In February this year, one of our dearest friends, Nikita Sanyal, celebrated her 40th birthday in Bangkok and we were invited to spend a night at the Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park. We had arrived in Bangkok a day earlier as we didn’t want to miss out on staying at our favourite city hotel in the world, The Siam Kempinski. On the day we were to shift, I remember telling the staff at the executive lounge at the Siam Kempinski, that we were sad to be leaving to stay at another hotel in Bangkok, but we did tell them that we would be back in a day. When our taxi arrived, the Bell Captain at The Siam Kempinski, while loading our bags asked, “ we hear you are moving to another city hotel Mr. Mitha. Why?” We explained it was only for a night, for a friend’s birthday celebrations and promised we would be back.
Well located at Business Bay, just minutes away from the iconic Burj Khalifa and a short drive from Dubai Mall, stands the majestic Oberoi Dubai Hotel.
Laveena had a short break for Holi ( the Indian festival of colour which ushers in springtime). An early morning flight to Colombo, on Sri Lankan Airlines, was followed by a long wait at the Bandaranaike International airport. From Colombo, we boarded a flight to Male, the densely populated capital of the Maldives, a stunningly beautiful island nation in the Indian Ocean. The hour long flight to Male was a pleasant one. Indian citizens receive their entry visas for the Maldives on arrival at immigration. We collected our luggage and were greeted at the airport by a Soneva Jani representative, who first checked us in for our sea plane ride to our resort island and then drove us to the Soneva Jani lounge where we waited for over an hour for our 40 minute long sea plane ride from the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport in Malé to Soneva Jani.