Pattaya, Skydiving (Thailand)

Skydiving is something which has been on my mind ever since I started doing adventurous stuff, and I wished to do this sooner or later. I have been regularly asking my friends who have done skydiving, about where they did it and how it felt. One of my friend Varun Sehgal had told me that he did it in Pattaya, and when Bhargava said he wants to spend some time in Thailand and he wanted me to join him, the first thing I asked him was do you want to do skydiving and I knew he was interested in it, and since mid January I started planning for something which was not going to be somewhere in the future.

After a lot of discussion and planning, our plans didn’t match and the program turned out to be such that I could only visit Pattaya for the weekend, but then I had decided to go there and I didn’t care about the time. When I asked ppl about things to do in pattaya, the first reaction was “it’s a sin city” “beware” “check out the ladyboy shows there”, but of course these were added attractions isnt it. We found out that there is a skydiving and bungy jumping package and we decide to go for it.

Bhargava reached thailand 2 days early and I was to meet him at the thai airport and we had decided to take a bus to Pattaya from there. The bus is available at gate 7 and 8 and charges 124 baht which is quite cheap. The journey is only about 2 hours and the bus was quite comfortable. Meanwhile, India had beat Pakistan in the cricket world cup semifinal and india had reached the finals of the world cup.. yippppeeeeeee.

We reached Pattaya at around 8 and the sole aim was to find the accommodation arranged by the thaiskysdventures. We had to hire two motorbikes from the bus stop and with some effort we reached there. It was an ok accommodation for 900 baht a night. We found a regular skydiver at the reception who was from Singapore and had was going to take 10 dives tomorrow. He also guided as to how to reach the beach and we had dinner together, reaching the beach was a bit a struggle from there so we decided to shift to a hotel near the beach next day, for now we needed to get some sleep as the adrenaline was really starting to flow.

Skydive @13k feet

We got up at 6 and the taxi was to leave the venue at 7, we reached the centre and could already see around 20 regular skydivers ready to take the plunge. We got ourselves registered and we were to jump in half an hour, we started looking around, got a few things to eat, and saw other skydivers going in the plane and their parachutes landing. As we put on the safety harness I was getting a bit nervous. Soon it was our turn, as we boarded the plane there were 7 people in it, when it took off, it can be considered the worst next 10 minutes. I was more than scared and a bit nervous.

We reached the top and my instructor asked me to put my legs outside the plane, it wasn’t that difficult and before I could think of something else he asked me to bend my head backwards and jumped. Oh boy … weightlessness is a wicked thing … its so much fun … and since it didn’t end so soon I had time to relish it. The free fall lasted almost a minute. Oh it was wonderful my earlier free falls had not lasted long and I hadn’t really njoied it, but this was incredible, but somehow I expected more (maybe I will get it if I dive alone). The free fall lasted for a minute and then there was time for the parachute to open. The experience on the parachute and how the instructor maneuvered it was also wonderful he went around in circles at a fast pace and mine and baggis parchutes even did a high five in the air. Landing on the ground was wonderful as well. Overall it was a real good experience and as soon as we returned, Baggi and I looked at each other and we both wanted to do the course and become a licensed skydivers. We were given certificates of the dive which was something to cherish for a lifetime.

It was just 8:30 and we had the full day to ourselves, evening was dedicated to the final of the world cup if we can find a place to watch it. We reached the hotel back around 10, collected our stuff and reached the beach area to find a new hotel. Holiday Inn was too expensive and Baggi suggested IBIS as reasonable and we went for it. Time to head to the beach and have a look around at pattaya, the adrenaline was still in full flow. The beach was pretty much no beach and felt like chaupati to me, I was in no mood to njoi the water and I relaxed by the side sipping on a beer. Bhargava couldn’t resist the temptation of a swim and he went in anyway.

