Pre Trip: The Context*** of it All

I'm leaving the country in 4 days. I hope to visit 5 countries over 48 days. The first 20 days will be devoted to South East Asia; my home base will be Singapore. The latter half of the trip will be 28 days in India. It's an ambitious trip for several reasons: (other than the obvious ones of duration and mileage**)

1) I'm rather oblivious. While I've been to India 9 or 10 times since I was a wee babe, I've usually always had everything taken care of in terms of itinerary, flights, etc. My mom and dad always planned our family trips and we never strayed to far away from Bangalore, save for a couple of visits to Bombay which I hardly remember. My most recent visit to India was in the summer of 2003, where I spent 3 months living in the Domlur neighborhood of Bangalore as a Stanford Asia Technology Initiative Fellow working for a biotech company in the area; AKA, we partied a lot, but I didn't leave my comfort zone in South India. I haven't quite spearheaded my own international trip until very recently when I attended my friends wedding in Peru. The other places I've visited are the Bahamas (cruise), Canada (for like 5 hours), and Tokyo, Japan (Lions Club Exchange Program).

2) I'm somewhat lazy. I quit my cushy advertising gig at Google a little over 6 months ago, and I've decided not to work again... for as long as possible. Good luck in this economy right? Actually, things weren't looking so bleak back in May, but I may be in dire straits upon my return to the states. We'll just have to see! So travelling during my self-imposed sabbatical seems to make the most sense. The catch is that I've procrastinated on almost every aspect organizing my Asia trip. I pretty much decided to make this trip a year ago, but only booked my ticket last month (October 1st to be exact). I used miles so maybe it wasn't such a huge deal, but if I had been bargain hunting, earlier ticket purchase would've been better! On a positive note, just yesterday I wired the deposit for the Goa beach hotel we're staying at for New Years. But folks, that's all I've contributed towards my 48 days: a 4 night stay in Goa. 1/12th of my trip planning complete, check! Only 11/12ths to go.

3a) I'm not a fan of flying. Nuff said.

3b) I always get sick in India. And let's just say it always involves copious water-loss. Double nuff said. Crossing my fingers. Trying to make a deal with the patron saint of Protozoa.

4) I've never really traveled alone (and I'm somewhat paralyzed with fear). And I'm not traveling alone for parts of this trip, but there will be times when I'll be totally on my own in a foreign land, perhaps with a tour group, but perhaps not! I anticipate solo travel in Thailand and Cambodia and certain legs of my India journey. Just missing out on that extra brain scares me a bit because you can never have too many extra brains to help you decipher maps, languages, customs, or expat style party stratagem. I know, I should have said "strategery", but it's been played out.

If you've gotten this far, thanks! I hope you enjoy my onslaught of posts. And I hope I can actually keep up with the foreign correspondence from internet cafes in Asia. This past August I learned first hand that Peru had funny Spanish keyboards that screwed me up while IMing. Japan's keyboards are a menace to society. India should have US friendly keyboards since everyone who can use a computer probably speaks a decent amount of English. SE Asia, I have no clue.

I said earlier that I'm not traveling alone for parts of my trip and I wanted to provide details. I'm flying out on the SFO-Changi, Singapore leg with my college buddy and bandmate, Ravi. On Nov 26th we'll separate while I stay in SE Asia and he continues to India. In mid December we'll be crashing a wedding in Pune, doing toursity stuff in Rajasthan, a rolling the dice for a wild card Indian destination (Darjeeling, Darjeeling, Darjeeling! please!) Oh and how can I forget, the impetus for this whole Asia tour: New Years in Goa. Let's just say that it started with a young man's dream and a summer of 2006, travel article in the San Jose Mercury. And by that I mean I read a cool article in the newspaper 2.5 years ago and have wanted to visit Goa ever since. That's with Ravi, for the rest of my trip I'll be meeting up with family in places like Singapore and Bangalore. There's also a chance I'll be catching up with old Stanford friends in SE Asia.

Phew, that was long! Cheers!

** notice "cost" is not included in this "obvious list" that's summarized by the wise words of Jermaine Dupree, "Money ain't a thang."
*** did I really provide enough context here? maybe I'll host a poll asking people if they had any understanding of my motivations for world-travel based on this first post...