After traveling to so many places in Europe in last three years now we
were thinking to travel to some other part of globe which can be easily
reached from Paris within few hours maybe somewhere in North African.
The very thought came was how about going to Morocco or Egypt but none
of them was perfect weather wise to visit. Then also after too much of
thinking we settled for Morocco and started to gather touristic
information. It may be a backyard for most French but being Indian it
means we need to get visa. So, process started by calling embassy to
know more about it… getting a phone call answered requires lot of
luck. Either line is busy or it gets dropped on half way when they try
to pass the call.
Anyway, we went to there embassy in-person for submitting all documents
which went on very smoothly; women in-charge said it will take 15 days
to get our visa. On asking whether we should buy ticket for Morocco?
hmm… its OK to get it and sends us to her higher authority to get it
confirmed. Now this Monsieur says gently… after 10 days you should get
it without any problem so its OK to buy ticket. Being excited we started
to plan our trip and get more information. But Santanu being skeptical
never showed any interest in buying the ticket and always postponed the
same. But at same time he was so excited that just day before his CISM
test he made a phone call to find out VISA status. Well it was negative,
he went to consulate in-person on Monday 12th June and found the same
negative answer and was told to come by on Thursday 15th June to take
visa for a journey that was supposed to start on Saturday 17th. Well,
Thursday didn’t bring any luck either which made [Santanu
furious](http://blog.santm.com/2006/06/15/i-am-sorry-when-i-am-wrong-but-i-am-furious-when-i-am-right/ “santanu furious”).
Its well said “man proposes and god disposes”. The whole euphoria
vanished like a whiff of smoke as neither on 10th nor on 15th day of
submission we got VISA. Since this holidays were forced one which means
if Santanu doesn’t uses it he doesn’t gain anything.
There was one backup plan for Morocco, but it was never in place as we
never thought seriously, the plan was to touch cities-towns of France
that we have not visited yet like Nice, Bordeaux, Bayonne and Chamonix
along with some part of Swiss. Well it might sound bit crazy idea but
truly we are crazy when it comes to traveling. Now the search for last
minute ticket started. Since there were no discounted ticket on SNCF web
site and the only ticket that we could grab was round-trip from Paris to
Lausanne on Friday 16th. At once started to make phone calls to our
friends who have already been there.For this trip, Santanu wanted to
travel with his big red North Face backpack and he was not interested to
make any plans on itenary or any pre-bookings for hotels. As if he
wanted to sing the famous Bengali song “Path harabo boleyi toh aaj
pothey nameychi…” by Hemanta Mukerjee.(I got down on the road only to
get lost .. )Bonne voyage!!!