Ted and I leave tomorrow for 18 days in India. I’ve never been there. I’m thrilled.

Tonight I’m finishing up packing little Ziploc bags with travel-sized toiletries to carry on the plane. Bleepin’ TSA! Bleepin’ would-be terrorists!

We’re flying to New Delhi by way of Los Angeles and Kuala Lampur. With two layovers in both cities totaling 16 hours, our flying time on arrival at Indira Ghandi International will be something like 39 hours. Oh. Ted just muttered from his place beside me on the living room couch: “Could be even longer.”

What’s the old adage? That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger? All I know is we leave Salt Lake City on Thursday afternoon and arrive in New Delhi late Saturday night.

Good thing we’re going as leaders for 22 University of Utah students as part of the school’s International Travel Center. I’m counting on seeing the country in large part through their youthful perspectives. We’ll add three more students to our ranks once we get there. They are working as university interns in India this semester.

Here is a brief itinerary: Delhi, four days. Then to Agra (home of the Taj Mahal), two days. Then to Kotwara, 200 miles southeast of New Delhi, five days. We’ll visit a nature preserve on that leg of the trip. Then Varanasi, holy city of the Ganges, three days. Then back to New Delhi for two days.

Yes, the typical tourist stuff awaits us. The Taj, the Red Fort, a camel ride. But more. In Kotwara, the students will work with a village of young children who attend a school earlier groups of U. of U. students built over several years time. We’ll spend a day touring a slum and with the help of Winnie Singh, a longtime friend of Ted’s who is well-connected with various social and political reform movements in India, we may take a trip into New Delhi’s sex trade district. Winnie has also been active in recent years with HIV-AIDS education and prevention in the country; I’m anxious to pick her brain and perhaps accompany her in some of her work if time permits.

I’m hoping to visit a New Delhi newsroom and chat with journalists. Indians love their newspapers. There are dozens of them in New Delhi alone. I’m very excited about it.

But again, much of this personal agenda in flux. I’m going with the flow, people, believe me, and my first job will be to assist with the students.

We have met with the students three times in the past few months. Much of the pre-trip discussion has focused on handling the predictable culture shock when a group of middle and upper-middle class college kids (several blonds in the bunch!) meet crushing poverty; an exploding population; strange food; that first visit to an Indian commode; streetwise survivors of polio, leprosy and serious birth defects; and plenty of dirt.

And yet, we are all expecting a grand adventure and to return home as changed beings. How could we not be?

I am leaving my laptop at home, but will try to file some posts from the bigger cities. Photos, too.

Namaste! Back March 26!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 8:38 pm and is filed under All, Culture, Pretty Things, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Ted and I leave tomorrow for 18 days in India. I’ve never been there. I’m thrilled.

Tonight I’m finishing up packing little Ziploc bags with travel-sized toiletries to carry on the plane. Bleepin’ TSA! Bleepin’ would-be terrorists!

We’re flying to New Delhi by way of Los Angeles and Kuala Lampur. With two layovers in both cities totaling 16 hours, our flying time on arrival at Indira Ghandi International will be something like 39 hours. Oh. Ted just muttered from his place beside me on the living room couch: “Could be even longer.”

What’s the old adage? That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger? All I know is we leave Salt Lake City on Thursday afternoon and arrive in New Delhi late Saturday night.

Good thing we’re going as leaders for 22 University of Utah students as part of the school’s International Travel Center. I’m counting on seeing the country in large part through their youthful perspectives. We’ll add three more students to our ranks once we get there. They are working as university interns in India this semester.

Here is a brief itinerary: Delhi, four days. Then to Agra (home of the Taj Mahal), two days. Then to Kotwara, 200 miles southeast of New Delhi, five days. We’ll visit a nature preserve on that leg of the trip. Then Varanasi, holy city of the Ganges, three days. Then back to New Delhi for two days.

Yes, the typical tourist stuff awaits us. The Taj, the Red Fort, a camel ride. But more. In Kotwara, the students will work with a village of young children who attend a school earlier groups of U. of U. students built over several years time. We’ll spend a day touring a slum and with the help of Winnie Singh, a longtime friend of Ted’s who is well-connected with various social and political reform movements in India, we may take a trip into New Delhi’s sex trade district. Winnie has also been active in recent years with HIV-AIDS education and prevention in the country; I’m anxious to pick her brain and perhaps accompany her in some of her work if time permits.

I’m hoping to visit a New Delhi newsroom and chat with journalists. Indians love their newspapers. There are dozens of them in New Delhi alone. I’m very excited about it.

But again, much of this personal agenda in flux. I’m going with the flow, people, believe me, and my first job will be to assist with the students.

We have met with the students three times in the past few months. Much of the pre-trip discussion has focused on handling the predictable culture shock when a group of middle and upper-middle class college kids (several blonds in the bunch!) meet crushing poverty; an exploding population; strange food; that first visit to an Indian commode; streetwise survivors of polio, leprosy and serious birth defects; and plenty of dirt.

And yet, we are all expecting a grand adventure and to return home as changed beings. How could we not be?

I am leaving my laptop at home, but will try to file some posts from the bigger cities. Photos, too.

Namaste! Back March 26!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 8:38 pm and is filed under All, Culture, Pretty Things, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.