Okay, so it was supposed to be simple. Navdeep and I hit the road with just the clothes on our backs. (And the ones stuffed into our super-sized backpacks, of course.) He kept drilling it in—pack light, pack light, pack…
Our Gear: India 2006
We’re in the final stretch for our India adventure and while we’re super excited, there’s also a lot to think about. We’ve got most of it sorted out, and the rest . . welll, we’ll wing it. Cameras, video camera, tripods, backpacks, things to put in those backpacks, camera and video bags, memory cards, laptops, software, web-design stuff. And of course, books! There’s loads to think about. Check it all out here.
Travelogue India: It’s Almost that Time!
Sona’s list of places she’d like to see in three months, in addition to seeing her family and my family, is getting more erratic and more in lala land. And her reasons for wanting to go to places is getting more amusing. Last night, she decided she wanted to go to Dareeling because it had tea plantations and a toy train, but wanted to skip Calcutta. The spot directly before reaching this hill station is Amritsar, all the way in the North, a good 80 hour train journey. And then there’s the slight transportation issue of getting to Darjeeling directly from Amristar! Then from Darjeeling, we’re shooting off like a bullet to a houseboat in Kashmir. My hair is standing on end just thinking about it.
I’m looking forward to the trip, but there are loads of things to think about. The first and foremost is certainly where we go, and the second is how we end up traveling. I’m a true believer in the spirit of independent travel, where the mere act of being in a place does not constitute having been there. To truly experience a place involves chilling out and taking walks that can’t be included in any itinerary. But I also realize that we do have to make some form of an itinerary, or we’ll really frighten all of our family. “We’re off then. We don’t know where exactly, but we’re going to catch a train somewhere.” That would instill a lot of confidence in my qualifications as a husband!
But putting that aside, there’s also the hectic-ness of wrapping up classes and making sure there aren’t any loose ends while we’re on the road. Little things give me the biggest headaches. Each thing would take probably five minutes or so to get sorted but when there’s a billion of them to do, eating potato chips and watching Dr. Phil sound like an easier alternative. I do need to sort out things like paying my credit cards, sorting out school loans and recurring bills, deciding on some kind of a route to take, and stopping Sona from packing everything in sight.
Three months does sound like a long time but when tackling something as gigantic as India, you don’t even scratch the surface with three months. Especially with Sona’s erratic list of places she’d like to see: Kashmir all the way in the North, Kerala and Kunyakumari on the Southern tip of India, Punjab and Delhi are givens but within the three months, there are tonnes of family to meet. And we can’t just pop in for tea and be on our way. We have to go visit everyone. Even though Sona has quite a massive family, they’re all in Delhi. I have no idea how big Delhi is, but it doesn’t seem like it would take more than an hour or two to shuttle between the different areas. Punjab, on the other hand, is going to take a bit of time. My family is scattered all over Punjab. We also have a farm in U.P. and a chacha (my dad’s brother) who lives in Dehra Dun, Uttaranchal. So no, we can’t pop in for lunch and be on our way!
Travelogue India: The Countdown Begins, So Much to Do and Only Three Weeks to Go!
When we booked our tickets, way back in June, this trip seemed ages away. And now, there’s less than a month left. It seems surreal to think that in three short weeks my life as I know it will end—at least for a short while. Right now, to me, the daily grind is pitching stories and interviewing the random celebrity, pretending to work on my writing, endless loads of laundry, the occasional episode of House Hunters on HGTV and making often-elaborate meals for my husband, who’s been working his ass off teaching endless English classes to make up for our time off.
In the meantime, we’ve also been doing the things that make this trip seem a bit more real. Tickets. Check. Camera. Check. Backpacks. They’ll be here any second now. And we finally ordered the sleeping bag, too. But really, it’s the slow build of this website, Navdeep painstakingly learning Dreamweaver and Flash, me dictating design and writing content, that’s making it seem real. Slowly but surely, we’re getting closer. And as we add pages, we mark off another day—or four—on the calendar. And now it’s almost time to flip the page.
For three months, it’ll be just be me and Navdeep, on the road, a different city every week, lots of new tastes, people, places to explore and absorb. It’s exhilarating, but at the moment, it still seems unreal. And though I’m really excited, it’s also kind of scary.
I keep second-guessing other goals. What if this is the right time to get that script out, as studios stockpile under the threat of a long, grueling writers’ strike? What if I should have taken that job opportunity in New York a little more seriously? What about the fact that I’m going to miss several birthdays, or a big reason to celebrate that we’ve all been waiting for? I’m stepping out of my life, but it will go charging full speed ahead without me. Britney will lose custody. Lindsay will end up in prison. (Hey, these things are breaking news when you’re in the celeb content trade.) But it’s also that Meena will move to L.A., my cousin Arun will start college (oh my God!) and my brother will get a new (fulltime, with benefits!) job. Those are the things I’ll really be missing.
Photo Friday: Going Bonkers at the Gilroy Garlic Festival!
As soon as we heard about this festival, we knew we had to go. I like garlic. Sona likes garlic. And that’s pretty much all there is t it. Since we were already married, having stinky garlic breath was also not a hindrance. We had major plans to stink it up. And boy did we ever. I skipped the pseudo garlic stuff, like onion rings that have been mildly rubbed with garlic, and went straight for things like garlic fries, garlic ice-cream, pungent garlic flavored prawns. Sona wouldn’t go near them because they reminded her of insects (as do many things), but they were delicious!
Our First Active Volcano: Popocatépetl, AKA El Popo, in Puebla, Mexico
Our last few days in Puebla, we read about Popocatépetl, one of Mexico’s most active volcanoes, and decided it would be romantic to go for a little stroll there. Instead of spending 600 pesos on a shared van, or triple that for a private cab, we take a local bus up there for a couple pesos. With the money we’re saving, we have big plans to buy a piece of bread and share it like street children in a Disney film.
