The vacation that was

As we were home on Saturday watching and digesting all the news about Egypt, we realized we were safe, but won't be going anywhere for our fifth anniversary. I took a picture of the suitcases that were packed before unpacking them. I was starting a new job after a week, so I did not have anything to do. It was a little depressing.

Wife joked that there were only three countries we could go to - India, Egypt and UK. But we had visited India just two months ago, Egypt is ruled out and there is nowhere to go in UK at this time of year. If only UK was part of the Schengen agreement. Then, without us realizing it, we were trying to find a place to go at short notice. There were three conditions to be met:

• It has to be a warm place, since we had packed for warm weather.
• The vacation should cost approximately what our Egypt trip would have cost.
• They should let us in without requiring a visa.

I stumbled on a site http://www.visahq.co.uk/visas.php where I could check at the visa requirements for all the countries for an Indian national residing in UK.
There were a few islands in the Caribbean, Maldives, Mauritius and then there was Thailand.

We went to local branches of two tour companies and asked them to prepare a package for us with these constraints. Apparently, it was an unusual request, but the lady at one of the places put together a 6 day tour package for Thailand, with two nights in Hua Hin, a beach resort and three nights in Bangkok. We will leave Monday and come back Sunday. We were a little hesitant about it because of the long flight (10 hours onward and 13 hours return) even though they were direct flights, but nothing was coming up for Caribbean. So we decided to book it.

We picked up a couple of travel books on Bangkok from the library and headed home. The package included flight, hotel stay and transfers between airport and hotels. We had to plan our activities there. Wife spent an hour reading those books and came up with an approximate itinerary. The next day we stopped at the tour company to pick up the tickets, bought a couple of things and we were all set.


Thailand turned out to be a great vacation - with a good mix of relaxing at the beach and visiting tourist attractions in Bangkok. The highlights included:

• Stay at Hyatt Regency Hua Hin, with its ultra friendly staff, picturesque location and relaxed people.
• A drive through the Thai countryside and a short hike by a waterfall.
• A visit to an animal park and a short trek on elephant.
• Visits to Bangkok's famous Buddhist temples and the royal palace.
• A trip to floating market near Bangkok where you are taken on a boat in a canal with shops lined up on both sides.
• Tasting Thai street food, jackfruit, papaya and drinking lots of coconut water.

We were back to London by Sunday evening and were greeted with cold and light drizzle. Felt a little happy that we did not spend an entire week complaining how it could have been.