Christmas is over and 2023 is starting this week-end which means that we're only a few weeks away from heading off for our first post-Covid adventure!
Pre-Covid our trips through Western Europe and the UK were nothing short of fantastic. We organised and executed every aspect ourselves. One of the things we really enjoy about traveling is doing the organisation of each holiday well before we get anywhere near an airport!
We had planned to do the Trans Siberian railway all the way from Vladivostok to St. Petersberg in 2020 but Covid put that on pause. I'd even started to learn to speak and read a little, very basic Russian. In 2022, Vlad put a full stop on those plans. I think we'll probably never get to see Russia.😞
As Covid restrictions around the world began to lift we started thinking about where else we might like to visit. Somewhere that, like Russia, was quite different to Western Europe. Sitting in The Quiet Man pub in Flemington one night we chose India! Having met and worked with so many great people from the sub-continent over the course of my career and having witnessed the explosion of growth in sub-continental people in our community across the last decade or so, we thought it would be good to see their homeland, first-hand.
Everyone we've spoken to who has been to India describe it as "an assault on all of your senses". Every single one of those same people has said that they would love to go back one day and a few of them have already. We're preparing ourselves for a real eye-opening experience!
We'll be starting our journey on January 25th - Kerry's 60th birthday - with a night out at Squire's Loft in Docklands with Emily and all of Kerry's siblings and a night in a hotel near Southern Cross station. The next day - Australia Day - we'll be off to Melbourne Airport for our early afternoon flight to India via Kuala Lumpur.
Because we expect that India will take us to the edge of our comfort zone, we're traveling with Intrepid Tours. We're doing two tours, one for 15 days around the south in India starting in Kochi and finishing back there, five days left to our own devices where we'll probably chill a bit and make our way to Delhi in the north and then 21 days spent mostly in Rajasthan and some surrounding states. We'll be back in time for the long-weekend in March.
I'll be aiming to post an entry here each day and, as always, will appreciate your comments and thoughts.
