When Imran and I locked down on the UK for my annual vacay, way back in April, I remember telling him: My only ask is there must be an English toilet. Can't do Indian anymore.
Silence from the other side for 5 secs and then: Ummm, Chelster, you do know you're planning a trip to England, right?
You'd have to just pull my pants down to know how humiliated I was with my gaffe.
I remember there was a lot of back and forth on buying the tickets and I had still to get my finances in order if I wanted to accomplish this dream. UK has always been on my mind but I think with the thought of Imran coming back to India for good and with Vishal going to fulfil his dream of seeing Fed in the Flesh - the itch just had to be scratched!
And so it began - research on cheap flight tickets with one stopover, the intricacies of the itinerary, back to basics around the wardrobe but keeping in mind the weather shenanigans of the land I was planning on visiting, and most importantly... getting a UK visa.
Flight: Kept track of flights but 41K seemed to be the cheapest bet via Turkish Airlines. BA just wasn't cutting it and neither was Jet offering anything great. Plus, I was aiming for a 3 week disappearing act so getting tickets to match the rough plan was proving to be a little bit of a challenge. While researching I discovered on a blog that if you have a stopover in Turkey for over 6 hours, you are eligible to get a
free tour around Istanbul, courtesy, Turkish Airlines. WOW!!! I had way too much leave and this was an offer I just didn't see the point in passing up. So, my return from London to Mumbai had a 15 hour halt in Istanbul (I prefer keeping room for delays and error) which also meant I had the luxury to choose how long my Tour Istanbul could be (they have a 6 and 9 hour tour option). When flying to London all I had was a 3 hour stopover at Ataturk International Airport and that was fine with me. Flight - CHECK!
Click here to watch my Tour Istanbul video
Visa: As soon as I booked my flight ticket I buzzed the only person I know who has money in her bank a/c. The Commander. I was like, I'm planning a trip to the UK... and after all the excited yelling and THIS IS YOUR PARIS! - I asked if she could start contributing funds to my measly bank a/c cuz I had to show bills in the a/c and even with my 5 months salary it would not make the cut as per the visa requirements. Didn't have to even finish my request - got called a bunch of names and got the monthly donations from her. This, woman - I love her to death - and at that point in my life I loved her money even more... muahahahahaha! Money headache - done. Then arranging for documents, understanding the requirements, Kate Moss was like - don't worry, you have a letter on a PwC letterhead, you'll get it. Even Imran sent me an invite kind of letter. Getting all my investment documents took a bit of time since that's the one thing (other than filing taxes) which I don't get quite easily.
But yeah - things were slowly shaping up and soon the date came closer to submit my documents. I decided to apply for a date just a month before travelling and after I got my salary, cuz, you know... more money in the bank! There were unfortunately quite a few attacks which had taken place in London and Manchester and with the UK election results - I was starting to get nervous. I can't even remember the number of times I worked on my documents submission and I made three copies of each to make sure I wasn't missing anything. And to make it easier for them, I also labelled and clubbed relevant documents together and put sticky notes so they could be impressed with my organisation skills. As promised, I got my visa as soon as the mandatory 15 days minimum had passed. I couldn't work for the next two hours - kept staring at ze beautiful six month multiple entry stamp :P :P :P - kash paise hote to visit a second time! VISA - CHECK!
Itinerary: This was probably the most amazeballs thing I have done in a long time. Helping me out here - Imran, again. The itinerary was freaking spectacular! I mean come on!!! It was planned down to the T for the most part. He created a Google spreadsheet because unlike me, he wasn't a Word lover and I'm not great with Excel but boy did it really make sense! So we kept adding, deleting and moving things up and down and I could feel Imran's excitement too cuz he kep adding things and in my head I was like - DO I EVEN HAVE THIS MUCH TIME??? And ummm money??? The good part was that the things I wanted to experience were easy on the wallet and free for the most part. My basic costs were a few must-see attractions like the Tower Bridge and St. Pauls and these were, I'm very very happy to say - worth every penny. Obviously, I still had a Word doc happening for my ease and comfort where I kept crossing things off my list.
I think the next insane moment was when I was planning on adding Scotland to the itinerary but it was just turning out to be too expensive if I winged it alone. And I wasn't keen on a tour bus view. In comes NolCool. Nols was thinking about taking a vacay too and he'd never been to Scotland either and we've always been keen on doing a trip together but due to financial constraints from my end, it just never happened. So he told me to firm up the itinerary and I spent about three weekends thoroughly planning it through, that at the end of it, Imran was like - EVEN I'M COMING!!! The lucky sod was just returning from his awesome honeymoon but was quite stoked about the plan, that in my head I knew this would turn out to be an epic roadtrip! Nols asked if he could bring a bud along and I said fine as long as it was one person. Five would be too cramped. Introducing Summer Sumeet. Hahaha more about the Scotland leg of the tour later on...
