A Weekend Break: Chilling out with family on a holiday

A weekend break is one of the best medicines for stress. Whether you are stressed at the office or bored of doing mundane household chores, leaving the town for a couple of days is a big respite. The moment you realise that one of the Fridays or Monday in the coming month is an official holiday, you start planning a short weekend break. For Delhiite, the popular breakpoints are Corbett, Neemrana, Shimla, Jaipur, Mussoorie, Nainital, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Lansdowne and so many. There are two reasons for the popularity of these destinations – Accessibility (you can drive down) and Novelty (can be the weather or heritage value).

The Planning starts for a weekend break

The moment you inform your family about the plan they get excited. The travel portals like Make my trip, gobibibo, Yatra, Cleartrip act as Godsend angel who show you the path to heaven (not the actual one) i.e. the destination you are planning to go.

The Selection of a Hotel

The most important factor while going out on a vacation is which property you will stay. Since you are taking your family, obviously the property has to be good. You check out 5 to 6 properties on the facilities they offer. The room has to be great with neat and clean bathrooms. A swimming pool is fun! Even though the hotel offers a gym but that is low on your priority. A bar is only a back-up option as you are carrying your own booze (after all you want to save on unnecessary expenditures like drinking at the bar). You shortlist a property that looks great and fits into your budget. The reviews are also great on Trip Advisor.

The D-day arrives

You pack your bags and decide to leave early so as to beat the city traffic. The moment you reach the first toll booth you realise that this is a weekend break for entire Delhi and not just you. There is ½ a km long jam at the toll. The traffic delays the travel journey by a couple of hours. Since you don’t want to lose these precious moments, you start driving fast. Any roadblock which comes your way is welcomed by a lot of expletives which in an AC car, only, your family can listen to. There is a word of caution from your wife on your behaviour as kids are also in the car. But you know that your kids have already insured their ears against such foul language by covering it with their earplugs.

Arriving at the hotel

The moment you arrive at the property, guided by the GPS, you are slightly taken aback! Is it the same property that you saw on the travel site? The one which you checked 10 times on the portal looked like a 4-star property. But the one, in front of which you are standing, will take at least 4 years to become a 4-star property. Anyway, there is no choice.

Checking in a hotel on a weekend break

The front office sees the confirmation on your phone and opens a register bigger than the desk itself. You start filling the columns from one end with a borrowed pen from the attendant. It takes 5 minutes to reach the other end of the register. The attendant who is more comfortable speaking Hindi tries to impress you with her English language skills which probably have some missing verbs. Since you are tired you demand that keys be handed to you. Your demand for a good room is overlooked by the front office attendant. According to her all the rooms in the property are good. As you proceed towards the room, the front office attendant comes running to you asking for the ID. You give her your Aadhar but hey what is this? Every member who is checking in has to give an ID. I tell her that this is ridiculous but she says that this is mandatory and is now a government regulation.

The Room

As you open the room you realise that this is definitely not the one which you saw while making the booking on the travel portal. But there are hardly any other options as the payment has already been made. There is a television and a mini-bar to welcome you in the room. And viola there are 2 bottles of 500 ml. and that also complimentary!

The Switch Panel in the Room

The most confusing switch control panel in this world is not in an aircraft cockpit but in a hotel room. You take at least an hours’ time to understand which one is the switch for the bathroom light and which one for the study or the bed light. The AC panel is something only a NASA scientist can unravel. And God save those who get a nature call during midnight. They finally have to use the torch in their cellphone.

As all moving objects are banned in a hotel room so you don’t get the services of a three-winged metallic bird (fan) hanging from the ceiling. You have to depend on a ventilation grill which is staring you from all corners of the room ceiling. It refuses to throw chilled air on you till it gets instructions from his master sitting behind the housekeeping desk. Since you have landed in an oasis where fresh air is blocked from all corners by glass walls you end up calling the housekeeping to come and start the AC.

As you decide to chill out on a weekend break

You finally settle down in your cozy white bed with larger than life pillows. The next thing you do is to pick up the room service menu. The prices mentioned in the menu reminds you that you are still at the bottom of the pyramid. Ultimately you discover something on the bottom of the menu. It’s called curd rice.  But Kids still have not heard about the word austerity. They demand their regular Butter Chicken and Butter Nan. You place the order with room service. By the time dinner is over you feel so tired that you don’t have the energy to call room service. You end up keeping the used plates outside the room. Plates outside your room is also an indication that you have finally retired for the day.

Enjoy reading such similar posts on my blog. Click on the link below:

The Corbett Diary -1

The Journey of Life with parents by your side