Chicago to Bahamas … Oru Payanam (A Jaunt)! – I

Saturday 20th December morning 8 am; Get, Set and Go!!!!!

Hurray we are going to start our much awaited “honeymoon” trip. Bags packed, had a refreshing bath and breakfast, we are ready to start… but where? We were all set to start our vacation in the Paradise Island of the Bahamas!! We didn’t want take cruise package, hence we decided to fly to Bahamas.

We had to take 3 flights to reach our destination.

Chicago to Memphis (Tennessee)
Memphis to Orlando (Florida)
Orlando to Nassau (Capital of the Bahamas)

The flights were on time and the sky was clear…Heard we just missed a snow storm that hit Chicago… thank god! We reached Orlando as planned. The flight to Nassau got delayed. We had to wait for two hrs to board our last flight. But that didn’t spoil our vacation mood by even an inch!

After all the usual checks, we boarded our flight at sharp 10pm. I was amused to see the plane! It was a propeller plane. We both were delirious to take the propeller ride. Well, we had to bear with the noise from the propeller. The flight was very small… 20-30 seats. Nice one though.

I was gazing thru the window… It was amazing to see the dark ocean with the ships here and there… the lights from the ships sparkled… appeared as though am seeing few stars below from the sky above 🙂

As we were flying across the Atlantic, we waved “hi” to few islands that passed by. Bahamas has 700 islands of which only few are inhabited. We first encountered the Grand Bahamas, then few other islands… finally reached Nassau.

The airport at Nassau made me nostalgic. It resembled the Sri Rangam Railway station 🙂 Small one yet beautiful in its own way.

All custom checks done. We left the airport and headed towards our hotel (what do i say? Hotel/resort??) Well the resort.

Paradise Island is about 30 minutes drive from the Nassau international airport. This Island is famous for the sea resort Atlantis. “Royal Towers” is one of the few towers at the Atlantis. The two Royal Towers are joined by a bridge. The Bridge Suite, located in the span, is among the most expensive accommodations in the world at $25,000 a night. Wanna spend a night there? 😉

Paradise Island is located on the northern edge of the New Providence Island. The downtown in the New Providence Island is called Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas. Two bridges connect these islands. Any private vehicle should pay a toll to the Paradise Island. Ferry boats are also available to commute between these islands. Well it’s much cheaper means of commutation as opposed to taxi travel.

I have to mention about the taxi at the Bahamas. Most of the taxis are like a mini Van. Same as the mini vans that ply in the peak hours in Chennai. We chennaites love this mode of travel 😉

I bet Ganesha that we are going to have driving on the left side here just like the UK… this is a common wealth nation… so the driver would be seated on the right front corner of the vehicle. What did I see??? Well I was correct to an extent that driving here is on the left side of the road as opposed to USA but I was amazed by the fact that these people handle both English and American cars (i.e. vehicles with the steering wheel on either the left or right) very well.

We were dog-tired and completely washed out as we reached our room at 1 am. We dozed off dreaming about the vacation that we are gonna spend the next few days!

Stay tuned and join us in this virtual jaunt!

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