Trip to Malaysia

We had gone for a 4-day Nationwide Bonding trip for the firm to Malaysia (note that I called it a "trip"and not a holiday cos you can hardly call a trip with 70 lawyers a holiday!)

C/o Robi and me being in the same firm and having a kid whose too young to be left behind alone - we were the only full family at the trip. Everyone else came without spouses and children - so needless to say Karan was the centre of attention. Everyone wanted and did take pictures with Karan. Robi and I were much ignored :(

When we went on the "Eye of Malaysia" which is a giant ferris wheel from which they claim you can see all of KL, all the people in our bogey/compartment (what else can i call it?) had their eyes fixed on K to see how excited he would get. He looked more bored than he had ever looked and infact enjoyed the run from the ferris wheel to the bus (since it was raining) a lot more than the ferris ride!

But he did enjoy the water theme park, the animal safari and the pony ride at A Famosa - a resort place about 2 hours drive from KL. He also enjoyed the pet store at a mall and the ride in the sky train(to a lesser degree - I am ashamed to say that my toddler has become too used to flights and doesn't like other modes of transport as much), the swimming pool at the hotel, the bus and taxi rides and our hotel room tub.

There's not much else to do in KL if you're accompanied by a toddler, except shopping, which is also close to impossible ....but we managed to squeeze in a bit of shopping on the last day with Sandeep (my cousin who lives there), which was mainly shopping for K at Toys R Us. Taking K to Toys R Us is almost like taking a bull to a china shop - he went a little mad for a bit. Shopping for boys is also so boring - all my boy wanted to pick up (and ever wants to pick up for that matter) are cars (and balls once in a while). So much to my dismay, we picked up cars again, and due to my insistence a truck with blocks you have to drop onto the truck (read as educational toy).....i also managed to pick up (mainly for my enjoyment) a play dough set from the airport-duty free, which has been an A-Mazing success with K.

K was very well-behaved throughout the trip - ate without fuss, was pleasant and fairly obedient, slept at all the right times such as the 4-hour long conference that we had (god bless him), the sit-down dinner at the chinese restaurant on another day and the dance night at the "Planet Bombay" on the last night (where his father and mother drank and saw belly dancers in action). He also went to colleagues of mine so that Robi and I managed to eat and even to play a full uniterrupted game of bowling. And i was proudly dispensing advice to one of my colleagues who is an expectant father about how one should always take their little children along on holidays and get him/her used to meeting people and seeing new places.....luckily that colleague was not there on the flight back - cos K was an absolute TERROR on the plane. He did not sleep a wink on the 4-hour flight, ate nothing, screamed whenever he didn't get something he wanted, bit, scratched and pulled Robi's and my hair so often that i not only wished i didn't have a child - but actually that I had never been born at all!

But now that I have recovered from the melt-down on the plane, I am very glad we did take him along. I'm sure it was a wonderful experience for him and he keeps mentioning the word "Machaychia" very excitedly even now.

Here's to more of these trips. Note to self: Get drunk on flights so that I dont care about how K behaves!

I've attached one picture of the three of us and two of our collegues from the Delhi and Mumbai offices taken in Planet Bombay. You cant really see K - he had just woken up with all the loud noise there. More pics will follow if I can find any good ones.