4 more days to go

It is somehow weird. We stopped talking much about the trip even though we are leaving in only four days. Everything is planned, every necessary thing is bought, ever topic is discussed....
Today we are just taking care of some things that should be organised before our course starts. Tomorrow we have wind surfing classes and after that finish packing. Wednesday we are busy with moving. So yeah, what is there to say....I think my curve of excitement is on a very normal line right now but as far as I know it will go up Wednesday...higher than ever and I might not even be able to sleep that night. 

Latest Incredible India Commercial

This is the latest Incredible India Commercial. Incredible India is the brand of the Ministry of Tourism of India. 

Preparations in India and thoughts

The time is getting closer. Everyday, Surya is talking to his parents. They seem to make a lot of preparations. Surya said that they gave their flat a whitewash. They colored the room where I`m supposed to stay in pink ( because I`m a girl ;-) )  and bought new furniture for my visit. They installed a European toilet and repaired the air conditioning in their house.  They informed a few family members and neighbors of our visit and some people would like to meet us. When they booked something, they made sure the hotel or transport has good quality.  His mum keeps asking for food that I like. All this effort that his parents take makes me feel very welcome, but on the other site also a bit nervous. I`m worried that they could expect too much of me. I`m just an ordinary European girl. The culture I grew up is very different from this one. I`m worried that my behavior is not appropriate in some situations and that they could be dissapointed.

You should know that I can call me very lucky that I`m officially invited by Indian parents. Surya told me a lot about his culture and how Indian people think about relationships, love, marriage etc. 

When we first considered to go to India, we didn`t even think that there is any chance staying at his parents house. First of all, we didn`t even think of going this year already. If we spoke about a trip to India, we spoke about something in a few years. Even Surya was surprised when his parents showed a positive reaction after he told his parents that he is in a serious relationship with a German girl.  He told me in advance that his parents are open to people from other countries and cultures, but he was not really sure how his parents would react on this message. Apparently, Surya could deliver a good picture of me when he was home in April, so that they even decided that they would like to meet me. Surya said, Indian parents are always worried about their children: they want them to be happy and avoid anything that could hurt them. Apart from some cultural reticence which definitely still exists in some parts of India, this is a big reason why Indian parents are careful with us European people who sometimes seem to have lost the sense of importance for love, family cohesion and so on. Surya is in the age of marriage and his parents would like him to get married soon, but it will be his responsibility to communicate some cultural differences between me and his parents.

There is not much that I can do about these things. I thinkI will try my best and rely on the naturalness of my personality...

Time is getting closer

The time is getting closer. We made a list of things we still have to organise, but time is tight now:


15-17. : Surya: working, me: research
18-19. Surya: working, me: with friend at Bournemouth Air Festival
20.-21. with Surya and friends at Bournemouth Air Festival
22.-23. Surya: working, me: research, preparations, packing
24. both: Windsurfing class
25.-29. Surya: working on his projects at home, me: Volunteering at Volleyball Competition in Boscombe
30. 2nd Windsurfing class, shoppinh, packing, getting organised
31. Moving to other house, basic settlement, last-minute preparations, finalise packing

Visa arrived!

Finally, my visa arrived. I`m so happy. It is valid from the 21.7.2011 (from the day I handed in the application) till the 20.1.2012 and it allows me multiple entries. Now I can officially enter India whenever I want within the next 6 month.

27 days to go!!!

28 days to go!!!

30 days to go!

Just created the first draft of our travel plan:

01/09/11	02/09/11	03/09/11	04/09/11	05/09/11	06/09/11
7.15 Departure from Bournemouth 10.20 arrival in London Victoria 11.00 departure to London Heathrow 11.40 arrival at the airport 15.00 FLIGHT	8.00 arrival in New Delhi saying hello settling	Fun in New Delhi	Fun in New Delhi	Visiting schools in Delhi and see how they celebrate the Teacher`s Day 12.00 departure for Haridwar	Discovering Haridwar moving into an ashram

07/09/11	08/09/11	09/09/11	10/09/11	11/09/11	12/09/11
Haridwar evening: departure for Rishikesh moving into another ashram	Discovering Rishikesh	Afternoon: departure to Delhi	Trip to Jaipur & Neemrana	Jaipur & Neemrana	4.00 departure to Agra: Taj Mahal at day and night

