“I’m fed up with work at the
moment, so have booked some time off. What last-minute bargains can
we get to somewhere sunny in a fortnight’s time?”
“Well, there’s some fantastic deals
to be had in Mexico at the moment – oh, but Google says it’s
hurricane season down there in October. Otherwise some companies are
doing good bargains on certain areas of Thailand.”
“Which areas”
“Um, the areas which are either going
to be experiencing the rainy season, or those to which the UK
government has advised against all non-essential travel due to people
with bombs, or both.”
“How about this 30% off a five-star
hotel in Sri Lanka?”
“Would that be on the coast that
Lonely Planet says is highly likely to experience heavy rainfall
during October?”
“Er…yeah.”
.
.
.
.
“So what we’re saying is that for
the same price as a bargain five-star hotel in a hurricane-hit resort
in Mexico, we could just pay full-price to get a tailor made tour of
India where it’s going to be sunny and warm?”
“Pretty much.”
“No contest then. I wonder if we can
get visas and vaccinations sorted out in a fortnight?”
And so it began…
Much to my surprise (having encountered
the navigational nightmare that is the Indian Visa Information UK
website) the staff in the Indian Visa Centre in London are
wonderfully helpful and friendly, and issued us with visas in about
three days. And it turned out that we only needed one booster from
the NHS, having been stuck full of every inoculation under the sun
before we went to Madagascar last year. Admittedly, there was a
little mix-up at the clinic as the nurse thought I had come for my
smear test and wondered why I was rolling up my sleeves, and I was
puzzled when she asked me to remove my underwear, but we managed to
clarify matters before things got too out-of-hand.
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