I always wanted to watch a live Football match and trying to catch a Chelsea game was just not happening because the game and my dates weren't adding up. Since the EPL 2017 was to start on the day I landed, I knew I was again playing it real close but I bought a ticket for the Arsenal vs Leicester City game at the Emirates Stadium for the same day evening without also knowing how far the stadium was to where I was staying. I also decided I couldn't be in London and not do the Chelsea tour so I signed up for that too! The other thing on my bucket list was to watch a full fledged stage performance. Initially, I was keen on Jesus Christ Superstar - you know, for obvious reasons and Cats wasn't happening. But Danda suggested The Lion King and after a lot of thought, I decided to go with TLK. Best decision.
I learned while researching that almost all tourist places that have entry charges sell the online admission ticket for a pound or two less. Saved a decent bit there. And it is important to know entry and exit timings to places like museums and art galleries - just makes life easier when planning the commute. My constant companion in London was the CityMapper app - I mean, fabulous! Saved me a huge amount of headache considering I suck eggs at directions.
As always, the itinerary had changes till the last bloody second I left Bombay! My ARSLES (snigger) match game ticket for which I pretty much sold a kidney (in my head), suddenly had the seat changed to another section and I wasn't sure if it was any good. The guy convinced me it was better than what I had. A couple of hours later, Stamford Bridge emailed saying that the tour was cancelled and I had the luxury (as if!!!) to choose another date and they would accommodate me. After re-looking at the itinerary and considering the limited time I was actually in London, I worked out 15 August as the best alternate date. That meant rearranging what was planned and well, in short, painful - considering I had made the itinerary keeping kms and transport in mind. Nevertheless, KICKASS ITINERARY - CHECK!
Data: I kept seeing these Airtel international plan offers all over the place and so called them. I personally think it was a decent plan except for the 5 GB data which I wasn't keen on. I had 500 minutes free calling to India, UK and Turkey + 100 free SMS' to all three countries. Way toooo much. I really tried quite hard to finish the 5GB. Lol. I returned with 1.5GB. Bleh. Don't ask how many minutes and sms' I wasted. But Airtel for sure saved the day in sooooo many ways! So merci. DATA - CHECK!
Monies: HDFC Forex card is shit. When banks have to take money, man - snap yo fingers, they will. But when you wanna load your card or get a refund on an amount... fuckers disappear. Anyway, I loaded 600 pounds on the card. Weird shit was they didn't ask me for my visa while the other channels I was trying to get currency from asked me for a visa copy. Carrying 200 pounds in currency is a must. FCUK this Government who wants us to go cashless. I got stranded twice and it was borrowed cash that saved my ass. Give me good ol' paper any day. Getting currency in India nowadays is also painful - you need a damn visa for this too. And shit rates. MONEY - CHECK (though not to my satisfaction)
Stay: Good people come in all shapes and sizes and homes. Enter Dewi! Bestie of Chintu and he requested her to host me and she and her husband willingly (I assume) said YES! I sent her the link to the itinerary for her opinion as well. Since she is in the travel and tourism profession too, she got pretty excited - I think everyone associated with this upcoming holiday of mine was catching the excitement bug - I just wonder if it's all me :P
Dewi is a genuinely amazing soul and I have no clue how she and Chintu are friends... lol. Her husband and she really made me feel so much at home and she made herself available to take me around sooo many times and took pains to give me directions and suggest things to do - HUGE HELP! Her bestie Mas was super accommodating and I'm so glad and grateful they were on hand to show me around town :D
Her name is pronounced Devi and her relationship with India is even more incredible than India *badam tish*. It goes like this - her dad of French origin was in India and was travelling by a Kolkata train to Puri when he had a hymoglycemia attack of sorts (lack of glucose in the bloodstream) and this follower of Hare Krishna helped him out and he became a disciple as well (I hope that is the term, if not please correct me) and gave up Christianity. Meanwhile her mum is Indonesian Christian and when she gave birth to her three kids, the dad wanted all three to be connected to his new roots. So they were named Dewi, Govinda (sister) and Rama (brother). That isn't half the awesomeness that is coming... she met her husband on SHADDIEFFINGDOTCOM - a truly calm and composed chap who hails from Bihar and is well settled in London. So my wonderful Parisian moved to be with hubby in my city of dreams. Meanwhile, last I was informed the sister also has an Indian BF. This can be a Bollywood hit - KJo, you feeling me???
Also read: Bombay 2 London 2 Scotland 2 Istanbul - Take II