13/09/11	14/09/11	15/09/11	16/09/11	17/09/11	18/09/11
Morning: departure to Mathura & Vrindavan	Mathura & Vrindavan afternoon:departure to Delhi	17.15 Flight to Goa	Exploring Goa and its beach	Exploring Goa and its beach	06.55 Flight to Mumbai with taxi to Nashik: exploring Nashik

19/09/11	20/09/11	21/09/11	22/09/11	23/09/11	24/09/11
Exploring Nashik 16.40 Train to Delhi	Fun in Delhi	8.50 flight to Jammu walking up to Vaishno Devi	Exploring Jammu 15.00 flight to Delhi	Last day in Delhi	Departure

Terrible News about Malarone

A few days ago, I was writing about my visit to the pharmacy where the lady at the counter told me that I need to get Malarone tablets and take them 3 days before the trip, on the trip and seven days after the trip. I just chatted with a good friend, who pointed me towards some websites where people report about their experience with Malarone. People who took Malarone for a few days complain about depressions, anxiety, itch, diarrhea and even hair loss. My friend told me that it is better to just take these tablets with you and in case you get a fever or signs of a cold, you take them for good measure.Actually, I remember that this is exactly what someone from a pharmacy in Germany suggested me as well. I decided I`m going to a doctor in Bournemouth this week and ask him about his/her suggestions, but I will not take Malarone daily. I will keep you updated about what my doctor sais about that. 


Here some about experiences with Malarone:


http://www.meamedika.de/malaria/malarone.aspx (German)
http://www.webmd.com/drugs/drugreview-19799-Malarone+Oral.aspx?drugid=19799&drugname=Malarone+Oral (English)

31 days to go!

32 Days to go!!!

Indian Food

I`m from this sort of people who don`t understand hot spices. I don`t understand how they can improve a taste. For me, adding chilli to food is like adding razorblades: it only hurts and I cannot enjoy the beautiful taste of, for example, a potatoes anymore.

Nevertheless,I seem to be highly gifted with good cooking skills. In the beginning, Surya would only eat Indian food and refuse all European food. Unfortunately, he is a very bad cook. Whenever he cooks he makes it either too watery or soo spicy that not even he can eat it. So I started to learn how to cook some Indian recipes. The way how I learned it was either by taste or from his explanation (and my realization).

Now I can cook:

• Bhindi 
• Aloo ki tikki 

• Rice Pawa
• Daal

• Besan ka cheela

Of couse, I don`t use such a sick amount of spices as it is suggested by Indians, but I don`t make it blend. Some of our Indian friends have already tried my self-made Indian food and, at least that is what they said, they liked it ( hope they were not just nice).  My tongue got less sensitive in the past month. I hope all this Indian food that we have been eating before prevents me from having a food shock in the first days. 

Don`t forget! I keep updating the destinations section!

Learning Hindi...

I thought it might be a bit funny to impress Surya`s family members with some Hindi words. So he thought me some words. When we practiced them 3 weeks ago, he recorded me secretly. I did not find that funny at all when he uploaded that video on youtube and shared it on facebook. Whatever: I don`t want to be a killjoy, so I left it on youtube and I thought it would be fair to publish it on my blog as well.

Malarone

Malarone are the tablets that are highly recommended to take in order to prevent a Malaria infection. I went to the pharmacy (in ASDA in Bournemouth) yesterday and found out that you need to have a prescription from a doctor to buy these tablets. The price for one pill is 2,50 pounds and you are supposed to start 2 days before the trip,on the trip and seven days after. Every day you have to take one tablet. That means another 82.50 pounds that I have to add to the costs. Surya is saying that these tablets are available in India as well even without prescriptions. He will confirm that in the next days. If that is true, I would only get 3-5 tablets for the beginning.

33 Days to Go!!

Wow!! We will arrive at eight largest terminal in the world: T3 IGI Airport Delhi!

Our Airline

Blogging

I`m sitting in our Uni library now...thinking about how to keep this blog interesting. I`m new to this form of Internet presence. Previously, I just used facebook and other social networks to keep updated and keep in touch with my friends in other countries. I just switched through a couple of blogs and noticed that most people are not doing anything else that I do: they just write what their heart is telling them. Some people are writing about a profession and publish self-made tutorials for using a software. That is quite interesting, but I`m studying tourism. We do use computer softwares as well, but we are unlikely getting specialists in that. So I will also just start to write what I think...I know that it is not interesting for everyone. Of course not! Look at all the women novels.What do they do? Here the authors just babble whatever comes to their mind, but some people seem to like that. 

