can you vish?

Covid brought a major upheaval to people’s lives all across the world. Lives, livelihoods, and future plans were all lost in the deadly pandemic that hasn’t died down even though a couple of years have passed by. The losses have been humongous that I do not even attempt to compare the same with the minor setbacks that we faced while planning our wedding, and a subsequent trip to an exotic foreign location. It would be fair to say that our lives were also impacted by the same. After foiled plannings, some refunded and some non-refunded flight tickets, and countless email conversations with airlines, booking agents, and insurance companies, we went over the process all over again and the travel plan was finally set in motion in the August of 2022 - a good two years after our scaled-down wedding during the lockdown days. There are numerous decisions to be made while planning a vacation, the foremost one being the destination. The destination sets the tone of the holidays I believe. Many o...

 Before The Judgement I believe I must begin by addressing the pressing question - Was planning a vacation in the midst of a pandemic a recommended move?  No. Yet we went ahead with it. Here is why.  We (Nithya & I) were newly married, and our vividly planned vacation at the island of Langkawi was stolen away from us by the virus. Our stay in Delhi was coming to an end due to job-related moves, and we felt it would be a waste not to utilize this opportunity in exploring at least one of the tourist hot spots easily accessible from the national capital region. Let us end this section by answering another question - Are the reasons listed above good enough to risk a vacation during a pandemic? No. We had taken a calculated risk. Arrival at Manali There are two phases to this - planning and execution. We had not started planning with Manali in mind. There were numerous choices - starting from Jaipur and Amritsar to Nainital, Shimla, and Manali. After a bit of reading and ...