Monday 3 May 2010

"The Gummi Bear Connundrum"

Sometimes I forget that I'm married to 'Indiana James'....and that he's married to 'Tasha Go-Lightly'...

Intending to depart India in exactly one weeks time, we have still not managed to book our tickets to Bali. Why you ask?

Simple...because we cannot agree on HOW to get there.

I want to fly on lovely Singapore Air, in nice plush seating, with seat back movies and as many vodka lemonades as I can surreptiously quaff on the five and a half hour flight.

I want to have a four as opposed to hellish six hour stopover in Mumbai Airport. And I want to spend our three day stopover in Singapore browsing through 'sterile' (so the husband claims, even though he's never set foot out of the airport there) shopping plazas, eating 'Western' food, and stocking up on goodies that I haven't been able to buy these past three months in India.

It all started with Gummi Bears actually. A few weeks ago in a beach shack, a lively bunch of Indians were chomping down on a variety of sweets and candies. When queried, (I had to say something - I'd been staring at them for the past twenty minutes enviously watching them devour all their sugary treats) they proudly replied, "These are from Singapore!"

Right then and there the seed was planted and I decided that I must, must go to Singapore. If Gummi Bears could be bought there, then literally anything could be!

Moreover, all advice we've been given seems to point toward Singapore being the preferred place to obtain our necessary extended tourist visas.

So what's the problem?

Well the husband has other ideas. He is proposing that we eschew Singapore Air and fly the whole way instead on the budget airline Air Asia (on par with Easy Jet or any other no-frills airline) via Kuala Lumpur...thereby bypassing the supposedly 'sterile' and 'boring' Singapore altogether.

I can see his point. My proposed itinerary, though much more comfortable and luxurious, will cost an extra few hundred pounds.

His proposed route however, has left me slightly deflated. I can't argue with reason. It will be better for our pocketbooks if we do it his way, fair enough.

However part of me is having trouble letting go of the 'Gummi Bear Dream'...the temporary immersion into comfort I was so looking forward to.

So after days of indecision the husband this morning proposed we flip a coin. Heads we go via Singapore....tails it's Kuala Lumpur.

He tossed the coin.

Kuala Lumpur it is...(sigh)

2 comments:

  1. there are really good malls in KL and 5 star hotels come much cheaper than in sing. Jay is right - singapore is like a giant christian university. It's slightly sinister in how boring it is.

    ReplyDelete
  2. haha....i wouldn't be surprised...i have been known to be wrong about things (geographical only of course!)
    :)

    ReplyDelete

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