2024 England – Brighton
This year it was particularly difficult to decide where to go on our annual holiday. The problem was finding somewhere interesting to visit whilst still having at least half the holiday on a beach. We decided to go back to Thailand but were surprised at how expensive the flights had become. We were trying to cut down on the stress of flying by choosing only direct flights but not only did that add to the cost considerably but Thailand was a much longer flight so it was hard to resist the temptation to go to India for a fourth time. It was just an eight-hour direct flight to New Delhi and everything in India was so cheap. Having made our decision, Federika set to work on where to go and after a lot of changing of plans, we decided on a week in Nepal and then Goa for three weeks.
I always enjoy the planning and only ever used booking.com which gave us good discounts because we used them so much. After booking all the hotels, I nearly fell victim to an ingenious new scam. One of the hotels sent me a message asking for a 50% deposit which was not unusual. As it came through the booking.com messaging system I was happy to pay into the account the hotel gave me but when I tried to make the transfer, the advanced security system on my PC kept blocking it. I contacted the hotel who claimed that booking.com had been hacked and people were being asked for money by fraudsters. When I looked into it, I thought Booking.com’s explanation was far more plausible, that hotels were clicking links on scam emails which put a virus on their PCs giving fraudsters access to their computers. A quick search revealed it was becoming a big problem but although my bookings were safe, I cancelled that hotel as I wasn’t impressed by the way they handled the whole thing. A few days later, the same thing happened with another hotel although it was quickly sorted so I was happy to keep the booking.
Next was the Indian Visas. I hadn’t applied for one for four years so I was hoping the process would be easier but if anything, it was even more silly and took me most of the afternoon. I had to enter the visa numbers of previous trips and where they were issued. I had the numbers but as they were E-Visas that I applied for online, how was I supposed to know which office issued them? I had to put all the countries we had visited in the last ten years, and the places in India we had visited in the last five years. Then the places we intended to visit on our next trip and in the declaration at the end I was told that if I made a mistake, we could be arrested and deported. I had to put what education and qualifications we had and what our profession was. There was no place for retired people and of the small list of professions to choose from, (one of them being actor) there was no option for teachers. Silliest of all was that they wanted the name and phone number of someone who lived in India that would vouch for us. The whole thing seemed to be geared around someone wanting to immigrate rather than just spend a few weeks on holiday. The visa application for Nepal took ten minutes. The last obstacle was travel insurance. Once you pass 70 years old, insurance for UK residents is expensive enough but for expats, there was only one company that would insure me. I had no choice but to use them and pay the extortionate premium even though I trusted them about as much as an elderly chicken trusts a hungry crocodile.
20th December 2024
We planned to stay in the UK for Christmas. Federika went a week before me to stay with the kids and when I arrived we stayed at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. I looked into Airbnb apartments but it was not much cheaper and I hate all the extras they charge and the sneaky ways of extorting money out of people. In Mlini, some people use them for renting their apartments because they are told they will only be charged a 3% commission compared to Booking.com’s 15%. The truth is that they charge a total of 18%, plus security deposits and other hidden extras that you don’t get at a reputable hotel. Worst of all, and downright dishonest, was when doing a search of Mlini (for example), on top of the results were not the places in or near Mlini, but places that gave them the most business. We were in the centre of Mlini but were at the bottom of their search results list because we didn’t give them much business. Accommodation in villages miles away was always at the top.
Aside from all that, I liked the Grand. The service was great, as well as the free breakfast and there was something magical about the hotel at Christmas. As a special treat, we invited the kids to afternoon tea which was outrageously expensive but well worth it and our grandchildren were so excited they woke up at 4 a.m. that morning. It was in a small area of the hotel set aside for afternoon tea and with such a long and rich history it was easy to look around and imagine all the famous people that had eaten there, from the Victorian era until the present day. There was a selection of sandwiches, cakes and teas which we all filled up on so we couldn’t eat for the rest of the day. One afternoon we went to a pantomime which I was dreading as even when I was a kid I didn’t like them but it was ok and great to see everyone enjoying themselves.
One night we went to see the Burning of the Clocks which was an annual event celebrating the shortest day of the year. In the autumn, groups formed to make paper lanterns which they paraded through the streets of Brighton and ended up on Kemptown Beach. 
They threw all the lanterns onto a bonfire and then there was a firework display. We followed everyone down Madeira Drive towards the bonfire but it was starting to go on a bit and people were standing around aimlessly so we went back to the hotel.
2024 Nepal and India
