India - Details

After Thailand, it's on to India! When Nadim was young he lived in India for about 10 years. His time there was spent between Goa and Mysore (Southwestern India). As Baha'is we are interested in visiting Delhi and the Baha'i house of worship that is shaped like a lotus flower. This is particularly interesting to Nadim because he is an engineer and finds the structure very interesting as well.

When we first talked about visiting India we thought about staying in Delhi and volunteering at the house of worship there, but as we started to do our research we decided that we might be more comfortable in Mysore. It's a smaller city that Nadim will be familiar with, even though it has been 20 years, and he's lost touch with the people he once knew there. I'm sure he will remember many people once we get there.

So once again, we pulled out our Lonely Planet guide. We were drawn to the western half of India because it seemed to have more to offer in the way of things to see and less risk of malaria and other nasty diseases. Even with ruling out half the country it is still so big with so much to see that we had difficulty settling on a game plan. But after much reading we decided that we would first make Mysore our home base. We plan to arrive there in late January 2009. We will stay there and make some side trips to Hampi which boasts an interesting market, some ruins and boulders that seem to defy gravity. In Mysore itself there is the Maharaja's Palace, and temples. We also thought about a side trip to Ooty which is known as a retreat for the locals to get away from the ciy heat. Chamundi Hills is also near Mysore and should be interesting. We thought we would take a longer side trip, perhaps a week or 10 days, through Kerala. Apparently the houseboat tours are really cool. There is an elephant sanctuary, and tea and spice plantations that would also be interesting to see, not to mention the quiet beaches.

After Mysore we plan to go to Goa for about a week. Goa is known for its beaches, markets, and churches. After Goa we are debating a trip to Ajanta where there are some caves with cave drawings in them. It is a bit difficult to get to that area, so we may end up skipping it if we feel that we are tired of traveling.

After Goa we plan to hit the "Golden Triangle", Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. Delhi is known for the old markets, forts and for us the house of worship. Agra is of course known for the Taj Mahal, and Jaipur is known for its colourful bazaar and shopping. There is a ghost town, Fatehpur, along the way that I think would be neat to see as well.

We debated about going to the northwest part of India (Gujarat), but thought we might be in for too much travel. We'll see how the kids are doing and how the home school classes are going and decide if we might want to add it back in. Of course the longer distances in India are part of the problem. Plane tickets are not as cheap as they are in Thailand, but our travel book is a couple years out of date and there was hope that domestic air travel would be coming down in price. We'll check it out with our travel agent before we finalize our plans.

CM