My mom and I went on a tour of Dharavi (the largest slum in Asia) and it was a very interesting experience. I have a few quick observations… 1) I didn’t know what to expect, but I was expecting really bad, and it wasn’t bad at all. Actually, it was kinda energizing. Dharavi is basically a small city and has lots of industry as part of it (sewing, recycling, leather making, etc). The environment was hardworking and industrious. 2) the mood was not depressing at all… it was very upbeat. People come to Dharavi to try to get a better life or make more money from the villages and they define their “success” based on internal measures, not external things or money. 3)slum does not equal ghetto. The word slum as a very negative connotation, but I would argue that in this context, it should not be viewed as negative. The slum serves a purpose. People move to the slum to work. There is industry in Dharavi that allows people to make money. In the US, the same is not true. You live in the ghetto because you are poor… and it is very unlikely that there is industry near you to facilitate you getting a job easily. No one builds a plant near a ghetto to leverage the supply of labor that is available there… but that is exactly what happens in Dharavi. Anyway, I have many more thoughts, but I guess my last though is that it was not depressing… it was inspiring.

So, we made it home safely from Phuket, Thailand….and by the way if you ever have an opportunity to go to Phuket - GO!!!  We had an AMAZING time on our vacation - so much so that on the day we were leaving, I think we subconsciously tried to miss our flight…(in true Frost Family fashion).

In Phuket we stayed at the Marriott Phuket Beach - which is also a JW Marriott property.  If you have ever stayed in a JW Marriott,  you know how it goes - great food, excellent service, beautiful grounds.  It certainly exceeded my expectations! 

While we were there, we went Elephant Trekking at a “Safari”, we lounged by the pool, we visited a Nighttime Cultural Theme Park called “Phuket Fantasea”  - it was kind of like Sea World, Cincinnati Zoo, and Disney all in one.  check it out http://www.phuket-fantasea.com/index.php

More recently, the children’s school - The American School of Bombay celebrated Diwali.  Diwali is the “Festival of Lights”, one of the biggest holidays celebrated here in India.  Think of it like our Christmas Holiday.  Anyways, since the students would be on Fall Break during the actual holiday (Oct 26th), ASB celebrated early by decorating the school and having an assembly - where you KNOW the Frost girls danced and Karyn (as PTA secretary) had the privilege of introducing them.

I’ll attach pictures of Thailand AND Diwali for you to enjoy!

We have Fall Break coming up and we’re going to Capetown, South Africa.  So stay tuned!!!

Karyn

I know that we are really behind on our blog updates (more coming I promise), however, I have to share this one as we are sitting in the Bangkok airways lounge.

Let me start from the beginning… The girls have Friday, sept 30th and Monday, OCT 3rd off, so we thought it would be an ideal time to take a short vacation trip. We heard Phuket, Thailand was very nice (and easy to get to), so we decided that is where we would go. We spent some time trying to get a good price for the flights and we landed on Bangkok Airways. We have never flown them and they don’t have any tie ups with any major airline, but the price was good and they had good reviews online. We get to the airport early (at least, early for us ;-) but the line for getting into the Mumbai airport was off the hook.

Side note - that is one of the reasons why I hate that airport… There is security to get INTO the airport… And they are not very efficient. They require a paper copy of your travel plans, and if you don’t have it, you can’t get in. Worst than that, there is nowhere for you to get a copy at the airport, so if you forget, you are just out of luck.

Back to the story… We finally get in and head to the check in desk.

Another side note - the airline called to make sure we were coming and told us that they would wait for us… Pretty nice, right?? Or so we thought.

Anyway, we walk up to the counter and on of the signs states that this is Asia’s Boutique Airline, so I am feeling pretty good about this selection. The desk agent starts to check us in and he asks for the credit card we used to book the flight. This is a new one for me… We didn’t think to bring that card and we didn’t have it. Since we didn’t have it, they said they couldn’t check us in. After asking why they needed this card 40 times and letting them know that in my many travels, I have never been asked for a credit card, they claimed it was for fraud protection. I saw many different colors flash before my eyes and Karyn told me to walk away as I was not being helpful (yeah… I was pretty upset). They wouldn’t even let us buy NEW tickets because they can’t sell tickets at the counter. I was watching out vacation go down the drain and I told Karyn to just try out the credit cards that she had in her purse. She pulls out a card and gives it to the agent and they use that to validate us and proceeds to check us in. The interesting thing about that is it was NOT the right card… It couldn’t have been. So… Current problem solved and now we are being checked in. As we get our boarding passes, they ask to weigh our carry ons (we are pretty good at packing now, so we can take a trip like this with only carry ons, and they are “over weight”. The limit is 7kg per carry on bag, so we had to check all of our bags (not happy about that). We finally get that sorted out and off we go thru security and to the gate. They had some one meet us before we got to the gate to hurry us to the gate… And once we got there, they told us to have a seat. We waited for 15 - 20 mins before we boarded. I was a bit worried as my friend from the check in counter whom i had harsh words with was the person boarding the plane. I thought she may be messing with us, but she wasn’t. My question is… Why were they rushing us???

