It’s been almost an year since I wrote this post. So much Life has happened since then. So much!
At the time of writing the above post, I was 3+ months pregnant. While the post was about missing travelling during Covid, I knew we won’t be able to travel even if we wanted to. Besides border restrictions, I was not vaccinated and it would’ve been foolish to take that kind of a risk.
I was due in June ’21 and towards the last trimester and during post-partum, there was a lot going on at all levels that I didn’t really have the mindspace and strength to consider any travel for any purpose. It took a while to recover physically and to get back to a mental state where I could think about ‘other’ things.
Around the beginning of October, I was feeling stronger and was already fully vaccinated. Singapore had opened its borders to some degree and home-quarantine / quarantine-free travel was possible again. Meanwhile, the sameness and stress of the last few months had started to bite. It was necessary for us to reconnect with our family and the rest of the world physically, to stay sane. During my pregnancy, I’d anticipated that we might be able to travel after 6 months post delivery. However, given that we had been stuck in Singapore for 18 months and the pandemic was controlled, we took the chance to make use of this opportunity, even though Pixie was only 4 months old. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the challenge and was anxious about how Pixie would cope but we decided to go-ahead anyway.
After many stressful days of planning, we jetted off to Dubai in late October. It was not only our first travel during Covid, it was also our first one with a baby and it came with a twist (see our travel day vlog here).
Some of our family also flew into Dubai from India and we had a re-union of sorts. We stayed in a spacious Airbnb with a beautiful view at the Marina. We spent our days enjoying mom cooked food, went for long walks, visited nice restaurants / cafes, soaked in the old Dubai vibes in Bur Dubai and celebrated Diwali with some extended family. After spending two amazing weeks here, we flew to Spain while our family flew back to India.
We had to fly to a destination from where we could get a re-entry approval for Singapore and it wasn’t possible from either Dubai or India at the time. While it was a different experience with Pixie in tow, slow travelling in Spain was refreshing and gave us a much needed break (here’s our Spain travel itinerary, in case you’re curious). Our days were spent enjoying tapas, taking walks in green spaces and sight seeing in the smaller towns – Malaga and Seville.
We got back to Singapore safe and sound at the beginning of December. Little did we know that we would jet off one more time in less than a month. At long last, travel to India from Singapore was open again. We didn’t waste anytime in booking our flights and applying for re-entry. We flew into New Delhi and then took the Yamuna Expressway to get to my hometown – Agra.
It was heartwarming to spend the last two weeks of 2021 with family. It was extra special as it was Pixie’s first visit to India where she also met her little cousin, Kuchu for the first time. As Omicron variant was already doing the rounds, we mostly stayed indoors. We relished in everything North Indian winters had to offer. We snuggled in warm blankets, relished all the seasonal food, reminisced childhood days, took turns to feed, burp, change and engage two tiny humans, made plans for the not so distant future and spent NYE playing UNO in the cozy living room of the house I grew up in.
This visit after a two year gap was full of love but also quite intense emotionally given the difficult time everyone had to go through. As we parted, we couldn’t hold back the flood of emotions. We hugged tight, we let the tears flow and silently hoped that the next time we see each other won’t be after so long.
– Sakshi