Well, somehow this blog will be different, because it will report about a very interesting country, a strange culture and cultural differences spiced with a little touch of a love story. I will meet  local people and go to places that might be unusual for classic tourist and that are not advertised in travel guides. Whoever decides to follow this blog will join me in my experience to discover India, but also in all the challenges that I will face in these 24 days.

The Joy of Planning

It is getting really exciting. The trip has become our main topic and accounts for about 80% of our conversation topics. A few days ago we finally decided the places we want to go to. Since we anyways wanted to go to Mumbai, I thought it makes sense to go to Goa as well as it seems very "close" for Indian conditions. Actually,I almost insisted of going to Goa because I always wanted to be at a beach where the water is warm. Whenever I was on a holiday, going to the beach meant melting in the hot sun and go into the cold water to cool down your body until my lips turned blue and my mum asked me to come out. Strange that sometimes I came out from the water and was freezing, but still caught a sunburn somehow.  And I`m talking about Spain, Italy, Turkey....Now I`m living in a beach town in England, we have July and the water is still so freezing that we sometimes are at the beach all day and return home completely dry. What a shame. Whatever....back to the plan. How it always turns out when a man and a woman plan: he wanted to see something completely different: He wants to go to Jammu in the state Jammu&Kashmir to show me the Vaishno Devi Temple.  So we ended putting both places on our  which have a distance of 2513km (GoogleMaps). So will be in the very north of the country, but also in almost in  South India. I was actually about to tell him that we could actually even go more southern: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Trivadrum.....but that would be too crazy: We have to do that next time. One more thing that was important for me to see was the Taj Mahal in Agra. Even though a lot of people don`t really like Agra, I think it is a sin for a tourist not to visit the Taj Mahal when you are so close to it. All the other destinations on our plan were suggested by Surya. I mean he grew up in this country and knows where it is worth to go. We are going to a lot of Hindu worship places e.g. Vrindavan- the birth town of the blue god Krishna. It was also important to me to me to stay for 2 or 3 days in an Ashram which is a Hindu retreat that offers everyone to stay with the Hindu community for free under the condition that you follow the rules of the Ashram e.g. meditation times.  At least after the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" I started to get very interested in that way of travelling. As a tourism management student, I look at Ashrams with a touristic and ethical view. In fact, spiritual tourism, cultural tourism, heritage tourism and dark tourism started to become my favorite topics in my studies. 

In the past days, Surya and his father were busy with booking tickets: airplanes, trains etc. I kind of lost track of what they are actually doing...I just remember that they booked first class (1 AC) tickets for the Rajdhani train from Mumbai to Delhi.  If you look on my "Destinations" page, there is a map that indicates the places that we plan to go and also shows the means of transport we are planning to go. In the next days, I`m going to add more specific descriptions about the destinations, especially because some places might not be that famous for tourists yet, but maybe I can change that ;-)

Health Preparations

If you look at all the health websites, they are all telling you something different. I got confused by all this information, so I used my trip home to  Germany in June as an opportunity to talk to my GP. It seemed that he doesn`t like India at all when he asked me: "Why do you want to risk your life at such a dirty place?". Nevertheless, he gave me a chance to talk to him. I had to give him the exact cities where I`m planning to go.According to that he would find out how to prepare for that. The thing was:I didn`t know where we will be going at that time, so I just told him that we are staying around Delhi. He sent me a fax with all the recommended vaccinations. The Tropical Medical Bureau is suggesting the same vaccinations as he did: 

Vaccines		Country Specific News
Your Destinations INDIA (country profile) Recommended For All Travellers Tetanus Poliomyelitis Hepatitis A Typhoid Trekking Hepatitis B Rabies Rural Tuberculosis Japanese B Encephalitis Meningococcal Meningitis Diphtheria Malaria Information INDIA:   W.H.O. report malaria transmission throughout the country. Prophylaxis recommended for all Travellers. Please consult your Doctor or Travel Clinic.

