Going back to my roots

It wasn't part of my plan to go to India this year. After sojourns in Phuket and Jakarta, my plan was to end the year with a trip to, well, somewhere else. But then one day Terv asks me if I was interested in joining him and my two cousins (well, nephews technically, but let's not get into that right now) Dave and Govin for a trip to India, so I thought, what the hell, let's do it. Of course, Terv then predictably backs out of the trip, citing work reasons etc... but to this day I have the feeling that Terv had been already thinking of me then as a replacement for him, the sneaky bugger.

So anyways the rough plan was for me and Govin to fly over to India and meet up with the Wise Nomad, who was already there doing some charity work at a school for needy children, and spend two weeks going around India. That was the easy part. The tough part was to figure out an itinerary. So we decided to thrown in some options, and thrash something workable out. We started with an ambitious plan to do a Delhi-Amritsar-Manali-Leh-Srinagar-Rajasthan loop along with Goa/Kerala, and over some emails, chats and 'conference calls' whittled it down to Amritsar, Manali, Delhi and Goa with maybe Simla thrown in. Then came the realisation that it's monsoon season in Goa, with almost daily thunderstorms. That pretty much kicked Goa out of the picture, and with all our flights, train tickets and hotels for the first few days booked already, that pretty much left a big gap in our itinerary for the 2nd week. We decided to just wing it and figure something out once we all meet up in Delhi. After all, with such a big country to explore, we weren't exactly short of alternative destinations.

This being sort of an unexpected trip for me, I didn't really have much in mind in terms of must-see or must-do things to put into the itinerary. But since my first trip to India was with a pilgrimage tour, and my 2nd trip was a very short one, what I was looking forward to was simply exploring India as a backpacker, and to enjoy the company and whatever experiences that may ensue. And boy, we definitely had some experiences.