Winter is coming

Heading for a winter break? Here's where you should go

As the year winds its way inexorably towards its end, our thoughts inevitably begin to focus on our year-end breaks. And if you live in Delhi, where the air quality begins to plummet around this time, it becomes even more imperative to head out somewhere where breathing is not in itself a health hazard.

So, here - in no particular order of importance - are five best winter holiday destinations. And the bonus is that they are all about four - or less - hours away no matter where you live in India. 

Bhutan

I know that most people prefer to go to Bhutan during the summer, escaping the scalding heat of the plains. But there is a special charm to this destination in winter. The air is crisp, the snow-capped mountains provide a perfect backdrop, and the steaming momos are the best way to beat the bracing cold. 

Maldives 

If you want to escape the cold, on the other hand, there is always the Maldives (now that the political kerkuffle between our two countries seems to have died down). There is something magical about boarding a flight wearing three layers to ward off the cold, and then getting to your hotel in the Maldives to walk on the beach with warm sand scrunching between your cold toes. Pro tip: book a hotel that is speedboat-distance away from the airport so you don’t waste time hanging around for a seaplane to your final destination. 

Sri Lanka

If you like your water sports interspersed with a bit of temple-hopping, a spot of culture, and maybe a visit to a hill resort, then head for the Emerald Isle of Sri Lanka. Not only is this one plane ride away from India, it is small enough that you can drive from Colombo to Kandy to Cape Weligama in a matter of hours. And as an extra bonus, the food is to die for. 

Thailand

If city destinations are more your bag than you can’t go wrong with Bangkok. There is an astonishing energy to this city, whether you eat at the bustling food courts, shop at the heaving malls, or do the touristy thing at the many temples in the old part of the city. And the good thing about Thailand is the beach resorts of Phuket or the mountain destinations like Chiang Mai are only a short hop away. 

Dubai 

I must confess that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Dubai when I first started visiting but over the years the city has begun to grow on me. Not only does it have one of the liveliest dining scenes (taking in everything from international chains to local favourites) it also has some amazing resorts in which it is possible to forget that you are in a city destination. I am not a great one for shopping while on holiday but even I have succumbed to the temptation of mall walks — and loved every busy, bustling second of it. 

Turning the tables

When the first world seems like the third - and vice versa

 I still remember the exact moment the thought occurred to me. I had just landed in Dubai, gone through immigration in a jiffy, walked to the baggage belt to see my bags already serenely coasting along on the conveyer belt, walked outside to get a car to take me to my hotel — and that’s when I had opened my phone to scroll through Twitter. And there it was: an endless stream of tweets about how people who had landed in Heathrow the same time that my plane had touched down in Dubai, were going to be stuck in the airport for hours on end because the e-gates had failed. 

That’s when the thought popped into my head. The tables have truly turned, I marvelled. The First World has turned into the Third World — and vice versa. 

The signs had been there for a long time. The first time I planned a trip to London post-pandemic, I was inundated with slightly intimidating advice by friends who lived in the city. One told me how her son had been held at knifepoint and divested of his laptop, watch and wallet in the heart of Belgravia. Another recounted how her husband had had his phone snatched out of his hand by a gang on Bond Street. 

The stories were endless but the advice was always the same. Please leave all your valuables behind in India. Do not wear any jewellery — not even the fake kind (because, honestly, who can tell the difference?). Don’t flaunt an expensive watch. Do not carry a designer bag. Dress down as much as possible. And if, despite all these precautions, you are still the victim of a mugging, for God’s sake, don’t fight back. Just hand over your valuables and be grateful you have been spared your life. 

Honestly, it sounded like the kind of advice that we were given when we were headed to the lawless streets of Lagos or the souks of Egypt. But here we were, in a situation when going to London was being treated like a trip into a zone of anarchy. 

So, frightened out of my wits, I complied with all the advice. I left every expensive item I owned back at home, carried a crossbody bag that I wore underneath my jacket and kept my mobile firmly in my pocket. I came back home unscathed but a friend wasn’t quite so lucky. Sitting outside a popular pub, enjoying a pint, she felt a tug at her side and turned around to see her bag disappear, stolen by two men whizzing past on a mobike. 

Contrast this to my trip to Dubai. Everywhere I went, I found people dressed to the nines, wearing flashy jewellery, expensive watches, designer handbags, without a care in the world. There were groups of women out and about till late into the night, partying without worrying about how they would get home, secure in the knowledge that they were in a safe city. 

I enjoyed every moment of it. But back in my mind was the thought that I should make the most of it while I could. My next trip is to Naples and I am sure I am going to be peppered with the same kind of advice I got when I was headed to London. 

