Wait, I didn’t forget the essentials: 10. Use By-The-Kilo Launderettes Clothes pile up quickly once you are on a vacation. If you are not carrying enough clothes for every outing on your trip, you would need to get them washed. Almost every hotel provides good laundry service in Samui but at a high cost. Instead, I would suggest you to try out the coin-operated laundromats lining the streets of Samui. They are generally priced at 30 Baht per kilo. If you ask me, I’d say it’s a bargain. However, I haven’t had a first-hand experience of these launderettes so I cannot say for sure how good they are. Here’s what…

On to the next most important thing: 8. Shopping I have so much to say about shopping. Thailand is abuzz with charming, have-to-buy souvenirs. There’s almost nothing that you wouldn’t want to get your hands on. From beautiful wood art to jewellery and even paintings, you would want to take everything home. Sadly, you cannot. Remember luggage limit? So, you really need to be methodical about shopping. Bracelets are lovely, thoughtful gifts that do not weigh much. Try to look for the beachside vendors for buying bracelets from – they sell these for half the price of what brick-and-mortar shop owners do. There’s another thing that caught my eye on…

Now that we have landed in Koh Samui, the next hack would be to: 6. Use Credit Card Instead of Cash This little hack we found out by fluke. The evening we reached Samui, we found ourselves mighty hungry. An 18-hour journey with almost zero sleep after a full working Friday had stripped us of our energy and we needed to refuel to get our vacay started – we hate wasting a drop of our vacation time apart from necessary sleep time. So, we freshened up and sat ourselves quite comfortably at a restaurant with a weird name – Top Ten BBQ – just around the corner of the ARKBar…

With choice of season and airlines out of the way, we can focus on: 4. Choice of Hotel I’m a little picky when it comes to choosing the stay. Cleanliness stays at the top of my list. I have a thing for natural light in the room, a nicely-done bed, squeaky clean floors and enough space to move about without banging into the walls or furniture. A well-maintained restroom with clean towels, showerheads and taps and no (atleast not visbile) rust marks or floor spots makes my day. Now that’s a lot to ask for while travelling on a budget. But I’m willing to compromise for the right price. A…

Following along the lines of the previous post, we come to: 2. Airfare Here’s what I do when I check flight prices: 1. Add my destination in Google Flights 2. Check dates during my chosen month for low price, choose one and hit enter 3. The lowest fare is shown at the top of the list. I scan through it to pick out the airline names that are offering a resonably priced ticket and also to check the connecting flight operators (if any) 4. Directly go on over to the airline’s website and tally prices Why do I do this? A) This gives me an idea about the airlines that…

Just weeks before our first marriage anniversary, this March, Tathagata and I found ourselves in a headspace to plan a short (somewhat weekend) trip somewhere nearby. A lot of research was done, a lot of suggestions were taken and quite a few destinations were listed in our memory notebook. But somehow none of those seemed to work out, there was always an excuse to strike each one out. In the end, we decided to drop it. Quite surprisingly (not!), a month or so later, on a Sunday evening, we ended up sitting side by side with a laptop, my debit card in hand, at the final step of booking a…

No trip is complete without food – local food, to be exact. And Bali conjured up dish after dish of mouth-watering delicacies with a pinch of yum and oh-so-much love. Being hearty eaters, we dug in. Our biggest culinary moments are all about gorging on exotic cuisines and we rarely say “No” – even if it is almost raw mussel. Our favourite things in life are big portions of food cooked with love and sunny days. Trust me, we are frugal that way. So while we were in Bali, we did what we do best. From fresh sea-food to drinks served in a treasure chest, we left no stone unturned. And today,…

“Life keeps leading us on journeys we would never go on if it were up to us.” No matter where you are now, do this. Close your eyes and imagine sitting on top of a rock surrounded by lush greenery, listening to the pounding of a fierce waterfall only inches away from you and soaking in the water-laden breeze. This is what dreams are made of. And life took us there. No, actually Hari did. Life just played along. On Day 2 of our Bali trip, we realized that this island is way more than beaches and brew. So, we chased a waterfall instead. Turns out, in the heart of…

On the edge of a vivid green rice field awash with the first rays of sunlight, a farmer offers a slice of his breakfast to God. He smiles as he arranges banana slices, bright yellow marigold petals, frangipani, a few grains of rice and a burning incense stick on a small tray made of palm fronds. As the fragrant smoke drifts along the slope, he prays for a rich harvest. Followed by a rhythmic sweeping of brooms to clean dwellings, the day is set into motion with gratefulness to God for driving away demonic spirits and a smile as bright as the day. Welcome to Bali, a province where respect…