With the prospect of our holiday at an international destination cruelly dashed on the rocks of the passport office, we turned our sights inwards.
In the beginning, there was a lot of inertia. A. Lot. of. Inertia. Seriously. A lot of it. To be precise…almost a week of it. Cutting it really close. We knew we wanted to go on a vacation in March. We spent the first week of Feb, after the sad trip to apply for my passport, in static inertia. To get good flight rates, you need to book a month in advance. So we were cutting it close. But I was a bit numbed after the anti-climax of the passport process and hubby was too busy with work. He was expecting me to get something done. I was in generally drifting.
I googled some stuff on the Net. We wanted a cruise holiday, so I figured either Andaman or Lakshwadeep would have to do. I was keen on a Star Cruise which goes to Lakshwadeep. Sadly, I could find no schedule for it. It seems the ship has moved to South East Asia. Great!
So I surfed some more stuff. Sent some links to hubby. Tried to see some stuff that worked. Lakshwadeep would be a nice cruise. Could be a lazy holiday if we stayed in one place, though it would be a pity to go all the way there and not island hop. Andaman is supposed to be very pretty and was ending up a packed tour, even though it had a couple of days of beach lounging. Lakshwadeep threw up some fantastic resort site, Bangaram resort to be precise, and interesting scuba diving packages. Andaman had scuba diving too, lots of places to see. My mum had been there last year and she waxed eloquent about it. In fact, she wanted to go there again! She had been to Lakshwadeep too about 20 years back (we all had as a family) and hadn’t particularly liked it…especially the tuna heavy cuisine. It was all open ended. I asked hubby for his opinion. He asked me to go ahead and choose. I was unwilling to choose. Days were passing, it was all going nowhere, and I was beginning to think, we just make plans and then remain at home!
The cauldron was bubbling and one fine evening it all blew up. Hubby and I had a fight. I was completely pissed off with his refusal to look at the options and refused to work on any more vacation plans. Ever. I sulked off to Puzzle Pirates. After some time, I noticed him on his laptop, looking at some of the options I had sent. A few more minutes of sulk, and I went over, and then..we finally started looking.
Bangaram Resort found favor with both of us, till we looked at the prices. Agatti Resort was cheaper, but still a bit pricey. We surfed about some more of the Lakshwadeep packages, but the resort stay most appealed to us, but felt too pricey. We checked out Andaman, and to some extent were sold on it. Though it was tour-like, it didn’t look so hectic and we could always have a couple of days to ourselves. Then we looked at the flight rates.
That was the end of it all.
Both Andaman and Lakshwadeep flight rates made us cringe. Yes, we could do it…but an international holiday would cost lesser! Seriously, was it all really worth it. We were stuck on that thought as we explored other beach options in India. We both didn’t really want to end up at Goa again. But that’s exactly what happened.
After a lot of searching, cringing, scanning peppered some frank disbelief at some of the costs, we finally found a package that seemed just right. And it was in Goa. Travel Masti had this lovely Goa Package for 4 days, stay at a Taj hotel (where we spent a lot of time exploring options before deciding on a hotel hubby had already stayed in before), Indigo flights to and fro, one night at a Casino with Rs 10,000/- worth of free chips each and just one half day of sightseeing. Both of us immediately knew, this was the type of holiday we wanted. So, after some talking about it, we sent off a mail to them with our questions and contact numbers. It was Feb 12. 10 days after the submission of my passport application, and half a month from our vacation days. By now, we knew our holiday would have to be in the first week of March. My parent’s anniversary is on March 6, so 1st-5th March seemed a good time for us.
They called up the next day, responded positively to all our question, and told us the offer was actually only for 2 days, and that we had to confirm the same day itself. WHAT! (While writing this, I decided to check if the package is still available today, 12 days later. It IS still up on their site, though with a rider that it may be withdrawn anytime. For all I know it might still be available! Still, it did make up firm up our plans :) )
I tried calling up hubby, he was in a meeting. I told the lady I would get back to her. Tried calling hubby again. Finally gave up and started writing a confirmation mail to her on my own. As I finished the draft, hubby called back. Whew! Hadn’t sent it yet. We confirmed the details and the dates with each other, and then I called her up and confirmed it. After days of dithering, it was all done in a few minutes! They sent someone later in the day to collect the money, sent us our vouchers. The next couple of days we tightened up the details. We had made minor changes to the original package, upgraded our room (after a lot of surfing on my part) and extended an extra day. All that was worked out and we were set. Gosh! That just zoomed!!
We spent the next couple of weekends shopping for beachwear while shops here are still selling winter-wear! While we made all these preparation, yesterday, my passport got verified!! It all seems to be coming together at last. 3 days to V-day and counting =D
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