(from: http://www.tmb.ie/exodus/country.asp) 


I already got avaccinations against tetanus, poliomelitis, hepatitis A and meningitis. I decided to get a hepatitis A shot as this disease can damage your lever a lot and is transferred via food. It was just a simple shot and after 6 to 12 month I have to get a second one. I also decided to get a vaccinations against typhois. Nowadays you can get that in form of 3 tablets that you have to take at an interval of 2 days. 
I decided not to get a rabies vaccinations. Surya said he has never padded an animal outside and it never happened that they come up to you. He added that if an infected animal bites you, there is a shot that they can give you withing 24 hours and nothing will happen. Let`s hope the monkeys on the streets are in a good mood. 
The last problem is Malaria. Just as most of the pharmacies,  TMB suggests to take Malarone tablets before and throughout the trip. They should prevent you from getting Malaria, but just as any other vaccinations  there is no 100% protection. I decided that I will buy a small package over here, but the rest of them I get in India where they are supposed to be much cheaper. 


For your health preparation you should be prepared to pay about 150-200 pounds depending on your vaccination status. I would NOT recommend anyone to save money at that point because the money that you loose when you get sick over there will be much more than this. So be responsible and prepare yourself as best as possible, so that nothing will stop you from a great journey. 

All the stress with tickets, passport and visa....

Tickets

We booked the tickets online on the 15.7.2011. It was a bit weird because we talked about its for weeks and just never made a final decision. That day everything was so fast. We were sitting on the couch and...just booked it. It was done in 5 minutes. There they were: tickets for 2 return flight with Qatar Airlines departing on the 1.9.2011.

Passport

Now all the stress started.At the 14.6.2011 I just got back from a trip to my family in Germany and I thought I won`t see them anymore before December, but then I tried to fill out the visa application. There was something wrong...something very important....I had to fill in the expiry date of my passport which has to be at least 6 month ahead of journey date. Unfortunately, my passport would expire in January 2012. This was not good. I immediately started to research how to get a new German passport in the UK. I tried to make an appointment with the German embassy in England, but they would not give me an appointment before the end of August...at least this is where I stopped looking for an available appointment. I thought this is it....we won`t go anymore...my fault: I should have checked my passport before I booked the tickets. Then I got the idea to call my home town and ask them what to do. The only opportunity I had was to go home to Germany again and apply for a new passport. So did I. I went back at the 12.7.-20.7.. My family was happy to see me one more time again and I was happy as well. I applied for the new passport and through the payment of an additional fee I received my new passport after 3 days.

Visa

The plan was, to meet Surya in London on the day when I fly back from Germany to England. In London we would meet and go together go to the Indian embassy. 3 days before I was supposed to fly back we found out that Non UK people have to fill out another form and have to proof that they have an official adress in the UK. Unfortunately, I don`t have an official adress in the UK right now. I`m living together in my boyfriends flat over the summer. So the problem was that it would not make sense to apply for a visa in the UK. So I decided to apply at the Indian embassy in Berlin.I had exactly one day to sort everything out. Good that I went to the photographer the week before to get the pictures already that the embassy requires for a visa application. I found it quite  confusing to fill out the application form and I was very nervous that I would do something wrong.I was very happy when I found a the number of a visa application helpline. I talked to a very nice lady. I actually had to call her four times to make sure everything is correct...as I said: I had only one day. Whatever I would have done wrong, I would have had to fix it from England to Germany and in the worst case I would even have had to go to Germany a third time. On the day when I flew home from Berlin to London/Bournemouth my parents dropped my application at the visa application centre.My parents gave them an envelope to send it by post which they promised to do within 3 days. Already 2 days later the visa arrived at my parents house. I`m waiting for them to send it to me as soon as possible.

If you want to apply for an Indian visa as well,but you find my description not instructive,  check out my page: Tips and Help for your trip. There I wrote a fool-proof description about the whole visa application process.

How it all started...

The first of September. That is going to be THE day...the day when my boyfriend and me are going on our trip to India.

First of all: This is us:

Here the story(in a very short form):

In September 2010 I came to Bournemouth University for an exchange year. I knew it is going to be an exciting and interesting year. Already in the beginning of the year I fell in love with an Indian boy called Surya and this is where the biggest adventure of my life started. For almost a year now we are having a happy relationship and now he decided to show me his country. Due to cultural differences a lot of things had to be sorted out before....talking to parents and family members etc.....especially because I would not come as a normal tourist. I would come as a friend, actually as a girlfriend...