India plan, and packing continued.

Here's a rough version of what I'm thinking for India:

Sep. 1-15: Ladakh. Start out in Leh, perhaps do a homestay for a couple days, and there's a meditation center around there that I think is having a 3-day or so retreat while I'm there.

Sep. 15-22: Head back South via Jammu and Kashmir. Mostly passing through. Kashmir is a rather dreamy name, but I don't know what to do or where to go there.

Sep. 22-29: Punjab. See Amritsar and the Golden Temple for sure, and spend at least a day in Chandigarh.

Sep. 29-Oct. 26: Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Visit McLeod Ganj. HH will be there Oct 1-4 and 24-26! Visit some Hindu pilgrimage sites; I understand the Char Dham are in Uttarakhand. Sounds interesting? Also, Rishikesh. Finally, Oct. 26 is Diwali.

Oct. 26-Nov. 14: Nepal. I have no idea what I'll do there.

Nov. 14-18: Bhutan. I know exactly what I'll do there.

Nov. 18-25: Sikkim? This is also not very well thought out.

Nov. 25-Dec. 9: Delhi and around, meet up with some friends, relax a bit, and head south. Perhaps stop in Bangalore for a couple days; I'm interested to see what India's tech capital looks like.

Dec. 9-31: South India. Coimbatore, meeting another friend (hint: it is Ram), and then hang around Tamil Nadu or something? Kerala? It'll figure itself out.

Okay, now I will list the current list of things I will be bringing, because that's what I've been thinking about the most. Comments are welcome.

- passport, international drivers license (with motorcycle permit!), US drivers license, ISIC

- 4 shirt layers: red techy t-shirt, long underwear shirt, button down shirt, warm sweater

- 2 pants layers: long underwear pants and REI light hiking pants

- gym shorts for sleeping, or perhaps a lungi. I've heard these are very useful.

- 2 underwears

- windbreaker ("marathon jacket"- it's something stupid like 3oz, size of an apple.)

- 2 pairs of socks - Tekol is the brand I've liked the most

- earplugs

- phone (it's a camera, notepad, etc.), headphones, and usb cord

- kindle (same USB as my phone; woo)

- computer: need to buy this still. Looking at a 10" 3lbs netbook.

- toiletries: toothbrush, toothpaste, glasses/case, contacts/solution, floss

- medicine: allergy medicine, malaria pills

- shoes- I have some Vivo Barefoot shoes coming in the mail. Hopefully these will be good for walking a lot.

- sandals? my Chacos? they are not light. Anyone tried these?

- backpack: which? I will figure this out after I see how big everything is.

- gifts from Seattle for hosts/friends: what? ideally something small and light, but still nice. Maybe someone sells nice little Space Needle statues.

- and one bottle of Armani Code Black perfume, for my Bhutanese tour guide. His request. 's all good, I guess.

Born under an Irish star

Planning this trip leads to a few awkward conversational moments, when someone learns about my trip, asks me where/when I'm going, and I tell them the whole spiel, and then they kinda go "wow, that sounds great!" How can I possibly fill the conversational gap when I basically just said "well I had these huge dreams and now I am fulfilling them"? It's like saying I just won the lottery. (but without all the bad parts.)

I'll do the same thing here that I often do in conversations: talk a bit about how lucky I am to be able to do this. It's true that at least a few stars aligned: the time star, the money star, the health star, the no-calamities star, and (let's not forget) the supporting family and friends star.

Time star:
It's convenient that I can take this big jump without worrying about careers and stuff, because applying to grad school takes a long time. I do believe that most anyone can (and should) take a year off if they want to and it won't hurt their career, but it's easy for me to say that because it definitely won't hurt mine. I'll hit the ground running in grad school and nobody will even miss the lost year. Also, it's nice that I'm single, no dependents, not even any pets. It feels weird to say that I'm lucky not to have met someone that I want to spend my life with yet, but imagine if I did and she wasn't into travel! It'd make this particular dream rather trickier.

Money star:
I was interested by these computer things, and I happened to get into a high-powered college, and I happened to be able to stick with it and did well on interview day, and so got into a high-powered job, and that job happened to be at a booming company, and now I have enough money that I can do this trip, no problem! Again, I think you don't have to be as lucky as me; if you can stash away $20k, you can travel Asia for a year. Probably less. But again, easy for me to say.

Health and no calamities stars:
These are pretty self explanatory. There are a lot of torpedoes that could have taken out this trip. I'm lucky to have been missed by all of them.

