THE PLANNING PROCESS
OUR PLANNING PROCESS IS RELAXED TO SAY THE LEAST.............
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I normally start with "This is what happened" because what we plan often changes.
We start with a basic plan, basically the main countries we intend to visit. We then book a flight to the first county of the trip and a return flight from wherever we plan to end up. In this case out to Chennai and back from Chennai 7 weeks later. The FIRST basic plan is shown on the map to the right.
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We normally book a hotel in the first main town for 3 nights in order to acclimatise and get the feel for the place, the sights, sounds and smells, in order to relax into it a bit. You may feel 3 nights is a bit short, but that is Sara's preference, not mine. Within a day of arriving Sara is hunting down the next venue.​​
By the time I get to fill in these pages, which set out the outline of our trip, with what we ACTUALLY did it can be a million miles from what we thought (or hoped) we were going to do, mainly as a result of last minute better ideas popping up.
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In this case things are already going awry, and I am writing this just 14 days before we depart. The Maldives has always been the fly in the ointment. Why? I hear you ask. Well, it's because there is bugger all to do in The Maldives. You get to your island (and that can be a trial as well, by seaplane no less, and not cheap to boot). Once there that is all that is there. Your lovely room in a beach hut on stilts and the one restaurant, all at massively inflated island prices. Lovely sand though! Very relaxing, if you happen to be a stressed out city big-wig, not so relaxing if you like doing stuff, seeing things, trying new adventures, challenging the life insurance policy - like we do.
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BUT, on our travels we are near The Maldives and we both agreed that even though they cost the earth (£450 a night just for the room minimum, £170 for a 20 minute boat transfer. UPDATE - Sara fibbed, apparently its £520 a bloody night!)) we would persevere and go there - come what may.
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THEN THE WEATHER CHANGED
Due to adverse weather conditions our plan went to pot on day three, the full story follows but in summary we totally reversed our planned route, a complete 180 degrees, off to Kerela fits, cos it's sunny. Sara had checked the Met forecast and saw rain, rain, rain in Sri Lanka so we just went arse about face on the flip of a coin. Train across India east to west is the new route................ Do read on.