A reader asked about how I plan trips. It's an interesting problem, and while I have generally gotten better at it over time, this one in particular proved to be a bear. Part of the problem is that I got a little over confident. I have worked out a basic plan of attack over the years, which starts with broad research about a country, and eventually narrows to what we want to see, and how to go about seeing it, but I am getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning.
We started the process in the usual way: I hit up Kayak.com and found a place we could fly to that wouldn't break the bank. I was looking for a "beach holiday," so I checked the usual suspects: Seychelles, too expensive, Thailand, possible, Maldives, too expensive, but, 'lo, what was this!? Mumbai!? I hadn't really thought of India!?
But there it was, shoulder season, so flights were cheap(er)! Mumbai was in my sights, and I worked up a pitch to Jeff for India: Old Bombay! Agra, for the Taj Mahal! Then, on to Goa, for the beach holiday we promised the children! I took books out of the school library, read up on all of the temples we could visit and sent out feelers for a "quiet, private house on the ocean." In India. Ha! Sometimes I can be so silly. But, it was easy enough to make a good argument for India, Jeff checked out the airline prices, noted that New Delhi would give us more options, and booked flights.
Image by David Castor
Committed, I began refining the itinerary. I was pretty far down this All the Way, India! path, and had an itinerary lined up, when Jeff suggested that I check into Nepal. It's a short flight, and not an expensive one (assuming you actually book it in advance, instead of waiting until the last second, whereupon, it is no longer quite so cheap - mistakes were definitely made here). The library had no books on Nepal, so I bought a few PDF chapters from Lonely Planet (I cannot recommend this highly enough - I generally don't require an entire country, so you can purchase and download just the chapters you require, and, bonus! You can put them on an ipad to cart around, or carry hard copy of just the pages you need ... with your penciled in notes!).
Reading about Nepal made my head spin: Treks! Fly to see Everest! Only 17 days to hike to Everest Base Camp! I wanted to do some rafting and a safari in the south. I worked up an itinerary that meet my needs pretty well, but when I asked the rest of the gang what they thought about it, I didn't get a lot of love. Jeff really wanted to do a several day trek, going from tea-house to tea-house, viewing spectacular scenery. The children wanted a beach holiday. This is of course not possible in land locked Nepal, but, you know, I did at least consult with them.
In the end it just wasn't possible to jam in everything: it never is, and if you try, everyone is going to end up tired and crabby. If I have learned anything in our years of travel, it's that slow works better.
So, I started over again. Jeff found a few treks that he thought might work, and we negotiated something that was long enough to feel as though we were really Trekking, but not so long that we were going to end up having to hire a porter to carry the children out.
The itinerary takes us pretty directly to Kathmandu, where we will spend a day or so wandering through temples, exploring the city, and if the weather is nice and anyone is up for it, maybe a flight to view Everest from the window of a plane. Then we'll head to Pokhara where we'll do a five day trek in the Poon Hill area:
This 5 day trek will provide an excellent view at Poon Hill on the nearby Annapurnas and Dhaulagiri mountain range and it takes you through misty Rhododendron forests, thickly covered in moss. This trek is relatively easy because it takes you only up to 3210m at it highest point on Poon Hill and there are many well equipped guest houses along the trail, offering anything from candy bars up to apple pie.
I saw candy bars and apple pie and figured it was right up our alley. We will have a guide, who will help carry the sleeping bags. I am not exactly clear why we need sleeping bags when there are "well equipped guest houses" along the way, but in this case, mine is not to question why, mine is to be happy when I am warm at night instead of shivering without a sleeping bag.
From there, it's back to Kathmandu for a day or two of sight seeing, then we'll fly back to Delhi and take the train to Agra, where we will revel in the glory that is the Taj Mahal. I will not lie: I booked a nice hotel in Agra.
The average costs of our hotels on this trip is 20-30€ a night, mostly including breakfast and internet. Plus, we're apparently bringing our own sleeping bags. I have been forwarned that India can be a tough country to travel in: it is crowded in a way that we may not have experienced before, it is an incredibly poor country, and apparently the pressure on tourists can be quite high. We certainly have some experience in these areas, but given that we're going to spend a week and a half in budget accommodations, I'm okay staying somewhere a bit nicer for our last few days: we'll have a pool.
Not exactly a beach holiday, but at least the children will be able to swim a bit.
Next: Good question. I am hoping to do a few simple photo blogs from Nepal and India. I brought my i-Pad and ostensibly am set up to do exactly that, so if a photo of the Taj Mahal shows up next, well, you know I was successful. If this space remains blank for the next week, color me failed.
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