Colombo: Every trip has a purpose! - eNidhi India Travel Blog

Colombo: Every trip has a purpose!

Feb 13 Update:-All hype and preparations aside, Murphy's law has kickedin and I might not be able to travel to SL- more details as time comes

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As communicated in a previous post, we’ve a 2day trip to Colombo, Srilanka lined up for later this month…


The purpose of this trip are listed below:
  • To become eligible to call oneself “International Traveller” and “Foreign Returned” without spending a fortune (Trip budget under 10000 INR per person)
  • To take advantage of the cheap return fare offered by Spicejet (Rs 4008, when booked in Jan 1st week)
  • To make full use of weekend with an international trip that lasts from Friday night till Monday morning- fully optimized for 48 hours in SL and back in Chennai on Monday for work
  • To Explore couple of key places in Srilanka, to the extent possible, in 48 hours
  • Hope for a 6hour+ delay in flight so as to claim 500$ compensation from travel insurance company, an amount 2 times our entire trip expense!
  • Familiarize myself with roads, driving rules and other aspects of Srilanka, so as to assess possibility of renting Toyota Landcruiser Prado from Malkey (SL’s leading Car Rental Agency) on self drive rental during future trips
  • Enjoy Scenic train journey in Srilanka, in ICE (Intercity Express) Observation Car (Subject to availability of ticket)
  • Cloths are very cheap in Srilanka. Explore possibility of buying a few suitcase full of them and sell them in T Nagar,Chennai, to recover trip expenses! Just kidding! (Advance booking open!)
This post is prepared as an entry for Indiblogger-Cleartrip MyPurpose contest, have induced some fun element to make it interesting. I’m required to collect maximum number of votes to win the contest, but such contests always benefit the organizers/sponsors than participants. (All participants need to link to cleartrip website, but there's no provision to link back to our blogs from cleartrip site) I need to drive traffic to Indiblogger site to get votes, something I don’t like. I’d suggest don’t waste your time voting, unless you’re already active on indiblogger and it doesn’t take much time n effort to vote. If you like the content and can leave a comment, that'll be more valuable to me.

When I was checking ticket prices, I realized that cleartrip isn’t the cheapest option. In fact it is not even showing Spicejet SG1 and SG2 between MAA and Colombo while searching for tickets. We booked tickets directly on Spicejet website, which cost us few hundred rupees less than Makemytrip n other travel portals. This para may spoil my chances of winning the contest, but still had to say this.

Waiting for Feb end!

Related posts: Jetlite vs Spicejet  * Fly Free on Indigo * Kingfisher Experience * Kingfisher takes off from Mysore

19 comments:

  1. Will wait for your trip report. Then will explore if I can do something like that myself but surely as more than a weekend trip.

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  2. Hahahaha.. the last para was the best if not for the last item in your trip purpose :D

    Well, I am sure you got the best deal out of the mad sale to woo travelers.. Do share information about the visa requirements and all other things that one should be aware of while planning for a trip to SL.

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  3. Best wishes. Appreciate your forthright views. Looking forward to your trip report.

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  4. great take.very sincere and daring I can say.
    excellent one.
    enjoy the trip.

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  5. Thanks Deepak, TGS.

    Mridula: Sure.

    Mohan: Its visa on arrival

    BRS and Kirigalpoththa,
    Thanks

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  6. All the best for the trip...
    Yes the last lines probably spoilt your chances... But I loved reading the post :)

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  7. Arti..

    Glad you enjoyed the post. My chances of winning was anyways poor as I am not doing anything to push traffic and get votes..

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  8. Arti..

    Glad you enjoyed the post. My chances of winning was anyways poor as I am not doing anything to push traffic and get votes..

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  9. All:

    In a major development, I might not be able to go to Colombo this month end... :(

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  10. hey Nidhi thanks for the tip on booking tickets! it's really helpful

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  11. great post man!

    BTW, what happened to your initial plan? I might goto SL during the Ugadi long weekend. If you dont go on your scheduled dates, may be you can join me. Let me know.

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  12. Sankara,

    Work related developments.. Mailed you the details

    Nidhi

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  13. You're wrong, in Sri Lanka clothes were never cheap; nothing is cheap here :) but in Chennai you can even buy nice shirts for 20INR

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  14. Mohamed: Thanks. You meant 200 INR or 20 INR?

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