Backpacking

Written: January 21, 2009

After a somewhat painful 19 hour train ride from Mumbai to Jodhpur, I arrived feeling sore and lacking energy. The reason for my state of being can be attributed to various factors. First of all, I suspected not eating for nearly a day may be an issue and I'd been doing that regularly in Mumbai and nearly that in Dubai. Secondly, I didn't sleep in a very good position since I put my main pack on the upper bunk and my pillow on top of that. Because of the height of the "pillow" and the shortness of the "bed" my neck was sore the whole night. Additionally, there was a draft coming in that made it really cold and the AC was pumping for a while as well. However, at 4-5 am, the heater turned on and blew directly in my face and I felt like I was suffocating. All of this contributed to me getting a sore throat, I'm hoping this goes away quickly since I wouldn't want to be sick for too long while traveling.

After bargaining down an auto rickshaw from 50 to 35 INRs to take me to the "gate" of Mehrangarh Fort, I still had a steep 200m climb up with my full pack. This was essentially a introductory training run for my EBC trek. I can already see that my pack (9kg) is way more than what I want to carry and I may have to invest in a smaller mountaineering pack. I used my expired ISIC card to gain student entry and saved 50 Rs. I took the audio guide that came with the entrance fees and proceeded to the numbered markers. I have to say, the guide was very interesting and informative. It even had commentary and contributions from the current royal family relating to tidbits of information and some of their memories. What's interesting about the fort is that it's never been taken by the enemy and many of them have been at the gates. At the main gate, there's an area with hand prints of Queen's passing though the gate for the last time before joining their husbands in death. I saw a man touch one of the hand prints and then touching it to his heart in remembrance. From the ramparts and many points of the fort, you can view the city spread out before you with the majority of the buildings painted in a light blue colour. This is the reason why Jodhpur is also called the Blue City. Apparently, the reason why the buildings are painted blue is because it's a calming colour and keeps the buildings cool during the summer heat. Seeing the indigo blue buildings in contrast with the vivid colours of life in India makes it especially dramatic.

Upon completing the tour of the Mehrangarh Fort, I walked to Jawswant Thada, the Jodhpur Raj's cenotaph. The place is also called the Taj Mahal of Rajasthan due to the exquisite white marble structure. On my trek back down through town, I stopped to eat (Gobhi Pakoda, fried cauliflower, and Mahkaniya Lassi a type of yoghurt) and then talked to a Spaniard named Mikel.

Well, more waiting at the station until my 10 pm train. Another overnight train and this time to the desert city of Jaisalmer! Hopefully this will be a better ride although I'll be in AC3 this time instead of AC2.

Cheers!

Written: January 20, 2009

Ah Mumbai, the city previously known as Bombay, what can I saw about this crazy place? What a shock arriving from the luxurious well planned Dubai to this crazy chaos. I arrived in the late afternoon and immediately noticed the humidity and bad air quality. Kids begging at my taxi window reminded me I was no longer in Dubai. Since Alan's hotel tip was actually a hotel in Delhi, I was stuck taking a suggestion from the taxi driver on a place to stay for 600 Rs a night, cockroaches included. At least it was conveniently located in Colaba.

I checked out the Gateway of India, the renovated Taj Mahal hotel and Victoria terminus. The last two were viciously attacked by terrorists in December. My visit to Mumbai coincided with the Mumbai Marathon and I was happy to see signs rallying citizens to "Vanquish the Terror!" It reminded me of London's post-Tube bombing's "I am not afraid" movement. I have been to many places that have been sites of terrorist attacks. From talking to citizens and people who have been impacted, I've learned that we cannot live in fear and terror for that is the goal of the radicals. We must also not let anger and revenge make us act less honourable or less ethical. We have to look deeper to the underlying problems that are causing the radicals to act this way rather than simply resort to force.

While talking to an Indian family my train ride to Jodhpur, I asked how Indians felt about the new U.S. President Barrack Obama and what are their biggest issue? Whether that be foreign policy, the economy or terrorism? It seemed the overwhelming issue on their minds were indeed dealing with extremists coming in from Pakistan. A young man from the family and I both wondered, why was there such tension between Pakistan and India. It couldn't just be because of religious differences since Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Jains live side by side relatively peacefully in India. He even said his best friend was Muslim. I have heard stories from others of some ill feelings toward people of other religions but not enough to resort to violence. What is the true source of the conflict?

Well I'm taking my first Indian train ride tonight in the overnight AC2 sleeper, should be arriving in the Blue City of Jodhpur in the morning!

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Directions to Bandra Terminus (Western Rail) from downtown Mumbai:

Many trains depart from the Bandra Terminus in Mumbai for cities in the north. However, there are not many directions on the best way to get to this station. After asking a few locals, I believe the following way is the cheapest and most convenient.

• Assuming you're starting from downtown in the Colaba area, make your way to the Churchgate local rail station.
• From there, buy a ticket towards "Vile Parle" (First Class if it's during rush hour, otherwise normal is just fine and only 7 Rs).
  
