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We take our 🗺️ travel seriously, and put a lot of planning and thought into our trips 🧳. Here are a few things that we do when we travel that make our trips easier. More than anything, these are things we do to make sure we are comfortable and have the mindspace to enjoy the experiences 😇.
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The one thing we ALWAYS do wherever in the world we travel is to get local SIM cards with the fastest data connections 📱. This is way less expensive than international roaming, and wifi is not always available or reliable. The domestic travel equivalent of this is to ensure that you have data roaming and that it is enabled. This ensures that we can always call each other, access information / tickets / reservation 📧 emails easily, as well as call a taxi in a pinch. Most importantly, we always have access to social media!
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While booking the hotel 🏨, we follow two rules:
1) It has to be in a place that has easy access to wherever we want to go. This could mean physical proximity, or being near a public transport hub 🚆.
2) The room 🛏️ has to be comfortable. There is no better feeling than coming back to a comfy place after a long day of seeing the sights. This is especially true on longer trips.
Making friends with staff who are local adds an extra way of discovering local favourites and hidden gems.
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We plan empty days on all our holidays. For every two or three days of activity, we have one empty day. The empty day is for exploring new places we came across, or to go back to spend more time at some place we liked. Or, depending on how cosy the place we are staying at is, just to stay in and have a lazy day.
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The last and most important tip is that it’s okay to miss out on seeing something. Nothing is worth extra stress and pain while on holiday. We focus on what we’ve seen and experienced, rather than on what we haven’t.
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We follow these tips whenever and wherever we travel - and hopefully they will be useful to you as well as you plan your travels :)
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A reminder: To ensure you don't miss any of our newsletters, move this email to your inbox. We always send all our newsletters from happystuff@sigamany.in – add it to your contacts so that you always get it in your inbox.
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Here's a Photo
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...instead of a thousand words
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The commute on the ferry gives people time to catch up on things
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Interesting Stuff
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Fun things we'd turn around and share with you if we were in the same room as you
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We started drinking Jimmy’s Mango Chilli Mojito mix this summer, and have only grown to like it more and more. The sweet taste of ripe mango with a red chilli hit is amazingly delicious 🍹 with or without a shot of alcohol in it!
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Navin: Ken Liu is a writer whose work has held me spellbound. The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is a good introduction to his work 📖. A bit of a genre-bender, his works weave a bewitching if bewildering web of science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, mythology and a whole lot else. Here’s a new short story by him you can read for free.
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What is the 🔊 sound of a plant 🌱 growing in the dark? If you think that is a Zen koan to flummox your mind, it isn’t. Apparently you can actually hear the sound of rhubarb growing in the dark. Don’t believe us? Here’s the Atlas Obscura article about it, and here’s where you can actually listen to it on Soundcloud. Anyone reminded of the Mandrake plants from Harry Potter? At least we won’t need earmuffs with the rhubarbs.
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Fun Poll!
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What's a newsletter without a survey!
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Mountains win hands down in our travel poll – they beat out beaches by a fair bit, while about a third of us like both!
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This time, we have something close to home: ironing clothes 👚 – soothing and meditative or terrible and irritating?
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Nostalgia Kick
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Here’s a 40-year-old New Year wish – the Phantom, Diana, Kit and Eloise welcoming us to 1982. Weirdly enough, this appears in the Jan 31 – Feb 6 issue. Maybe it took that long for the greetings to make it to us from the Deep Woods! The Phantom comics are a celebration of white saviour complex that is quite a cringe-fest. Nevertheless, it does tick all the nostalgia boxes :)
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Navin's Atrocious Translations
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Tamil movie song lyrics translated for comic effect
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This issue’s translation is another earworm that is difficult to shake off, though the translation might make you think otherwise!
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Oh white moon, oh silver moon
Wherever I go
You follow me
Oh white moon, oh silver moon
An army of stars
You bring with you
This is a yellow-sunlit evening
Little by little it darkens
Brightly flashing lights
Turn it into day
Hesitations move to the side
Yearnings follow
What’s next
It searches
After talking all the time
Like it was the last day of existence
Something is still less
An emerald change came within me
And runs like an irritating lightning
Some people walk in colourless paths
It rained green and yellow
They get wet
Who is she?
Who is he?
As two lines intersect
Two railway tracks go together
This moment has to extend further
After such a long time
Dewdrops in my heart
Without time to stop and stare
I kept going
She made me stop
She made me speak
Dewdrops in my heart
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Recycled Happiness!
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A fun post from one of our blogs
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Find out how nonchalance in the face of what others will consider deadly circumstances is an everyday Hyderabadi thing.
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That's it for this issue, folks! Feel free to write to us at happystuff@sigamany.in or just fill out the form here with your thoughts, ideas and good wishes :)
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See you in the next issue!
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Disclaimer: We have no affiliation, commercial or otherwise, with any products and services we mention in the newsletter.
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