Supportive family and friends star:
This one is not as obvious, but it's probably equally important. Deciding to travel for a year is a pretty weird move. Imagine if a few of my friends (or worse, my family) had called me selfish for spending my time and money on this trip, or sneakily suggested that maybe I ought to spend my time doing something more productive, or hindered my plans in any other way! It might not make me abort the trip, but it might give me mixed feelings. And believe you me, when I'm on some godforsaken 48-hour bus trip with a case of Delhi belly, the last thought I'll want in my head is "I shouldn't even be here."

Add these all up, and you get at least five stars aligning. If you were my grandma, you might just lump all these stars together and say I was "born under an Irish star." No, that's not a real saying. And no, it doesn't matter.

May 1. T minus four months.

My recent planning has been a bit low-key:

- reading some Pico Iyer and Best American Travel Writing.

- listening to some Indian pop music and Turkish pop music. I feel about the same as American pop music: mostly boring after 3 listens, but there are a couple standouts. (I'm very much looking for recommendations, if you know any good music from any of the countries I'll be visiting!)

- new driver's license

- registered for a motorcycle safety class, so I can get a motorcycle endorsement. Motorcycling around some of the places I go may be dangerous, but it may be a highlight of my life (as it was in Thailand), so I think that's worth it.

- new International Driver's License (just walk into AAA, show them your US driver's license, and pay them like $20); I don't know if this will help anything, but it seems good to have handy, just in case.

- new ISIC (just walk into STA Travel, pay them like $15, and name a university); this seems even less likely to be useful, but I feel like I've used it a couple times in the past when I needed "some kind of identification" and didn't have my driver's license for some reason? It looks kind of official, anyway.

- new pants (let's see if I can get away with only one pair!)

- check this out: Muslim for a Month. I like the spirit of this, anyway: what better time to explore religions than while I'm exploring the world? And while Islam is probably the least likely religion for me to ever actually follow, I feel like there's probably cool parts of it (sufism? dervishes? Rumi?) that I could learn something from. And I know very little about it, so that's exciting. I mean, still, tour group, so meh, but they aren't always awful, right?

Man with a Plan for Bhutan

Here's the plan. Because you have to go with a guide (and, I think, because your guide has to get permits depending on where you want to go), you generally have to plan your itinerary beforehand. And it's just as well; I only have 5 days in the country, so this'll be some travel-hard-and-see-stuff travel. I'll save the relax-and-soak-it-in travel for places where I'm spending $20/day, not $200.

So my guide and I have been planning this trip, and I think we've got something worked out. I'll copy/paste to preserve the sheer font variety. I've added pictures so all these names might mean something to you:

Day 1:   14/11/11.

Arrive in Paro, and after lunch if time permits. Visit the Drugyal Dzong, on the way view peak of Mt. Chomolhari (7314m above sea level) covered with snow throughout the year.Later visit the National museum and Rinpung Dzong. Overnight in hotel olathang paro.

Mt. Chomolhari

Day 2: 15/11/11

   Hike to Paro Taksang Monastery preached on the side of a cliff 900m above the Paro valley floor around 2 hours walk up hill. And drive to thimphu, Overnight in hotel Raven inn.

Taktsaaaaaaaang! This may be the single building that I most want to see in the world.

Day 3:16/11/11

Drive to Punakha , The first stop is at Dochula Pass at  3150m,where you will see the Druk Wangyal Khangzang Chorten”, a unique cluster of 108 Namgyal Khangzang Chorten. Visit Punakha Dzong built in 1637 AD which lies between two rivers namely Pho Chhu and Mo Chhu.Visit Chhimi Lhakhang, the Devine mad man temple. And overnight at zantoperil hotel in punakha.

Yes, Chhimi Lhakhang is the temple with penises on it, but instead I'm posting a photo of Druk Wangyal Khangzang Chorten. I do not yet know what a Chorten is, but here are 108 of them.

Day 4:17/11/11

Situated south of the road and east of Wangdue Phodrang, is Gangtey Gompa, an old monastery dating back to the 17th century. The gompa, on the valley floor, is the village of Phobjika. This is the winter home of the famous black-necked cranes. The cranes migrate from the high plains of the Tibetan plateau in winter to themilder climate of Phobjika. The short journey south from the main east-west artery is well worth the detour and over night at hotel Dragon Nest.

Phobjikha valley

Day 5:18/11/11

Early drive to phuentsholing and lunch will be served on the way. Visit Kharbandi Goenpa, Zangtopelri.