• The trains going towards Vile Parle are on Platform 1 or 2.
  
• The closest station to Bandra Terminus is not actually the Bandra but Khar Rd so get off there. It's one stop past Bandra local rail station.
  
• From Khar Rd, make your way East (the right side since you've been heading north) and cross the tracks using the pedestrian overpass.
  
• When you descend overpass, you'll feel like you're in a village in rural India. Don't worry, you're on Jay Prakesh Rd. Go towards the right and at the first intersection make a right (Pipeline rd).
  
• Within a minute you should be able to see Bandra Terminus.
  

If you're ever lost in the area after getting off Khar Rd and wish to take a rickshaw, do not pay more than 12-15 Rs since the station is extremely close.

Use this link to see an aerial map. Bandra terminus is the triangle building south east of Khar Rd Railway Station.

This map shows the local train station map referenced in my directions.

Written: Jan 17, 2009

In my 4 days and 4 nights here, I’ve skied inside the Mall of Emirates, walked around Deira (old trading areas of Dubai), checked out the Burj from a distance (architectural symbol of Dubai). I’ve also met and partied with some friends of Rukmin. I even joined in on some post-partying karaoke with 2 British guys called Martin and Rich (seriously guys, “Two Become One”?)

I had a great time; I was able to catch-up with Rukmin and meet some interesting new people. Thanks to everyone for their hospitality and now I’m off to Mumbai!

Note: The normal Dubai price for a bottle of beer at a bar was 32 Dhs ($10.25) so I'm never complaining about Toronto prices ever again.

Two days ago, I was in the process of catching up with friends at a party when the following conversations repeated itself:

Friend: How are you doing? What's new?
Me: I'm flying off to Dubai tomorrow and will be traveling Dubai, India and Nepal for 1.5 months.
Friend: What ?!?

Even my closest friends were surprised at how sudden my departure was.
So how did this whole idea start? When did I start planning and how did I manage to get 1.5 months off?

I would attribute it to the following 3 factors: an email, a woman and a picture.

In early December, while I was finishing up my previous project I received an email about FlexLeave, a type of leave of absence lasting between 1 week to 3 months (till the end of Feb). The program had many benefits including retaining access privileges, time with the company still count. At first I thought it'd be a good way to take time-off without using my vacation time which I'm saving up. If a new project didn't work out and I run out of chargeable work I could take FlexLeave to keep my chargeability up.

I met this woman at an alumni party and she told me about her travels to India and Nepal. She was the one that planted the seed of traveling India/Nepal in my head. When she told me about her experiences, my mind tied the FlexLeave program to traveling India/Nepal. I thought to myself, "This just may be possible." However, at that point I wasn't 100% sure if I should do it now or later and whether I would get approved for it.

Finally, while reorganizing my travel pictures I came upon my one of my favourite from the RTW 2007 trip. It was the one of me overlooking Machu Picchu in the final days of my trip. Everything came back to me; I caught the travel flu (wanderlust) and became insomniac. I couldn't sleep; I checked flights, Wikitravel and researched constantly.

I talked to my manager/career counselor about my next project, business needs and determined that I qualified for the FlexLeave program and it made sense for me to take a bit of time off to travel while new projects were getting to start-up. Thankfully, my CC/HR and upper-management were all very supportive and soon enough I had the go-ahead and tickets! I even managed to perform a miracle before departure my getting an Indian travel visa within 1 day by drop-off, which is not allowed for people of non-Indian origins. I pleaded with the official that it was an emergency and I didn't have a ticket within 72 hours to show (a requirement for emergency visas which also only lasts 1 month) since I was going on standby. I wanted to get it immediately since I didn't want to spend my time/money in Canada but rather in the beautiful country of India. Six hours later, to the amazement of the other people of Indian origins standing in-line to get their pick-up, I had a 6 month tourist visa! Wei: 1, Indian Bureaucracy: 0.

I would have some mixed luck in the first few days of my trip. The night before my morning flight to New York, American Airlines called to say my flight had been cancelled due to weather. After a tense 2 hours, I was able to adjust my flight t NYC and the connection to Dubai to a later time. There were 2 advantages to this change; first of all, I wouldn't need to transfer between LaGuardia to JFK since I would now fly directly into JFK. Secondly, I would fly the Airbus A380 from New York to Dubai instead of the 777 earlier. Unfortunately, I had more bad luck and my AA flight was late so I missed my connection to Dubai. This was the first time I'd ever missed a flight and I was pissed since I was delayed by at least one day and did not think I would be on the A380 anymore! However, all was not lost; I had flight interruption insurance so I had $1000 available to spend on hotel, meals and sundry expenses. My flight the next evening was also on the A380 and I used this chance to alter my flight schedule slightly so that I would stay longer in Dubai.

The A380 was a gigantic plane. There are sleeping rooms with full beds and showers on the upper-deck and a bar! The food of Emirates Airlines was amazing as always and the ICE entertainment system is even better than what I had the last time I flew with them.

And so, here we go! It's good to be on the road again.