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Sometime in June 1999, Cheri brought up the idea of taking some time off and travelling around the world. I had been wanting to travel since I was in college, and soon we were getting excited about the idea and discussing the when, where and how. Sometime in early fall of the same year, we both committed to taking time off and travelling around to some places that we have always wondered about - the exotic lands just beyond the daily commute!
The 'short' list of a few dozen places convinced us to increase the allotted duration from three months to six and then to a full year. The list of countries was whittled down to a mere ten! We agreed that we would spend at least a month in each country to give us a feel for the culture and people. In reality, our travels through many countries did turn out to be quite hectic. It did not really sink in until the very end that we were still rooted in the western mindset of 'doing' and 'achieving', even on holiday!! .
Neither one of us is a journal writer, and this sadly proved itself again when the dedicated writing we had begun in Belarus petered out to absolutely nothing while in India. Luckily our "we're ok" emails home quickly turned into a travel log of sorts that went out to all friends and family.
All journeys are equally about learning about the unfamiliar and foreign as with understanding the (un!)familiar self and looking inwards. On a journey like this, you don't have the 'too busy!' excuse to ignore yourself. In fact it is downright hard, what with all the long waits at bus terminals and railway stations, no televison or radio. You get to know yourself really well, and believe me, it is easier to pick a fight and deal with an "external" travelling companion - which did happen! ;-)
No travel is complete without interaction with the natives and fellow travellers sharing the road. In fact, even shy introverts like us managed to strike up conversations and make friends with fellow travellers and locals. Some of these friendships are over with the exchange of email addresses (modern 'addresses') when parting, while some will stand the test of time, distance and Hotmail maintainance downtimes.
We were extremely fortunate to be able to share our journeys with friends and family along the way. Beginning with Madhu maasi's wonderful hospitality in Belarus, we then stayed in Cairo with Rama aunty and thoroughly enjoyed her home-made shawarmas and the wild parties ;-). Later, in India we relaxed at home in Dehradun, Delhi and Jamshedpur, and enjoyed friends' and families' hospitality in Siliguri, Chennai, Agra and Kochi. Thank you all! While in India, Laurie joined us for a short while, followed by Ty and Kishna who travelled to the south and joined us at the fishing camp.
Coming back to America was culture shock - so many cars, parking lots the size of villages, phone solicitation, air conditioning..! After spending a month in the most laid back country in the world (in our opinion, of course), even Bangkok was quite a shock. We are constantly amazed - more so because we had previously taken such things to be "normal"! Our hope is that we have learned some valuable lessons in simple living, in slow living that we will be able to apply in our daily lives.
We took a lot of pictures; about 2000 slides! The Nikon 5005 that accompanied us from America developed fungus in the circuitry after a water bottle burst in our daypack on a particularly rough ride from Tukuyu to Ipenda in Tanzania. We 'borrowed' Dad's Nikon 801 while in India and this served us well through the rest of the travels in Asia. Now we have a huge task of sorting 60 odd rolls of slides and selecting the ones we would like to set up as our "road show". The fact that they have been processed by half a dozen different labs makes it very more interesting as the processing quality ranges from awful to not bad.
Along the way, we slowly matured from newbie gawking tourists to responsible tourists that are aware of the impact of our presence and economics on the cultures that we visited. We felt really peeved when we saw tourists casually ignoring (or being ignorant of) local social mores. Even more upsetting was the handing out pens or candy to the hordes of kids trailing the camera toters around. Read our views on Responsible Tourism
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