Our First Vacation Of The Year 2021

Back to my corner: TheMommysCorner, yes, writing after a month as I was on holiday. It was more than a year that we didn’t visit our hometown, thankfully my cousin decided to get hitched this year and I can’t afford to miss her wedding. So we booked our tickets and planned our first vacation of the year 2021.

I must say the sunny side of this remote learning of kids during this Covid-19 is that I got a long holiday. Otherwise it won’t be possible to take one month holiday during normal academic session. Hence with no delay let’s write the sneak peek of our first traveling in 2021.

Mode of Travelling:

We booked our back and forth tickets by air. This was the first time we were going to travel by air after Covid-19. There were few changes in booking and traveling that we had experienced (though it is destination wise different). Like web check-in is mandatory, you have to carry your boarding pass before entering airport. You can choose soft copy or hard copy according to your comfort. They give passengers safety face shield, body cover and sanitizer to remain safe. My 6-year-old was very much excited for the trip. We boarded our flight at night. It was 2 hours duration to reach the City Of Joy Kolkata. My dad came to the airport to receive us. So let’s know how we spend our first vacation of 2021.

You may like to read: 10 Best Tips For Travelling With Kids

How we spend our first vacation of 2021:

Next morning we all started our trip to attend my cousin’s marriage. It was a road trip of around 7 hours.. It was really fun filled trip as we, my parents and my sister’s family all were traveling together. The most exciting part of the road trip was our lunch that we ate at a dhaaba (popular roadside restaurant mainly on highways) that prepare lip-smacking food. After a long time I was having lunch at dhaaba and that too my favourite one. At around 7 in the evening, we reached to my aunt’s place. My cousin was already done with her mehandi, so it was our turn to put mehandi. Kids were first in the queue to put mehendi so they started and we had some snacks and refreshments.

#Days of Cousin’s marriage ceremony:

Indian weddings have a tradition of multi-days and it’s all about family, dance, dress, food and of course unlimited fun. We planned to stay 4 days there starting from haldi (the ritual of giving turmeric to the bride and groom), marriage(rituals of traditional marriage are done on this day), bidai (bride goes to groom’s house with groom) and reception (post marriage party by groom’s house). This was the first wedding function I was attending after my marriage. So I didn’t miss any chance to wrap my all favorite sarees, usually I don’t wear much sarees but this time I wore. Those four days passed just like a flash with memories to cherish and cell phones full with marriage pictures. And on next day i.e. 5th day we planned to visit my in-law’s house.

#Days at My In-law’s Home:

Next morning almost everyone went back to their respective places, it was time for us too to leave and start our journey to my in-law’s house. Again it was a road trip, and it was a scenic trip.

We planned to visit a hill which was somewhere in the middle of our route. It is known as Susunia hill, located in Purulia,West Bengal. It is very famous for a spring, which is a mystery for everyone because no one found the source of the spring. And it is flowing 24 x 7 all year round. There were a lot of handicrafts shops near the hill road and all the items were made by the local people using the rock and wood found there. We shopped few things from there for us and our relatives. These little things in our journey made our first vacation of 2021 more joyful and exciting.

After spending some time there at Susunia hill we again started our trip.We reached home at around 1pm. All were waiting for us eagerly, we were meeting each other after almost 2 years. After freshen-up we sat for our lunch and I must say it was a grand luncheon for us. We visited to our distant relatives, meeting them after a long time, but they made us feel very special. Three days passed just like 3 hours with heartfelt conversation, tasty food and enjoying the chilled weather. I really feel myself blessed to receive so much love from our families. It was time to travel again to the last destination of our vacation, my parent’s house.

#Days at My Parent’s Home:

It was a road trip to Kolkata of around 6 hours. We started in the morning 10 after having breakfast. It is always hard to bid goodbye, still we had to do because if we don’t depart how can we meet again. This is the way I console myself while parting from my dear ones. We were enjoying the traveling part of our vacation as we love to do road trips, so it was fun for us. The first halt of our trip was at Shaktigarh which is very famous for sweets. Almost all travelers stop their to have sweets and a break to their journey. My 6-year-old loves sweet, very much, so she and my husband ate sweets there, and we packed some sweets for our home too.

After driving for a couple of hours more we thought of having lunch at the same dhaaba that we ate while going for marriage, it was the same route we were traveling. So after having a hearty lunch, we en route to Kolkata that was the last destination of our vacation. We reached home at evening.

Kolkata is one of best cities in India to do shopping and indulging yourself in the city’s savoury food. Though Kolkata is my hometown so I don’t visit the tourist places every time though there are lot to see but I surely plan for some shopping. Hence my city hopping started next day.

I went for street shopping with my mom and sister and bought some things to take back home. I can’t explain how much I love doing street shopping in Kolkata. One day we ate our lunch at the popular restaurant of Kolkata: Bhojohari Manna, to taste the delicacy of Bengali cuisine. One of my darling Aunt came to my parent’s place to meet me and stayed with us for few days. When you have your mom, sister and aunt around you, you can’t count calories on those days. And so I enjoyed all the pampering, and I am gonna miss them.

Now it is the time to fly back, you can’t have a life long holiday. Stuffs were overflowing from our bags, but anyhow I managed them to tuck them inside the bag and that was the end of our first vacation of 2021.

Wrapping Up Our first Vacation of 2021 :

Yes, it is always exciting to visit unknown places and explore something new in holidays but meeting with our families and distant relatives during holidays makes us feel so loved and it helps to create the bond more stronger. Our kids will get to know our family better and it will surely encourage them to connect with them. Last year we spent all our holidays alone, far from our relatives, luckily this year we were able to plan our first vacation of 2021 with our near and dear ones. These are the memories we are adding to the story of our life. Let’s keep on adding more and more memories!!