I haven't left the country since 1995 and all the travelling I did was locally. When A and I started investing in a condo, I knew that travelling would be one of the expenses I had to forego. After paying the downpayment for one year, A and I had to apply for a loan and while waiting for our loan application to be approved, I was slowly saving up money from May till September.

Back in June, on one of our girls night out with the girlfriends of A's high school barkada (2 of whom became recent exes after 4 year relationships), one friend suggested we go to Bangkok because the airfare rates were on promo. Without hesitation, I jumped at the chance. For one, this was one group that I saw myself travelling with and secondly, what were the odds that the opportunity showed itself at the perfect time? We bought our tickets a few days later because there was a June 30 deadline.

July was spent scouring internet sites and testimonials looking for cheap accommodations while August was spent researching places to go to and creating the uber- OC itinerary. We spent the rest of September laying the final touches and perfecting the itinerary. We even held "Bangkok meetings" to discuss developments of our trip (actually, we ended up talking more about the events in our respective lives and anything Bangkok related was injected in between topics).

Throughout the experience, I knew I was travelling with the right group of people because:

1) They were as organized as I was. Our itinerary included time of waking up and sleeping, travel time to and from places, meals, etc. There was a balance of shopping and cultural activities. Our itinerary also included projected expenses, checklist of things to bring and things to do prior to departure such as researching on mobile network rates, asking the hotels if we can stash our luggages somewhere after check out when we do our last minute shopping since our flight was still at 11pm. I even added a weather forecast two days before departure to assist us in our packing. We just laughed at how detailed our itinerary was.

2) We hardly disagreed at any changes in our itinerary. Sure, we voiced out opinions but everyone was basically happy with the changes.

3) Everyone pulled their own weight. Each person was responsible and didn't even have to be told what to do or what part of the itinerary was assigned to them. Even in the hotel, each of us took the initiative to handle a certain chore like washing the dishes, setting the table, ordering room service, preparing breakfast. The trip was a group effort. I felt I was working on a project in college!


Truth be told, I couldn't exactly feel the excitement as the days crept to departure day simply because there was much work to do. The bar I work for was changing the menu again and the tedious task falls under my department which meant that aside from redesigning the menu, we had to continuously proofread and quadruple check prices. Right up to the evening prior to my departure, there were last minute changes to the final draft of the menu before it went to printers! Furthermore, my parents scheduled our long awaited house blessing the night before the flight. As such, I had to pack two days before the flight and even worked during the reception of the house blessing just to ensure that everything goes well while I was away.

That night, while my parents were partying away, I was already in bed by 11pm.

Labels: Bangkok