The Seychelles Diaries - Day 1 Bangalore and Dubai

i am a professional wedding photographer and so travelling is something that comes naturally to me. i never really enjoyed travelling when i was on assignment as i never really got to enjoy the travel, most often i would get confined to the hotel rooms, marriage halls of the events i am covering, so this is truly the very first time i enjoyed the travel. more so as it was my honeymoon! and magnificent Seychelles was our destination. so i decided to blog our journey from Mangalore to Seychelles for 2 reasons.
1. the photos are just not to be missed
2. this could serve as a travel guide to first time travellers to seychelles from India. will be writing about the must visit places in Seychelles, the local cuisine, culture etc. in the upcoming blog posts. 

we have been planning our honeymoon destination for months now and we had narrowed it down to the usual suspects Maldives, Mauritius , Bali, Malaysia etc. Nicole, my wife hates the cold, so travelling to Europe in January was totally out of the question even though we had initially agreed to go to Greece.

i really dont remember now who had come up with the idea of Seychelles but i was fortunate to have a friend Mario who arranges holidays through his firm Fleetfoot Journeys based in Mumbai.

after countless hours of talking over the phone and hundreds of email exchanges we were extremely happy to get our confirmed hotel reservations. made all the payments months before the Rupee had a nasty fall and had booked our flight tickets from MANGALORE TO BANGALORE, BANGALORE TO DUBAI, DUBAI TO MAHE (Seychelles)

there was an alternate route to fly via Colombo. but since it was our first time travel together abroad as a married couple, we thought it would be best to go via Duabi. in any case Dubai has a wonderful airport, which looks like a massive shopping mall.

some pics clicked at Bangalore airport, its not wise to take out the DSLR and start shooting inside the airport. a lot of pics are taken using their smartphones but i dont think its allowed to click photos with big bulky DSLR's inside the airport.

bangalore airport

one ring to rule them all! 

almost forgot to mention the flight from Mangalore to Bangalore! we flew with spicejet and since its just a half hour flight, the Mlore Blore route has these really scary noisy Dakota planes where u can see the propeller . the flight itself was very god, the beautiful ghats we flew over was just beautiful to say the least.

Next Stop Dubai

the flight was Emirates and everything from the cabin crew to the food they gave us on board was just fantastic. the aircraft seemed a bit old though but still pretty much state of the art.

my companion 

meals served inflight

a hearty meal and JD ensured a comfortable flight till we reached Dubai.

Dubai Airport :  have never been to Dubai Coz i never had the need to go there. Dad was always based in Qatar and my Wife's based in Bahrain, so this was the first time i was in Dubai. well technically we never got out of the airport, if we did, then we would need the mandatory Visas. since we were only transiting , the airport was the only thing we managed to see.

i was clicking photos with my 5d mark iii and ultra wide 17-40 f 4 L USM lens.

dates for sale

arabic sweets

lots of dates

mutton biriyani i had at the airport. simply the best! or maybe i was too hungry

tobacco is serious business

at least 100 of them donation boxes

have this

automated lifts, no liftman required

the place was huge! we had 4 hours transit time, and we made the most of it. picked up a pack of cigars, some chocolates, drank lots of coffee, ate a few pastries at Starbucks, and walked for several miles!

the first thing we did before my OCD kicked in, was to find the Gate No of the flight. turned out that we had to take the underground metro which took us to a different terminal! found the right gate and then we ended up window shopping. the good thing is , Indian Rupees can be exchanged for the local currency at any one of the numerous FOREX desks at the airport. we were thinking of converting a few INR to Dhirams at the Bengalooru airport. but decided otherwise.

Next Blog Arrived In Seychelles