travel plan

As previously mentioned, I am fairly unprepared. I'm arriving in Delhi, then heading to Agra, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur, Rhantambore national park and the Puskhar Camel fair. The order depends on train ticket availability, apparently you have to book weeks ahead if you want to be guaranteed a seat, but I prefer travelling harakiri style, taking it day by day, or rather: hour by hour. I'm particularly excited about the camel fair, I mean CAMELS!!! And about 50 000 of them! *swoons*

I am meeting up with my friend B and her husband, and since they are foreigners currently living in India, I am more or less expecting to be taken care as if I were a lost little child.
B is coming with me on the trip to Rajasthan and Punjab, then I'm accompanying her husband to an Indian wedding up in the Himalayas, before spending a few weeks visiting Amritsar, Shimla and Dharamsala on my own.

As a women travelling alone I have tried to pack rather unflattering clothes, and I've also invested in a "wedding ring". So you can now call me "Mrs Fox". Or "Mrs Lynx". Or both. It all depends on whether you decide I got married in Utah or not. The only thing left to guarantee my privacy is a large size safari hat, a sawed-off shot gun and a tame tiger trolling behind me. Plus a few stern looking Sikhs carrying my luggage, just to send off the lovely wibe of British megalomania. It might at least ensure me a seat on that train.

hypochondriac, me?

I am trying to have an open mind about my looming experiences. I have therefore prepared myself by not being prepared at all. That way I cannot be caught by surprise. Or at least so is the theory. However, reality is usually a completely different ballgame, one that likes to bitch slap you in the face. Hard.

I have therefore packed the following: electolyte tablets, loperamide, hydroxizine, metacloprimide, metronidazole, sumatriptan, ciprofloxacin, zopiklon, esomeprazole, paracetamol, tramadol, chlorhexidine wash, sterile gauze and bandage material, swiss army knife, head torch, water purification bottle and random stuff like toothpaste and shower gel. Not that they won't have this available in India. I just like to have it all readily available when my head is buried down the toilet bowl. I was very close to bringing surgical gloves, IV-catheters and a few litres of fluid, but this might have sent the wrong message at customs control. I've already lost one of my nine lives by accidentally bringing a banana into Chile. (Just don't do it.)

All in all my backpack weighs 13 kgs. My medications probably account for 40% of this.

I think now is the time to have a private conversation with Dr's Freud and Jung.

Pre-travel nerves

So tomorrow I'm travelling to India for the first time. INDIA. It might not seem like a big deal to some of you, but to me it more or less equals to skydiving without a parachute. Now don't get me wrong here, I'm a fairly seasoned traveller, but just the sheer thought of India scares the living daylight out of me. It contains more than it's fair share of everything that I am afraid of: poverty, filth and lots of creepy crawlies. LOTS of them. Cockroaches. Fly larvae. More fly larvae. Public pooping in streets. Lack of toilets. Lack of toilet paper. Lack of water in toilets lacking toilet paper. Gastrointestinal issues combined with the above and so on...

So why even bother going, I hear you ask? Well, for the very same reason: because it scares the living daylight out of me. And sometimes, there is no better way to tackle life than this. Or I might just have a masochistic streak yet to be discovered.