India - Love It or Loathe It

Do you ever wake up and realize you're about to do something that will alter your life?  I sense I'm about to have one of those experiences.

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

It's funny when co-workers, friends, and family ask, "Where are you going this time?" and they hear my reply:  India.  Each and every time it is followed by an awkward silence, where I can literally read the invisible bubble over their head - "Why in the world... ?!"  They react like I said Stockton or something!  They don't know what to say next.  It's definitely been a conversation killer.  It's ok, I understand ... I've been in their shoes.

If you could talk to my world-traveling mom right now, she’d tell you about the time she wanted to book a trip to India and I begged her not to.  “Mom, it just isn’t safe.  Please call Ritu.”  Well that backfired – Ritu validated her crazy idea.  You have to understand where I was coming from … mom had recently returned from a trip to Europe – broken and bruised from a bad tumble.  One of Greg’s co-workers had just returned from India sick and another was hit by a car on his first day.  I loved the new show “Amazing Race” but the India segment was a nightmare.  However, Ritu’s animated American husband Sean paints the best picture – “I looked out the window and someone was taking a crap right in the street!”

That was almost a decade ago, and life is changing me.  Over the past couple years I have found myself drawn to diversity and anything opposite of what I am used to.  So from the moment Greg said he might have to travel to India, I was 100% in.  Everything about India intrigues and beckons me.

“Even veteran travelers find their nerves frayed at some point.”  -- Lonely Planet

Three months into planning this trip and just over two months until we leave, I let a travel blog threaten my sense of adventure.  The “earthtrekkers” author cast a dark shadow on my charmed perspective.  She wrote many entries about her family’s five weeks in India.  In her visually stunning blog, she admits the experience was unpleasant.  “India is so much dirtier than we were expecting” … I know she does her homework yet still India’s filth came as a surprise?  I hope I’m not fooling myself. 

Naturally, as for any travel, a trip to India is an extremely individualistic experience. What you may love in your trip someone else may dislike.  My hope is to embrace India’s unpredictability.  I’ll see some filth.  I’ll step in some crap. I might get sick or even hit by a car. I’ll probably get overwhelmed.  The non-stop barrage of touts will surely frustrate me. 

I don’t exclude my opinion from my blog, but I wholeheartedly hope your take-away from it never diminishes your sense of adventure. 

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” -- James Michener

India Itinerary

After Greg is done with his work in Bangalore, we travel together through India’s “Golden Triangle” - New Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra.  It’s the tourist circuit that exposes you to the sights and sounds of India:  busy bazaars, hurtling tuk-tuks, tranquil temples, majestic mosques, extravagant maharajas’ palaces… and of course, the Taj Mahal!

Our itinerary through India