friends – Seasons of Life!

Staycation – nah! Not my kind of thing! Why would I spend so much money on a fancy resort or hotel in my own city! Not something I’ll ever do. Or so, I thought.

It must be a year ago or may be two when I heard this word for the first time – STAYCATION, a portmanteau of the words Stay and Vacation. Travel hadn’t opened up fully until then and I would find colleagues off on staycations with their families or friends. When someone explained to me what a staycation entailed, it didn’t appeal much to me. Sure, it worked great for them, especially with their young kids, but it wasn’t for me.

If you surf the Internet, you will find various definitions of staycation. Wikipedia says, it’s about staying at home and participating in leisure activities within day trip distance of your home that doesn’t require overnight accommodation. Merriam Webster says, it’s a vacation spent at home or nearby. Somewhere I also read, it’s a vacation close to your hometown or in your home country rather than travelling abroad. Merriam Webster has even traced the first usage of the word staycation and interestingly, it dates way back to the year 1944. So, the trend of staycation may not be as new as we think it is.

Take a Stay-cation instead of a Va-cation, this year.
— Cincinnati Enquirer, 18 July 1944

[Source: Merriam Webster]

My interpretation of staycation, based on what I see people around me doing, is staying at a hotel or resort in your home city. This felt like a weird concept to me. It was a complete waste of precious holiday time. Must be stemming from my acute love for the outdoors.

I have been told that staycation need not necessarily have to be limited to staying at a hotel or resort with your family and loved ones. It doesn’t have to be just an indoor activity. It could also include short drives and hikes in the surrounding areas. Well, isn’t it just another vacation then? My brain hurts, it’s confusing. Ah! It’s vacation when it’s another city, staycation when it’s the home city. I suppose I got it right. But, did I?

To add to my confusion, the tourism industry is abuzz with terminologies like workcation, homecation, daycation, and what not. While I was comparing, contrasting, and trying to make sense of these post-Covid travel terminologies, I found myself in the midst of a staycation.

I had to visit Guwahati a couple of times during my extended stay at my home in Shillong. A few of my friends live in Guwahati but more often than not I have to miss meeting them because of competing priorities. There’s one friend though, who never misses to catch up with me each time I pass by Guwahati, even if it is for a few minutes. And, ironically, she happens to be the busiest of them all. This time, both of us had the luxury of a little more time – the afternoon of that day until forenoon, the next day. Incidentally, a common friend also happened to arrive at Guwahati that day. The three of us were meeting after a very long time and we had loads to catch up on. I presumed that we were going to spend most of the time at my friend’s home in Guwahati.

My friend threw up a big surprise by announcing that she had booked a room at a luxury hotel in Guwahati and that’s where we would put up for our time together. And, when three women are together after a very long gap what happens is anybody’s guess – talk nineteen to the dozen – an activity that’s completely in tune with the concept of staycation.

The impromptu staycation planned by my friend turned out to be the best decision. We got to spend such quality time with each other. All three of us were fully absorbed and completely focused on each other. There was no concern for food, no worries about tidying up the place, no diversion with anything or anybody interfering and taking away our time.

My maiden staycation turned out to be a lot of fun and quite an eye-opener too. Now, I can say with some authority that staycation sure has its merits. And, I learnt for the n^th time to be open to ideas and not be opinionated or biased towards things that I haven’t experienced yet.

So absorbed we were with ourselves that we had no time for pictures, but here’s two for memory’s sake.

We woke up to a relatively bright Saturday morning. It had been raining with almost no respite for the past few weeks. Hence, a morning that wasn’t cloudy or rainy was a celebration by itself. This Saturday was special for another reason too – it was J’s birthday. My presence on her special day was a rare occurrence, which surely added a little more to its significance. The plan for the day was simple, we would just spend it together along with A1 and A2. The three of them are my core group of friends at Shillong, the ones who fortunately or unfortunately settled down in Shillong. The rest of us left the city and the state of Meghalaya, mostly forced to do so due to lack of jobs and other opportunities for the non-tribal populace of the state.

All four of us are outdoor people and love to go on long drives around the outskirts of the city. Such long drives frequently happen when I’m in town and they constitute some of my most treasured memories of visiting Shillong. The best part is that the three of them would sing all through the drive. Their lovely melodious voices would fill the air creating a dreamlike environment that’s difficult to describe. We hardly had the need to play music from the car’s music system. I haven’t written a single post on those drives yet. The reason being I feel words can do no justice to the feelings and emotions of those drives.

This time we haven’t had the chance to go on a drive yet. Besides, the weather playing spoilsport, A2 has broken her wrist. All our drives usually happen in A2’s car with her being behind the wheels.

*Pic 2: From the restaurant when it was pouring outside.*

The plan for this Saturday was to visit a place called Mawkasiang, which isn’t very far from the city. I was delighted as this was towards North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRMS) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM-Shillong), an area that I hadn’t been to yet. It’s apparently known as New Shillong. I knew the drive would be good but had little idea about the exact destination my friends had in mind. I didn’t bother to find out and let them take the lead.

*Pic 3: Several such gazebos lay scattered across the resort*

We met up at a pre-determined location in the city a little before noon, hired a local taxi, and headed out. A few minutes into the drive, we found ourselves passing through a series of uphill and downhill on a road that surprisingly had more greenery than concrete. We passed by NEIGRMS, crossed a signboard indicating that IIM was nearby, and also a dome-shaped construction that reminded me of Capitol Hill. That’s the new Meghalaya Assembly building under construction, said someone.

Soon, after a drive of just 30 mins from the city, we arrived at Mawkasiang. We took a turn beside Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) and in less than 5 minutes arrived at a huge gate, manned by a security guard. As, we entered after completing the formalities, I noticed we were at Orchid Resort. “Aare, it’s Orchid!”, I exclaimed. Orchid is too familiar a name for me. It’s a chain of restaurants and resorts belonging to Meghalaya Tourism Department. The most popular one being Orchid Lake Resort, located beside Umiam Lake, on way from Guwahati to Shillong. I have frequented that place countless number of times. Haven’t been there for a few years now, but I’m sure it still exists.

*Pic 4: The canopy walk through the metallic bridge surrounded by jungles of Pinus khasiana, the indigenous Pines of Khasi Hills.*

*Pic 5: Another picture of the canopy walk.*

About 20 Km. from Shillong city, Orchid Resort at Mawkasiang is easily accessible. Situated on 27 acres of land surrounded by luxuriant Pine Forests, it is relatively new. There is a restaurant and several wooden cottages or log cabins for those who plan to stay. Quad bikes and bicycles were parked outside the restaurant, surely guests can rent them. There’s a long canopy walk through a metallic bridge flanked by lush green jungles of Pines. This, for me, was the highlight of the resort. The young Pine needles almost brushed against us while we walked across. Tiny young green Pine cones peeped through the branches as did the mature large brown ones, each one vying for undivided attention. It was indeed a refreshing feeling.

*Pic 6: One of the log cabins at the resort*

*Pic 7: Some more log cabins where one can plan a stay.*

We spent about half a day at the resort, walking around, enjoying the brief spell of heavy showers, having lunch at the restaurant, and of course, chattering endlessly all through. The starters and desert were great, the main course was average. The resort provided the perfect ambience for us to relish every moment of being together, as we celebrated J’s birthday.

Before ending this post, I must mention that this is the first time I am writing about visiting a resort. The nature-lover in me can never align to the idea of having an enjoyable time at an artificial and manicured environment. Yet, that’s just what I did today. While this place did manage to impress me, I also realized that I was perhaps upholding a negative cognitive bias about resort outings. Hopefully that’s broken today.