Truly, the First World has turned into the Third World. And vice versa. 

Taking a break?

Travel the world if you want to; but don’t knock the humble ‘family holiday’

Chances are that you are reading this either while planning a holiday, enjoying a break, or recovering from the rigours of a family vacation. Yes, this is the holiday season, when everyone who can afford it gets away from the heat as fast as they possibly can.

And these days we are all spoilt for choice, aren’t we? We can hit the beaches of Goa or Koh Samui, depending on our budget. We can enjoy the mountain air in Manali, Shimla or even Switzerland, if our money stretches that far. We can trek in Nepal; go shopping in Dubai; watch plays in London; golf in Scotland; sample the best of Renaissance art in Italy; indulge in a bit of wine-tasting in France or the Napa Valley; gorge – or gag, it depends entirely on you – on authentic Chinese fare in Shanghai or Beijing.

As far as holidays are concerned, the sky (and of course, our bank balance) is the limit. And even then, there’s nothing we enjoy more than pushing the limits. A week spent river-rafting in the wilds of the South American jungle? Bring it on. A fortnight in the icy wilderness of Greenland getting in touch with our inner Innuit? Why ever not? Walking up the slopes of active volcanoes in New Zealand? Count us in.

These days, everyone wants to push the envelope when it comes to holidays. It’s no longer enough to go tiger-watching in Ranthambore, Pench or Bandhavgarh. You have to go on a safari in Africa or better still, watch from the sidelines when the annual migration of wildebeest takes place in Kenya. Chilling out on the beaches of Kovalam is now passé. These days you must head out to Croatia, the new jewel of the Mediterranean. And Nainital and Darjeeling are now spoilt beyond belief; if you want to enjoy the mountains then Ladakh is where it’s at.

It sounds great doesn’t it? After all, who would pass up the opportunity to see the world in all its glory, sample the delights – both culinary and cultural – it has to offer, and explore every nook and cranny of our beautiful planet. If we live in a global village, then I guess it behoves us to get acquainted with all its secret gardens. And great fun it is too.

And yet, even as I scour the internet looking for the best deals on hotels and airline fares, there is a tiny little part of me that misses the good old days when holidays were more about family time and less about seeing the world. When we spent our vacations bonding with assorted uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews and a veritable army of cousins rather than discovering the delights of gelato or the finer points of bull-fighting. When taking a break didn’t necessarily involve breaking the bank.

Growing up, I spent all my school vacations visiting various members of our extended – and, to be honest, fairly extensive – family. The summers were invariably spent at my aunt’s tea garden in Assam. And the holiday started from the time we boarded the train from Sealdah station, me armed with a stack of Amar Chitra Kathas and my mother with a lot of patience. Snack-time came with every station we stopped at, with deep-fried samosas and pakoras being scoffed down with hot, milky tea drunk from terracotta bhands (yes, I know, it sounds a bit vulgar, but it just means a tea-cup).

The high point of the journey was the ferry transfer across the Brahmaputra, which put all those geography lessons in perspective. And then, there was the rickety jeep-ride to the tea garden itself, with us indefatigable kids singing loudly and I fear quite tunelessly in the back while the adults struggled to stay upright on those long and winding roads.

And then followed a few weeks of absolute bliss, when you never needed to do anything you didn’t want to. There were no mandatory early mornings to catch the sunrise on the beach; no traipsing around museums feigning interest in the Dutch masters and dinosaur models; no endless shopping trips for our moms to drag us on. Instead, my assorted cousins and I ran quite wild: going on long exploratory walks on the tea slopes; examining the wild life in the area (mostly frogs and leeches, if you must know); starting our own Enid Blyton-style Five Find-Outers gang; making friends with the kids in the local village; and generally, having a blast.

In the winters, we headed north to visit more uncles and aunts. It helped, of course, that my uncles were in the army and hence could host us in a different city every three years or so. Thus it was that we sampled the delights of Southern temples, splashed around on the rocky beaches of Visakhapatnam, explored a yet-unspoilt Bhutan, visited endless forts and palaces in Rajasthan and made ourselves at home in army messes all around the country. All of this, leavened with lots of inter-generation bonding, and much re-telling of old family lore.

Even today, when I have traversed every continent in my travels, it is those family holidays that evoke the most heart-felt memories. And it is the family bonds forged on those vacations that provide me with the most emotional sustenance.

So, in case you haven’t booked that mini-break in Bangkok just yet, you might want to examine the possibility of a family vacation. Your kids may balk at it now; but they may well thank you for it in the years to come.