Honda Shadow

Our next decision was the best of the day. We decided to rent a bike, so we went about investigating about a 100cc bike and it turned out that we could actually rent a Honda CBR or a Yamaha R1 for 1000 baht per day, which was actually really cheap. Finally we decided to rent a Honda Shadow for 700 baht for 24 hours. As soon as I sat on the bike I could feel the power, the adrenaline of the skydive was going away and the kick of a 750 cc cruiser, and it was so so smooth. I just loved it.

So all we wanted to do now was to ride as much as we could and after lunch we also add to keep an eye open to find a place to watch the match. This was the biggest match in a long time and we didn’t want to miss it. We roamed around 1 hour in pattaya covering all of the beach road but couldn’t find a place to watch the match so we almost gave up and continued to njoi the ride. We were riding on the beach road and suddenly I saw a place possibly showing cricket, I instantly asked baggi to stop the bike and went back to check and to our delight it was showing cricket

We parked the bike and started watching, the srilankans were going great and it wasn’t really good to watch and we needed a break so we went back to the hotel and relaxed for sometime and returned to the place before the Indian batting started. Turned out that the restaurant will not allow us to sit inside or serve us Beers as the whole restaurant was booked the Jockey company had an Indian get together at the restaurant and we had to be art of the team to get anything from there. We weren’t going to budge from there, so we came out and sat, it was a bit annoying that we couldn’t have beers but then all I was interested was in the match, my happiness was shortlived at the fall of Tendulkar and Sehwag and Indian chances were not looking bright, but as the game progressed it was india who held their nerve and won the match. It was overjoying and the room exploded with happiness, there were around 100 indians in the restaurant all hugging each other, and everyone was so happy.

I realized one thing that day, cricket is the best thing to unite india, no matter how much the politicians make an agenda out of religion, caste and everything, I saw all of india united and everyone njoing the moment and it was pattaya, I cant imagine how the atmosphere would be in india. The strrets would be lit up better than diwali. Now I couldn’t make out what was the most fun thing that I did that day – Skydiving, the coolest bike ride or india winning the world cup. This can easily count as the best day of my life. Now was the time to celebrate and we headed out for drinks, continued drinking all night long and reached the hotel at 6.

Morning had to be early as the bungy jumping time was at 10 and the guy had to pick us up at 9:30, we finished breakfast and the guy was already there and we headed out for the next mission. Bhargava went first here and his jump really looked scary. It was my turn and I was a bit nervous but not as much. As I reached the top, and went till the end of the rope and looked down, I got shit scared, what I felt would be normal fear of height or the alcohol kicking in again, and my hands and legs froze, believe me they froze, after standing at the edge for one minute I let go, it was a hell of a experience and the pull up of the string felt like the world coming to an end. it was an amazing experience nonetheless. i wish i can do it again sometime.

Baggi and me at Sanctury of truth

I came down feeling defeated, I haven’t felt this bad in a long long time and it was killing me. I never thot I could back out from anything and now I had , the rest of the day went with a really bad mood. Even riding the bike couldn’t cheer me up. The next target was to see the “Sanctuary of Truth”, it is a temple made of only wood, the joints and everything is made of wood, and its worth a watch, but I was in no mood to njoi the beauty and it was written all over my face.

Night life @pattaya

From there we wanted to head to the ripleys museum, but decide to give it the skip since we had already spend around 900$ each and both of us were running short of cash. In the evening we went out to have a look at the Tiffany’s show and skipped it for the price as well. We had a long walk on the empty beech which was looking much lovelier in the night. Today was the day to see Pattayas night life and bhargava with his camera took some nice clicks of the glittering lights, it was a nice night I had come to terms with reality and was in a better mood now.

Time to head home, we got up early and had breakfast, checked out of the hotel and then went to the bus station, at the bus station bhargava decided to go to the city directly instead of coming to the airport as it will inturn waste him another 2 hours, so we bid goodbye to each other having excellent 3 days in each others company. I reached Cambodia in the afternoon with the best memories of my life.