Overnight in Phuentsholing hotel lhaki.

I guess this is "Kharbandi Goenpa".

Day 6:19/11/11. Depart by your tour escort. to india and if you need to arrange any things in india lets us know as we have all contacts in india too.

Yeah, let's do that North-India-from-west-to-east thing.

I guess you can still get to Leh in winter, but come on, what fun is it if the roads are all closed and you have to fly in?

I've taken the first step of contacting a Bhutanese tour company (this one) about visiting in November, and all seems well so far.

One trick: if you leave India, you have to stay out for 2 months before coming back in, unless you do a bit of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo and apply for a permit something something. I can do that, but I'd rather not do it twice (once for Nepal and once for Bhutan) so I'm thinking, fly from Kathmandu (Nepal) to Paro (Bhutan) and only leave/re-enter India once.

That makes the whole Indian-subcontinent part of this trip look something like (using big cities to denote "sorta in this area"): Leh-Srinagar-Jammu-Amritsar-McLeod Ganj/Dharamshala-Chandigarh-Haridwar-Lucknow-uhh Nepal Nepal Nepal-Kathmandu-Paro-Bhutan Bhutan-Sikkim-long trains-Delhi/Gurgaon/Marutikunj-more long trains-South South.

Man, I love those names!

ps. Incidentally, congrats to India in the cricket last night, and good luck India in the cricket world cup finals on Friday night/Saturday morning!

"Moments"; I think (but am not sure) that this idea is more mindful than twee

A few questions I've been thinking about:
- what will I do on the trip?
- how will I keep in touch with everyone?
- how will I get souvenirs for everyone?
- how will I document this trip?
- can I do something on this trip that might have relevance to the rest of my life?

Here's a thought. What if I keep an email rolodex of folks who I'd like to send things to, and every so often, send someone a moment. A moment is a photo with a short or long bit of text, telling them something that happened that day. I'm thinking something like this. Key characteristics:
- it's a tiny slice that you can't get in a postcard. No "omg the taj mahal is so beautiful". More "the trucks here all say "horn do" and have brilliant paint" or "this guy tried to sell me a beard" or the "three cultures meet, we share half a language, and we all need gas" story.
- it's ethereal. After sending it, I delete the photo. I don't post the photo or description anywhere else. This memory is only yours.

I see two main pluses. First, it keeps my eyes and ears and wits about me. If I'm looking for great moments in current life right now, I'll get more out of the trip than if I'm always thinking about my next step.

Second, I can't say why, but the ethereality of it is pleasing. Back in the day, I might mail you a photo. Then you have it and I don't; all I have is the memory. Nowadays, nothing is transient. Everything is on the internet forever and for everyone. This would be a chance to create something new for you in particular. And creating a one-time thing is new for me; I wonder what would happen. Finally, maybe I would have to invest more here-and-now mental energy in it instead of offloading the memory to "later."

I'm a little torn on the ethereality. Part of me says I should just publish this all in a blog instead. You can't go back and record your memories later; they're gone. And I somewhat obsessively record the rest of my life, so why not this trip too? It would let me reflect accurately on myself and my trip's progression, if nothing else.

So say I do just blog everything. Then do I just email friends and family and say "I was thinking of you when I wrote this post"? Seems cheesy. Maybe I just keep in touch with people and also keep a blog, same as it ever was.

So, in summary, the questions are:
- what sort of things should I record? (I've mostly answered this, and the answer is, I know what I want to record. "Moments" is the closest I'd have to a guiding phrase here.)
- ethereal to one person each or all in a big blog? (I'll ponder this.)

Finally, one more unrelated question:
- should I go through North India backwards? That is, start in say Ladakh and head East, as opposed to Bhutan and head West? Signs point to yes, because I may not be able to get to Ladakh in November, and it's maybe the #2 place I want to go. Thanks to Couchsurfing friend Anutham for the tip.

India India Bhutan

Watch "around India in 80 seconds" and read "a beginner's guide to Indian English" and just TRY to tell me you don't want to go to India right now.

In other news, I'm researching how I'll get to Bhutan. You have to go with a tour company! I don't trust tour companies to not make for crummy experiences. But hey, it's the first of many new things I'm trying, I guess. I'm trying to land in Paro (the only airport), spend about 5 days, and exit via Phuntsholing to India.

(size comparison: switzerland)
... and not spend my entire trip's budget. (flights to Paro are pricey, and single travelers pay $240/day.)
I'll let you know how it turns out!