Anyway, we get on the flight and the rest was uneventful (not a full flight so we could spread out, the girls slept the whole way, etc). We get to Bangkok and they have a pretty nice lounge that we are sitting in now. Hopefully the rest of the trip is uneventful (at least as far as the flights go) and I am hoping our bags show up.

I don’t think it is likely that we will take Bangkok Airways again… Maybe after the drama from this trip wears off, but probably not in the near future.

The better question is how will we check in on the way back????

Alright… it is clear that we have not been very good bloggers for the last few months.  Our last update was at the beginning of May (trip to Goa).  So… let me try to bring everyone up to speed.

1) For Kennedy’s birthday (May 12th), we went to see the Taj Mahal in Agra.  A few highlights from that trip.

• We went in the middle of May… and I wondered why everytime I told someone we were going to see the Taj Mahal in the middle of May, they looked at me like I was crazy.  Well, we found out why.  Apparently, the middle of May is like the peak of the summer in that region of India (near Delhi) and it was HOT… like really HOT… like 115 degrees HOT.
• We flew into Delhi and took a car/driver to Agra (where the Taj Mahal is located).  That was not the best decision as that is a 4.5 hour drive.  The only suitable place to stop is a “hotel” that is in between Delhi and Agra… however, it is not somewhere you would want to stay.
• We left for the Taj Mahal at 7am and it was still pretty hot.  We got there early and was able to see everything in about 2 hours.  It wasn’t too crowded and we had our own photographer and tour guide. (pictures coming, I just need to find them… ;-)
• We headed back to the hotel around 10am and hit the pool… however, we could only stay out there about an hour as it was SUPER HOT (so hot that the pool felt like a HOT bath and Sydney got a sun rash).  We headed inside and took naps.
• We left to see Agra Fort around 5:30pm and to me, that was much cooler than the Taj Mahal.  It had so much more history associated with it (look it up on wikipedia if you want more details).
• We had a bit of drama with the hotel as we were double charged for the car/driver to get back to Delhi.  We really didn’t have a choice as that was the only way we could get back.  Trust that we will not be staying at a Trident again.  My advice, take the train from Delhi to Agra.

2) School ended on June 3rd (I was already back in the States) and Karyn and the girls headed out back to the States that evening.  We met in Miami and headed out for a family cruise 2 days later.  We spent Sydney’s birthday on the ship and had a very good time with the family (grandma, nana, mama chris, auntie lauren, tina, auntie marlene).  It was a Carnival Cruise that went from Miami to Key West and then to Cozumel.  While it was nice, It think Karyn and I decided that we like Royal Caribbean better.  We did have a first on the cruise… Sydney did her first snorkeling activity.  She loved it!  Kennedy, not so much… she was worried about sharks.

3) After the cruise, Karyn and the girls headed to Cincy and I headed back to Asia (making a stop in Singapore first).  I came back to the States on July 2nd and spend the month of July in Cincy.  The first 2 weeks was filled with more travel.

4) Karyn and I flew to Atlanta to see Sade in concert and it was well worth the trip.  She was EXCELLENT!

5) The rest of the Cincy visit consisted of catching up with family and friends and eating all of the food that we love and missed (I went to 5 Guys like 10 times… ;-)  Shout out to Moms Green for allowing us to take over her house for 8 weeks… it will be while before her place recovers.  ;-)

We headed back to Mumbai on Aug. 4th… while I was little sad to go, I was kinda ready to get back to our stuff.  School starts on Aug. 11th so we need a decent amount of time to allow the girls to get over their jet lag (it is hitting us pretty hard).  I have to say that Jet Airways is SO MUCH BETTER than Delta.  We flew that back via JFK and everything was better on those flights.  The seats are bigger, every seat has an on demand entertainment system, they feed you TWICE on the long haul flights (full meal) and to top it off, Jet is cheaper than Delta.  Karyn has already declared that we will NEVER fly Delta back to the States… even the Jet Airways business class is MUCH BETTER than Delta (they have lay flat seats in ALL of their business class cabins).

So… we have been in Mumbai 7 months (really only 6) and we have more adventures to come.  The next 6 months should be interesting… we have more trips planned.

(Pictures are on their way… like I said above, I have to find them… ;-)