The trip is getting close enough that it is starting to feel real. Planning a trip is always a fun exercise, then comes the pain and anguish of actually making the arrangements, then when it is all set and you can forget about it for a while, it starts to feel unreal – like it isn’t really going to happen. Then you write something like “3 weeks from Monday” and – wham! It feels real again. There are logistical challenges to putting a trip like this together. The big one is that India is a big country. Other than Hyderabad, where should we visit? Certainly the Taj Mahal but where else? If you know someone who was coming to the US for 3 weeks, where would you tell them to go? It’s a tough questions. We got a bunch of guidebooks and read them cover to cover. That didn’t help. Then we realized that India in not only a big country, but a really interesting one with a lot of variation – and it all sounded good. We put together a wish-list, then I set about to make actual travel arrangements. Some of what we wanted to do, we couldn’t afford (the weekend at the beach had to go, sadly). Some of what we wanted to do we didn’t have time for (it takes too long to get to Ellora and Ajanta or Amritsar). Some places don’t have airports close by. Some cities are so crowded that we can’t reasonably get around there in a short time (like Mumbai). So after several iterations (and I would like to note that Collette Miller from Dakota Travel is a saint. She put up with constant changes in plans until we had an itinerary we liked that we could afford.) we had things nailed down. The big stops are: Hyderabad for a week to visit Rockwell-Collins, a week on a train across Rajistan (cultural highlights), and 3 days in Nepal (to see the Himalayas). Even with those stops, we really won’t get to experience southern India – which I am quite certain we want to do (so Ed and I are looking at a Christmas trip on our own at the end of the year). I am looking forward to everything we have planned but the three things I am most excited about are Udaipur, the Taj Mahal, and Mt. Everest. I wonder what the rest of the team is looking forward to most?
Next post – more on logistics. India is half way around the world and it takes serious planning to go there.
TL
SDSMT India 