passed Ivan to reach my seat, I just shrugged when I saw him snoring, oblivious to the incident altogether. I mused for a while on the incident and smiled at the fortunate turn of events. I wouldn’t lose my luggage after all.

When we reached Ho Chin Minh in the morning, we were collecting our luggage when, the driver happened to come across and I chided him by asking if he always abandoned some tourist or the other in the dead of the night. He apologised again while I laughed him off. That was when Ivan asked me what happened and he looked at me in disbelief as I narrated this entire incident.

Finally we’d reached Ho Chin Minh. We were in Saigon.

To be continued…